Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934)

My sister Laura got me a great birthday gift this year--a book called Super Vision: A New View of Nature.

One of the best things about the book is that its inclusion of one of Spanish anatomist Santiago Ramón y Cajal's delicate and elegant drawings of the cells of the retina. His drawings look more like surrealistic seascapes or minimalist compositions than medical illustration. Find out more about him here and see more images of his work here.

Happy New Year!

All images via the New York Public Library Digital Gallery. What's up with the mushroom motif? Forgotten New Years metaphors? Ideas, anyone?

Happy Halloween!!

Mirror World

What a wonderful website is "Mirror World: Photographs of Unknown Origin." Filled with enigmatic unlabeled photos and an evocative soundtrack, one could easily get lost in there. Here is a selection of a few of my favorite images, but check them out in context; they are much more moving in their origial habitat (I am especially exctited by the shot from what looks like the Visible Man factory.) Thanks to Herbert Pfostl, of the similarly evocative and mysterious Blind Pony Books and Paper Graveyard websites, for sending this link along.

Memento Mori

Stumbled upon Dan Meinwald's great (and very nicely illustrated) online essay about memorial photography and 19th Century notions of death called Memento Mori: Death and Photography in Nineteenth Century America. I highly recommend giving it a read!You can check it out here.

Astley Paston Cooper (1768-1841)

Some images from the books of Astley Paston Cooper, taken from that wonderful Christie's auction site, Anatomy as Art: The Dean Edell Collection.You can download a complete PDF of his 1840 book On the Anatomy of the Breast here.

Memento Mori on the BBC

A nice slideshow on the BBC website called Facing up to Death, featuring Memento Mori and other ways in which we have historically confronted (or avoided) death.

More highlights from Christie's "Anatomy as Art" Auction

Yet more things you can bid on at Christie's this October 5th. See following post for more information. Thanks again to Jeremy Norman for sending this my way.

"Anatomy as Art" Auction at Christie's, October 5th

I received an email from a fellow named Jeremy Norman about this amazing looking auction to be held at Christie's in New York City. The auction is called Anatomy as Art: The Dean Edell Medical Collection, and Mr. Norman has written the annotations for the catalog. At the auction, to be held on October 5th, you can bid on works on paper by D'Agoty, Ruysch, and Fritz Kahn; you can even buy your own anatomical waxes (seemingly a more affordable option if you look at the predicted prices.)

Mr. Norman is also the man behind the site called History of Science where one can find out news related to all things history of science, purchase rare books and luxury reprints of rare books from the history of medicine, and peruse his encylopedic collection of links.

All images here are lots for sale in this auction and taken from the Christie's website. You can order a copy of the illustrated catalogue here.

Cabaret du Néant (Tavern of the Dead) c.1890

Came across a reference to the fascinating (and kind of unbelievable) Cabaret du Néant in the book Wonder Shows: Performing Science, Magic, And Religion In America.The quote reads:

In the 1890s, the Cabaret du Néant (of Tavern of the Dead) first opened its production in Paris and later in New York City. After entering the Cabaret, spectators followed a "monk" down a blackened hall to a café with candles on coffin-shaped tables where they could order refreshments from waiters in funeral garb. A lectured called their attention to paintings of figures that dissolved into paintings of skeletons. While bells tolled and a funeral march played, the monk led the audience to a second chamber; here, a volunteer was asked to step up on a stage and enter a standing casket. After the volunteer was wrapped in a white shroud the spectators gasped at an apparent "X-ray" effect--actually a simpler optical effect--as the man dissolved into a skeleton and then once again returned to plain sight as the skeleton disappeared. In the last chamber, using a similar optical effect, a live spirit appeared to walk around an audience volunteer who mounted the stage to sit at a table.

Early goth amusement? Death themed bar? Were the 1890s the coolest time to be alive? More here and here, but little real information I could find in English. Does anyone have any more information on this? If so, please share!

Skeleton Orchestra

Another great image from Corbis images.

19th-Century Persian Anatomical Study

From Corbis Images.

Anatomical Image Browsing and More on a Promising New Site

Check out Ingenious.com, a project by NMSI, an organization of British science and technology museums. They've got some interesting things up their sleeve. They describe themselves as a "site [that] brings together images and viewpoints to create insights into science and culture." The site has an area for image searching, reading, debating, as well as a place to create your own image galleries.

From a recent posting on Metafilter.