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New Exhibit, Veranda Unveiled Tonight At Mutter Museum Garden Party

By John Ostapkovich

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Philadelphia's landmark Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians hosts a garden party this evening, to mark some milestones.

The garden in question is the longstanding Benjamin Rush Medicinal Plant Garden which will now be easier to get into. Up to now, visitors would have to leave the building and enter the garden by a round-about route. Now, says spokesman J. Nathan Bazzel, there's a direct connection featuring curving stairways of slate and sandstone with brass capped wrought iron railings.

"The Sir John Templeton Veranda Project has been in the works now for about two years and it's been a long road, with the Historical Commission and having special materials manufactured so as to blend in to the natural fabric of our national landmark structure," Bazzel said.

Guests at this evening's ribbon cutting will also get a look at the Museum's newest permanent exhibit on Civil War medicine and the role that the College of Physicians played in it. The unflinching look offers a perhaps chilling perspective on amputations, savings lives but at a heavy cost.

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