The Most Disturbing Item We Ever Discovered While Doing Research at The Huntington Library

A story about brains, knockout drops, family traditions and a bad night on New York City's Tenderloin

Gentle reader,

Greetings from your friendly historic Los Angeles sightseeing tour company, now offering digital programming until we can again organize groups to gather and explore the city we love.

For our latest post that’s hidden from the rest of the internet, we want to share the story of a shocking artifact that has frequently been on our minds through these long months of quarantine.

It was December 2018, and our curator friend Joel Klein mentioned a medical history collection he’d acquired for the Huntington Library had that recently been made available for scholarly research. He thought Kim might find the… somewhat unusual subject matter interesting.

He wasn’t kidding! When she looked at the finding aid for the papers of Edward Anthony Spitzka, Kim discovered 10 boxes dedicated to three of her favorite subjects: Executions, Autopsies and Crime.