"No child ever imagines the unimaginable- that he will end up as a skeleton." "Harry." "At the age of five, a boy fractures his left leg while playing with his sister." "Extraskeletal bone formation begins at the site of the fracture... and then continues- for the rest of his life." "The Mutter Museum holds one of the most unusual medical specimens in the world, a Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva skeleton... belonging to Harry Raymond Eastlack." "In the end, you could only move your lips." "In the end, you could only move your lips." "In the end, you would only move your lips." "Harry's sister, Helen, regularly came to the museum to visit him." "This extremely rare and incurable disease .." "turns the soft connective tissue, including muscle, to bone." "Bone develops across the joints of the body, restricting movement and eventually developing a second skeleton, immobilizing the body in bone." "There is no known cure or treatment for this disease." "This 19th century instrument is known as a scarificator... and was used for bloodletting." "It is a spring-loaded mechanism that, when cocked, retracts a series of circular blades." "When triggered, the blades snap through slits in the cover, delivering multiple sharp, shallow cuts with extreme swiftness." "This enabled a doctor to bleed his patient for curing purposes." "A lithotrite was an instrument used in the removal of bladder stones." "It would enter the bladder through the penis or an incision in the perineum... and crush the stone." "The stone pieces could be removed with the instrument... or left to be passedd in the urine." "This procedure had to be done rapidly and with the utmost precision- no more than a few minutes, as there was no anesthesia at the time, and the patient would die of shock." "In China, they used to bind the feet of young girls... by taking the foot and wrapping the toes around the big toe so tightly that they would break." "The shoes were made of the finest silk materials and hand-stitched." "Here is an actual preserved bound foot of a Chinese woman." "No child ever imagines a tumor will become his own pillow." "Chenalier, male, age 28, a basket maker." "He dies six days later after surgery." "This is actually three instruments in one, and was designed to perform a craniotomy where one had to forcibly remove a baby stuck in the mother's birth canal." "This end is called the perforator, and punctures the child's head." "The crochet extracts the brain material, and, if need be, dislocates the child's shoulder." "The forceps crushes the child's head, and removes the baby from the uterus,." "thus saving the mother's life." "This is a placental curate, and was designed to gather up the placenta and extract it." "Otherwise, there would be risk of infection and death of the mother." "There is often the opportunity for the bride and groom... to stamp their own mark on their wedding vows in a way personal to themselves." "This couple has chosen to exchange their vows... in a ceremony that took place recently in the Mutter museum, far away from conventional expectations." "Taking leave of this wedding celebration, a portrait of the founder of the museum itself, Thomas Dent Mutter, could be glimpsed, and, as the camera continues to glide past these glass cases... which contain so much collective misfortune," "we can probably imagine that their ears would still be capable of distinguishing the words... of these most solemn of oaths-- "to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer," "in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death do us part."" "In 1874, members of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia... performed the autopsy of Chang and Eng, the world-famous Siamese twins, and the Mutter museum was allowed to retain their connected livers... along with a plaster cast of their torsos showing the band of skin and cartilage that connected them." "Here can be seen the fine hairs still embedded in the plaster cast." "The bodies themselves were returned for burial to North Carolina, where the pair had lived with their wives and 21 children." "They died on the same day, age 63." "Chang, ill with bronchitis, passed away in his sleep." "Eng awoke to find his brother dead, and their doctor was immediately summoned... in the hope of performing an emergency separation." "But Eng lapsed into a coma and died before the doctor could arrive."