Reflections on Being a Morbid Anatomy Museum Scholar in Residence: Guest Post by John Troyer, University of Bath's Centre for Death and Society

Following is a guest post in which Morbid Anatomy Museum former scholar in residence John Troyer of the University of Bath's Centre for Death and Society reflects, in his customarily thoughtful way, on his time at the museum. Thanks, John, and we already miss you!

One perk of being an academic is that you’re sometimes asked to temporarily join a cool organization as the in house scholar. It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved.

This past August, I was the Scholar in Residence at the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn, New York.

An academic Residency can take on many forms and I focused on a few different activities alongside doing my own research.

I curated a group of films for a series I called “Tales from the Celluloid Coffin.” I also presented a group of illustrated lectures on my research.

The films covered everything from 1970’s future dystopias to contemporary ideas about memorializing the dead.

The illustrated lectures presented my research on a number of topics, including dead body disposal technology, necrophilia laws, and the future of death.

The Morbid Anatomy Museum had only been officially open about six weeks when my Residency began and it hit two months by the time I finished. This is important because the MAM is a new institution and is in the early stages of building its intellectual, artistic, and economic infrastructure.

The Museum grew out of the Morbid Anatomy Library, started in 2008 by Museum Creative Director Joanna Ebenstein. I have known Joanna since July 2009.

We first met when I gave a talk at the Morbid Anatomy Library space on the history of 19th century dead body preservation entitled ‘Bodies Embalmed by Us NEVER TURN BLACK!’: A Brief History of the Hyperstimulated Human Corpse. I then went on to give a series of other talks for the Library, as well as work with Joanna on events at the Coney Island Museum and in London.

Some general observations on the new Morbid Anatomy Museum and its transition away from the Morbid Anatomy Library:

The audiences for the films and lectures at the Museum are different than they were at the Library. I noticed this right away. The audiences were largely people who hadn’t been to many (if any) previous Museum or Library events, and weren’t entirely sure what to expect. This is good, I think. It’s bound to happen when institutions change and the Museum is in the process of building an entirely new kind of audience base. I always found the audiences for my Museum talks responsive and full of good questions. The key issue here is to maintain the Museum’s institutional integrity while building this new audience and to avoid defaulting to ‘wacky’ events in order to keep selling tickets. I don’t think that the MAM will lose sight of its intellectual foundations but, alas, economic concerns sometime begin to weigh on programming decisions. I’ve been part of those kinds of conversations many times in the past.

Another issue that became apparent to me during my Residency was that popular culture and mass media interest in death has peaked. This observation is partly related to the saturation coverage anything and everything about death is currently receiving from mainstream media outlets such as the New York Times, Vice, National Public Radio, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, etc., the list goes on and on. At a certain point, the popular culture and mass media interest will also become farcical, something that seems to already be happening.

One sidenote: reporters should really, really learn to stop using death related puns and then think that they’re clever, but I’ve long since given up on that ever happening.

The other reason that I think popular culture interest in death has peaked is related to the research that I was doing during my Residency. I’m currently looking at 1970’s death discourse and end-of-life movements, mostly in America but also the United Kingdom. Until relatively recently, I was unaware how much popular attitudes towards death had changed from 1970-1979. It turns out that the 1970’s were a hotbed of discussion, activism, and death culture debate that significantly affected our contemporary moment. A number of groups that took shape during the 1970’s remain with us today, e.g., the death acceptance movement, the natural death movement (which advocated foregoing medical treatment to die ‘naturally’), and death with dignity groups.

One scholar’s work in particular, Lyn H. Lofland Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of California Davis, really sums up (for me) how changes to American death attitudes create new kinds of societal norms. She also adds a cautionary note regarding death’s inevitable chic:

…it seems likely that eventually humans will construct for themselves a new, or at least altered, death culture and organization — a new “craft of dying” – better able to contain the new experience…I believe, as do other sociological observers…that in the ferment of activity relative to death and dying during the last two decades in the United States we have witnessed and are witnessing just such a reconstruction. Undoubtedly within this ferment, especially that emanating from the mass media, there are elements of fad and fashion – a thanatological “chic” as it were, having approximately the same level of import as organic gardening and home canning among the rich. And certainly one can never underestimate the capacity of American public discourse to transform “life and death matters” into passing enthusiasms. But there is, I believe, more to this activity than simply one more example of impermanent trendiness in modern life. Americans, especially affluent middle-class Americans, have been in the process of creating new or at least altered ways of thinking, believing, feeling, and acting about death and dying because they have been confronting a new “face of death.

