The Wellcome Collection

by the Wellcome Trust 183 Euston Road, London http://www.wellcomecollection.org

A unique cultural venue opened in London this month. The Wellcome Collection is the first permanent home for the massive, maverick history-of-medicine collection that pharmaceutical entrepreneur Sir Henry Wellcome (1853–1936) gathered throughout his life. Thirty million pounds (US$60 million) and decades in the making, the free venue has three galleries, one of the world's most important history-of-medicine libraries, an original programme of live events, a members' club, a bookshop, a café, a conference centre and Pablo Picasso's Bernal mural.

Wellcome's fortune also created the Wellcome Trust, Britain's main bioscience research funding agency. The trust has now remodelled the compact 1930s building it recently vacated to realize Sir Henry's vision of a 'Museum of Man' and to extend its public engagement activities.

The scholarly heat rises with each floor. Street level lures in passers-by from the thundering road outside with a chic café and striking large-scale works — including a pendulous Antony Gormley cast. Here temporary exhibitions will explore the interplay between advances in medical science and our view of ourselves. The opening show, The Heart, runs until 14 September 2007; it features Andy Warhol prints, Leonardo da Vinci anatomical drawings and a wall of fixed animal hearts.

Credit: WELLCOME LIBRARY, LONDON

The next floor boasts two permanent galleries charting the evolution of our cultural response to health, sickness and discovery. Medicine Man displays some of Sir Henry's extraordinary anthropological and ethnographic haul, such as these Chinese porcelain fruits containing couples engaged in sexual foreplay (pictured). Medicine Man has been seen in public just once before, at the British Museum in 2003 (Nature 423, 805; doi:10.1038/423805b 2003). Looking like a cross between the Horniman Museum and a Hollywood humidor, its handsome walnut cases, drawers and hidden cabinets reveal a telling fraction of the objects Sir Henry amassed. There are amputation saws, birthing tools, diagnostic dolls, arresting paintings and glassware galore. Medicine Now brings the story of 'what it means to be human' up to date, in a bright white and red journey through malaria, obesity, genomics and more.

Throughout the building, subtle curation and sumptuous display invite visitors to reflect on our knowledge, hopes, fears and beliefs about the body. This dialogue will continue in The Forum, an auditorium for debates, workshops, lectures and performances. Some of these will engage with themes of the temporary exhibitions. For example on 5 July, the audience can watch a live video link to a heart-valve operation, ask questions of the surgeon and examine instruments akin to those being used. Other events, such as the Islam and medicine panel on 19 July, will respond to current affairs.

The second floor brings the trust's vast library into the twenty-first century. Virtual browsing stations and WiFi now complement the graceful galleries long beloved by science-and-society scholars (and TV crews in search of instant gravitas). The top floors house The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London, where much of this thoughtful activity starts.

And what of the members' club? Will it become biology's Algonquin Hotel? Quite possibly: it is inside a thrilling new museum, beside a leading medical school, opposite London's new European rail terminus and encircled by scientific publishers. What better place to raise a glass to humane curiosity, the legacy of Sir Henry Wellcome.