Slideshow: Wellcome Collection

Pair of wax hands, c1950

Tattoos. Wellcome acquired 300 tattoos collected by a Paris surgeon who was active in the late 19th century. They are kept in boxes for fear that they were treated with toxic chemicals

Amputation saws

John Dee’s crystal. The Elizabethan mathematician and astrologer John Dee is said to have used this crystal, which he claimed was given to him by the angel Uriel, to foretell the future and cure disease. In 2004 it was stolen from a showcase in the Science Museum; it has been kept in store since being recovered

Glass perfume bottles

Van Gogh etching of French physician Paul-Ferdinand Gachet, 1890

Oil painting, c1890. A flowerpot falls on a man’s head in Rome; the victim dedicates this ex voto painting of the accident to the Madonna above him to give thanks for his recovery

Case of glass eyes, c1890

Tabloid medicine products by Burroughs Wellcome & Co

Double-focus X-ray tube, 1896

Chinese dentist’s signboard hung with human teeth

Enema syringes in brass, ivory, ebony and pewter

Pair of Chinese shoes for bound feet, 1870-1910

Sir Hiram Maxim’s 'Pipe of Peace and Maxim Inhaler'

Medicine chest. 'Tabloid' medicine chest taken on the 1933 Mount Everest expedition. Wellcome’s medicine chests accompanied explorers and pioneer aviators around the world, promoting the Tabloid brand as they went

Nelson’s razor and Napoleon’s toothbrush. The collection also boasts a whalebone walking stick owned by Charles Darwin, Florence Nightingale’s whistle, and a lock of hair said to be from King George III’s head

Obstetric phantom. This 18th-century Italian model for teaching obstetrics is known as a 'phantom' and is made from wood and leather, like a piece of furniture. The 'baby' inside is a cloth doll

Chinese porcelain fruit containing couple in sexual foreplay

Turtle-shaped Sioux amulets, US, 1880-1920

Tobacco resuscitator. An 18th-century device to revive victims of drowning by blowing tobacco smoke into their rectums. These kits were positioned along the River Thames, as lifebelts are today