This quote is on p.16 of her book The Craft of Dying: The Modern Face of Death, which was published in 1978. If anyone reading this passage was struck by how uncannily it describes 2014, then you’re not alone. Indeed, reading Lofland’s work has been a revelation and the 1970s have become my new area of research.

Per Lofland’s thirty-year-old observations, an institution such as the Morbid Anatomy Museum is made conceptually possible, I think, because of the current middle class interest in death and thanatological chic. What made the Museum physically possible was the time and labor spent building the Morbid Anatomy Library, a project that never set out to be fashionable. The challenge the Museum now faces is when death chic is replaced by another interest for the urban middle classes.

A final thought on an issue that the 1970’s were never able to solve. Affluent, mostly white middle-class Americans need to also expand their current death interests beyond themselves and begin tackling funeral and death poverty for the poor. It’s a lot easier to make elaborate home-based funerals your political cause when you’ve got the time (which translates into money) to do so. The quicker that this economic reality is recognized by today’s Happy Death Movement (a term Lofland coined in the 1970’s) the sooner longer lasting changes will occur.

The upside of these dilemmas is that even when death’s middle class fashionability dissipates, the face of death will continue to stare us all down.

In a word, the work never ends.

Many thanks to the following people who helped make my Residency so wonderful and productive:

Laetitia, Brant, Joanna, AC, Paco, Eric Sollien, Christine Colby and Lady Aye

And special thanks to:

Mac, Catherine, Daphne, Oona, and Simon

Photo of John Troyer at the Morbid Anatomy Museum by Christine Colby

October is "Death in Mexico" Month at Morbid Anatomy with Scholar in Residence Salvador Olguín

This October, the majority of the programming at the Morbid Anatomy Museum will be devoted to the unique cultural practices around death in Mexico under the tutelage of Mexico-born scholar in residence Salvador Olguín, a writer and researcher with an MA in Humanities and Social Thought from NYU who has worked extensively with cultural artifacts connected to the representation of Death. 

Over the course of the month, Olguín will seek to explore--via lectures, screenings, workshops, a reading group, field trips and a party--the historical background behind some of Mexico's most intriguing cultural practices and artifacts such as Day of the Dead and Santa Muerte (see above). Offerings include a reading group exploring ways in which the theme of human sacrifice has haunted the Mexican nation ever since the Spaniards first learned about this practice among the Aztecs, and will culminate in our second annual Field Trip to Mexico City and Oaxaca for Day of the Dead. The month's activities are co-sponsored by the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York.

Following is a full list of events taking place as part of Olguín's residency. To learn more about him, click here. Hope to see you at one or more of these terrific events!

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“La Santa Muerte (Saint Death)” A Screening of the Documentary with Director Eva Aridjis
Date: Friday, October 3rd
Time: 8pm
Admission: $8 (tickets here)

Tonight, join us and director Eva Aridjis for a film about the rapidly growing cult of Santa Muerte, or Saint Death. This female grim reaper, considered a saint by followers but Satanic by the Catholic Church, is worshiped by people whose lives are filled with danger and/or violence- criminals, gang members, transvestites, sick people, drug addicts, and families living in rough neighborhoods.

More here.

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'Cuerpo Presente': Mourning and Cultural Representations of Death in Mexico, Featuring a Collection of Postmortem Photographs from Rural Mexico: An Illustrated lecture with Salvador Olguín
Date: Tuesday, October 7th
Time: 8pm
Admission: $8 (tickets here)

This illustrated lecture will present a series of postmortem photographs taken between the 1930’s and the 1950’s, when the tradition of celebrating a person’s departure with a last photo was very much alive in small towns and villages in Mexico.

More here.
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Halloween/Day of the Dead Flea Market with multiple vendors selling taxidermy galore, mexican folk art, unusual antiques, obscure books, and assorted curiosities
Date: Sunday, October 12th
Time: 12pm to 6pm
Admission: FREE

Halloween/Day of the Dead Flea Market with your favorite artists, makers and antique peddlers, including Rebeca Olguin and Day of the Dead folk art; Daisy Tainton with her insect shadowboxes and mourning rings; Invisible Gallery and with his taxidermilogical curiosities; Elizabeth New and her abject housewares; Deadly Chocolate by Curious Candies; and many more!

More here.

