More from The Science Museum of London's "Brought to Life" Website

More (see recent post!) artifacts to be featured on the Science Museum of London's "Brought to Life: Exploring the History of Medicine" website, due to launch in just days! (March 2nd, to be exact).

So, what do we have here? From the item description:

Set of nine wax plaques showing foetal development and dissection views of a female figure, Europe, 1801-1830

This series of nine wax plaques shows both the development of a foetus during pregnancy and anatomical details from the dissection of a young female figure who is pregnant in a number of the images.

Top to bottom: Female figure, deep dissection to show kidneys, uterus, etc.; Female figure, part of skin and wall of uterus removed showing foetus in utero; Foetus in placenta in utero.

For more on the "Brought to Life" project--with pictures!--click here. For more on the Science Museum's astounding history of medicine collection, click here. To count down the days until the website launches, visit the official website here.

All images © The Science Museum

Science Museum, London "Brought To Life" Website

The Science Museum of London is launching an ambitious and amazing sounding website this March entitled Brought to Life: Exploring the History of Medicine. The website will present images of, and details about, 2,500 fantastic objects illustrating centuries of medical history from around the world. Many of these objects have never been on public view; others are on display in the (wonderful) health and medicine galleries of the museum. The project is supported by the Wellcome Trust, and the website will feature access to items from the Wellcome Trust collection held by the Science Museum.

The intriguing images above--sent to me very kindly by Lisa O'Sullivan, Senior Medical Curator of The Science Museum--are just a very few that will be included on the new website. I will feature more in days to come!

Object details, from top to bottom:
1) A70549 Wooden snuff box, France 1801-1830
Snuffbox with three views of a phrenological skull. There is a key on the base of the box. For example number 6 equals the ability to see colour and number 24, good-naturedness.

2) A642804 Set of 60 miniature heads used in phrenology, Manchester, 1831
The heads were made by William Bally who studied phrenology under Spurzheim from 1828 onwards. The heads may have been used to teach phrenology but were probably made as a general reference collection. A wide range of different heads are present. For instance head number 54 is that of a scientific man, and head number 8 is recorded as the head of an ‘idiot.’

3) A645154 Ivory and horn model of an eye, Europe, 1601-1700
The model unscrews to show the different parts of the eye including the cornea, , the pupil, the iris, the jelly-like vitreous humour that fills most of the eyeball and the optic nerve that transmits messages to the brain.

All images © The Science Museum

Trepanning on the E-L-I-S-E Blog

The wonderful and enigmatic E-L-I-S-E blog has been posting some really great images of trepanning, and this on the heels of my boyfriend just saying how he'd like to set up a drive-up Trepanning kiosk in our Park Slope, Brooklyn neighborhood! Such a great idea, and such a great set of images.

Visit the always intriguing E-L-I-S-E blog to see more.

The Anatomical Self, Broadly Construed, to the Strains of Bob Dylan (Really!)

I happened upon a curious web-based project: a collection of "anatomical imagery" (broadly construed) arranged into a sort of loose narrative, interspersed with what appears to be the text from Bob Dylan's Shelter from the Storm. Its a very idiosyncratic grouping of images (the images above constitute a very small sampling) and is well worth a look, if only for the collection and variety of the images; check it out here on a blog called Dadadumdumdodo.

Danza Macabre Website

Check out Danza Macabre, a lovingly compiled website showcasing a vast collection of historical art images dealing with death and mortality. Takes a few minutes to download, but well worth the wait; a veritable embarrasment of riches. A wide range of imagery, from medical Danse of Death woodcuts, to Durer, Goya, Bosch, Vesalius, Gautier, Robert Geisseler, and 19th century examples. Found via Wikipedia's entry for Danse Macabre.

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.

Johan Remmelin (1583-1632)

Play with Johan Remmelin's anatomical flap-book Catoptrum Microcosmicum (1619) on this ingenious interactive website produced by the University of Iowa library.

An Analysis of Anatomy Models, by Susan Lamb

This wonderful website has a great overview of anatomy models read as cultural objects, with lots of great information, quotations, and images. It has been a great resource to me over the years, and I return to it again and again. Check it out!

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.

Wellcome Trust Releases 2000 Years of Medical Images under Creative Commons

Via Boing Boing:

"The Wellcome Trust, one of the UK's largest medical charities, has released its image collection under Creative Commons licenses, with a new web site to search through it."

And what an amazing site it is! Check it out here. The site is quite slow, but well worth the wait-- a veritable treasure trove of amazing imagery. Hooray for the internet. Thanks, Megan, for passing it on!

Cool Medical Posters

Cool Chinese Public Health Posters on the National Library of Medicine website.