Manchester’s brain leaders featured in MOSI exhibition

The work of the UK’s first female neurosurgeon Carys Bannister will be highlighted alongside specimens, drawings and film footage of brains loaned for the first time by The University of Manchester for Brains: The Mind as Matter exhibition at MOSI (Museum of Science & Industry, Manchester). Many items have never been displayed in public before.

Brains is a Wellcome Collection exhibition at MOSI, which opens on 26 July and explores what humans have done to brains in the name of medical intervention, scientific enquiry, cultural meaning and technological change. The exhibition includes many new items from the University and demonstrates how Manchester has long been at the forefront of neurosurgery. Carys Bannister, OBE (1935-2010), for example, was a world leader in neurosurgery who lived and worked in Manchester and pioneered much of the research for the successful treatment of hydrocephalus - the condition of excess fluid on the brain. The exhibition includes a hydrocephalic skull and lantern slides showing hydrocephalus.

It features the work of leading neurosurgeon Sir Geoffrey Jefferson, who was employed at Salford Royal Hospital and Manchester Royal Infirmary in the 1920s to 1950s. Highlights also include fine drawings from the University’s Museum of Medicine and Health by medical artist Dorothy Davison, who helped found the Medical Artist Association and worked extensively with Jefferson to illustrate brain conditions and the surgical procedures used to treat them.

Brains: The Mind as Matter follows the long quest to manipulate and decipher the most unique and mysterious of human organs, whose secrets continue to confound and inspire. The University items are an important reflection of our changing attitude to the brain over history, and feature amongst more than 100 objects, including real brains, artworks, manuscripts, artefacts, videos and photography.
Brains Curator Marius Kwint said: “The archives and collections of The University of Manchester reveal some of the inspiring individuals who were drawn to treating the brain and nervous system and helped to make the city a centre for neurological science and medicine. There are some fascinating stories here: of Carys Bannister, the Brazilian-born first female neurosurgeon in Britain; of her knighted predecessor, Sir Geoffrey Jefferson, who worked in revolutionary Russia and gave radio talks about the philosopher Descartes; and of the medical artist, Dorothy Davison, who dedicated her equally pioneering career to documenting Jefferson’s surgical work with drawings of raw beauty and precision. And then of course there are the sometimes tragic and touching cases of their patients.”

MOSI Director Jean Franczyk said: “MOSI is proud to be the only museum outside London to host this exhibition from the Wellcome Collection. It covers one of the most important science issues of our time and puts the human brain into beautiful perspective.”

Professor Stuart Allan, from The University of Manchester, said: “We are pleased to be working with MOSI on this important exhibition. These artefacts reveal the ground-breaking work done on the brain here in Manchester and the exhibition provides a fantastic opportunity to share these stories with the wider public. Over the years the University has played a crucial role in training many world-leading scientists and medics and we hope this exhibition will inspire future generations, as well as highlighting to everyone the wonders of the human brain.”

Exhibition items from The University of Manchester are loaned from the Faculty of Life Sciences, the University’s Museum of Medicine and Health and the Manchester Museum. They include a resin cast of one brain hemisphere, historic specimens such as sections of diseased brains, a spinal cord, and brain slices. There are also slides, video footage, drawings and books.

Sir Geoffrey Jefferson was part of a pioneering circle of internationally renowned neurologists, including the US-based Harvey Cushing and the Australian-born Sir Hugh Cairns. In 1924, he was the first surgeon in Britain to perform a successful embolectomy (removal of a blood clot) and in 1931 he reported the first case of glosso-pharyngeal neuralgia (severe pain in the lower head caused by pressure on a nerve) operated upon in Britain. A witty and accomplished writer and scholar, he wrote, lectured and broadcast with the BBC on a wide range of topics. He worked in Russia during the First World War and revolutionary period, was a founding member of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons, and was its president from 1934 to 1936 and 1954 to 1956.

Brains: the Mind as Matter opens on 26 July until 4 January 2014.

Notes for editors

For media enquiries please contact: Sarah Roe, MOSI press and publicity officer on Tel: 0161 606 0176, m: 07847 372647
Notes to editors

MOSI is part of the Science Museum Group, a family of museums which also includes the Science Museum in London and Wroughton, near Swindon; the National Railway Museum in York and Shildon; and the National Media Museum in Bradford. The Science Museum Group is devoted to the history and contemporary practice of science, medicine, technology, industry and media. With five million visitors each year and an unrivalled collection, it is the most significant group of museums of science and innovation worldwide.

Wellcome Collection<http://www.wellcomecollection.org/> is the free visitor destination for the incurably curious. Located at 183 Euston Road, London, Wellcome Collection explores the connections between medicine, life and art in the past, present and future. The building comprises three gallery spaces, a public events programme, the Wellcome Library, a café, a bookshop, conference facilities and a members' club. It is part of the Wellcome Trust<http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/>, a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. Wellcome Collection is growing. A £17.5million development will deliver new galleries and spaces in late Summer 2014. Find out more at www.wellcomecollection.org/curious<http://www.wellcomecollection.org/curious>