Reviews: The Mütter Museum

One day in 1856, physicians in Norfolk, Virginia, hurried to a local brothel. One of the women there had gone into labor, and the birth wasn't going well. She was an achondroplastic dwarf, only 3 feet 6 inches tall. The baby's head was stuck in her deformed pelvis. In a vain attempt to save her life, doctors broke the child's skull, but still couldn't pull it through. Three days later, the mother died of childbed fever.