International Museum of Surgical Science, A Division of the International College of Surgeons

This guide to the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago follows the lakefront mansion built in 1917 for Diamond Match heiress Eleanor Robinson Countiss, modeled by architect Howard Van Doren Shaw on Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon. It traces the house through her death and into 1950, when surgeon Max Thorek bought it and filled it with instruments and twelve statues he called the Hall of Immortals. Best paired with a look across the lawn toward Lake Michigan itself.