Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
But eventually, as is the way in Bangkok, there came a sudden change. Neighbouring
Siriraj Hospital had bought up the land, and they have built a new wing and other facilities
whilst retaining the old station building, which has become a museum for the hospital, the
Siriraj Phimuksthan Museum. The station building is a little difficult to find now, being
in the shadow of modern concrete and next to an underpass, but it still faces across the
river and Klong Bangkok Noi, and one must be thankful that it has been spared demoli-
tion. Sentimentalists such as myself regret the disappearance of the railway land, and the
fact that the station no longer looks like a station. But there is an attractive small park on
the riverbank, and an old steam locomotive, a Mikado 2-8-2, bearing the number 950 and
built by Mitsubishi in 1950, has been moved from the sidings and placed here. The engine
had been a non-working one, partially cannibalised to supply parts for the operational
steam locos that are still rolled out on special occasions. As for the replacement terminus,
it remains in appearance a wayside station, and there is not enough space to store much
in the way of railway memorabilia, beyond some decrepit rolling stock that rots away, un-
loved, amongst the weeds on the canal bank.
Siriraj Hospital takes up a large area of land on the riverfront, and except for the small
original building, dating from 1888, is mainly a collection of featureless concrete blocks.
The hospital was founded by Rama
V
as Siam's first modern hospital, and is now one of the
country's largest. As part of Mahidol University it is also an important training institute.
Few realise, however, that inside this sprawling complex, which is rather like entering a
small town, there are at least eight museums, all of them open to the public. Several date
back to the early years of the last century, and have grown out of the hospital's educational
facilities.
The Parasitology Museum predictably shows various kinds of parasites such as whip-
worms and roundworms, with models of their life cycles. The Ellis Pathological Museum
shows the evolution of medicine in Thailand. At the Veekit Veeranuvati Museum is a dis-
play of ancient medical equipment and diagnostic methods, while the Ouy Ketusinh Mu-
seum is devoted to Thai traditional medicine, massage and herbal treatments. I especially
enjoy the Congdon Anatomical Museum, founded in 1922 by Professor Edgar Davidson
Congdon, who was sent to Bangkok by the Rockefeller Foundation to help the Siamese
improve their medical skills. The two rooms haven't changed since the 1920s, and have
the dusty, cluttered look of an old laboratory: the skeletons of various Siriraj luminaries
hang here, presumably donated to medical research rather than to act as a grim warning,
as with the highwaymen of old. There are two unnamed corpses, a man and a woman, pre-
served in ethyl alcohol, and partially dissected to reveal the internal organs. There are Sia-
