Michael Faraday, nineteenth century scientist and electrician, shown delivering the British Royal Institution's Christmas Lecture for Juveniles during the Institution's Christmas break in 1856.
A public lecture (also known as an open lecture) is one means employed for educating the public. Gresham College, in London, has been providing free public lectures since its founding in 1597 through the will of Sir Thomas Gresham. The Royal Society held its first ever meeting at Gresham College in November 1660, after one of Christopher Wren's lectures, and continued to meet there for the next fifty years.[1]
Besides public lectures, public autopsies have been important in promoting knowledge of medicine. The autopsy of Dr. Johann Gaspar Spurzheim, advocate of phrenology, was conducted in public, and his brain, skull, and heart were removed, preserved in jars of alcohol, and put on display to the public. Public autopsies have verged on entertainment: American showman P. T. Barnum held a public autopsy of Joice Heth after her death. Heth was a woman whom Barnum had been featuring as being over 160 years old. Barnum charged 50 cents admission. The autopsy demonstrated that she was between 76 and 80 years old.