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Screening of ¡Que Viva Mexico! by Sergei Eisenstein
Date: Sunday, October 12th
Time: 8pm
Admission: $8 (tickets here)In 1930, after failing to secure enough backing for his motion picture projects in the US, Russian filmmaker Serguéi Eisenstein headed south to Mexico, where he shot about 40 hours worth of film. The idea was to produce a movie celebrating Mexico’s violent and diverse history. The title: ¡Que viva México! Join us to watch this film in our large screen, and for a conversation with writer Salvador Olguín afterwards.
More here.

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Human Sacrifice in Theory and History: Mexico and Beyond: Reading and discussion group led by Salvador Olguín
Dates: Three Mondays, October 13th, 20th and 27th
Time: 8pm
Admission: $28 (tickets here)

In this guided reading group, writer and Morbid Anatomy Museum scholar in residence Salvador Olguín will introduce attendees to texts, testimonials, and images dealing with the themes of human sacrifice and decapitation, in an attempt to understand the symbolic nature of current events and events in history. The class will touch on George Bataille's Acéphale society, which strove to, via a literal human sacrifice, save the world from catastrophe. It will also explore the ways in which the theme of human sacrifice has haunted the Mexican nation ever since the Spaniards first learned about this practice among the Aztecs.

More here.

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Field trip to Santa Muerte Shrine in Queens; save the date!
Date: October 18; More soon!

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Death and the Idea of Mexico: An Illustrated Lecture by Claudio Lomnitz, Director of the Center for Mexican Studies at Columbia University and author of Death and the Idea of Mexico
Date: Tuesday, October 21st
Time: 8pm
Admission: $8 (tickets here)

In this lecture, professor Lomnitz will provide us with a glance into said past. The lecture is based on Lomnitz’s book (available for sale and signing at the Museum) Death and the Idea of Mexico, the first social, cultural, and political history of death in a nation that has made death its tutelary sign.

More here.

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Annual Day of the Dead/Dia de los Muertos Party
Featuring an illustrated Lecture by Dr. Andrew Chestnut, Music, Costumes, Calavera Makeup, Tequila, Traditional Altar, Sugar Skulls, Death Piñata, and more!
Date: Friday, October 24th
Time: 8pm
Admission: $25 - $15 for Morbid Anatomy Museum Members (tickets here)
Presented by Morbid Anatomy and Borderline Projects

Please join us on Friday, October 24 for our annual Morbid Anatomy Day of the Dead/Dia de los Muertos costume party! Featuting a mini-lecture by Dr. Andrew Chestnut, author of "Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, The Skeleton Saint," Calavera Makeup by Jane Rose, tequila, music, sugar skulls, our beloved La Catrina, exotic tunes by DJ in Residence Friese Undine, a Day of the Dead Altar honoring the late film director Luis Bunuel, a Mexican Food Truck and, as always, an opportunity to strike a mortal blow to our beautiful piñata of Lady Death herself!

More here.

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Papel Picado (Day of the Dead Cut Paper Decoration) workshop with Rebeca Olguín
Date: Sunday, October 26th
Time: 1pm to 6pm
Admission: $100 (tickets here)

During this workshop the participants will make their own papel picado creations withdrawing inspiration from the traditional techniques and motives of the art of papel picado in Mexico

More here.

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Muerte en Mexico: A Special Field Trip to Mexico City and Oaxaca for for Day of the Dead to Visit Sites Important to the History of Death in Mexico
Dates: October 31 – November 4 2014 (**Must reserve by July 15)
 $675.00 USD (includes all hotels in double-rooms, luxury ground transportation, museum admissions, guided visits, and breakfasts; airfares not included); email info@borderlineprojects.com to reserve a space. Please send payments via PayPal to: info@borderlineprojects.com.  SOLD OUT


A 4-day trip to Mexico City and Oaxaca for Day of the Dead; curated, organized and guided by Mexican writer and scholar Salvador Olguín for Borderline Projects, and Morbid Anatomy. Includes day of the dead celebrations, markets, churches, luxury bus travel, hotels, tickets to museums and breakfasts.

More here.

Photo: Santa Muerte shrine, Mexico City.

Symposium: The Visual Culture of Medicine and Its Objects, Riggs Library, Georgetown University, Washington DC, September 23

I wish I could attend this free, open to the public excellent looking symposium co-organized by good friend Michael Sappol of The National Library of Medicine!

Symposium: The Visual Culture of Medicine and Its Objects
September 23, 2014
Riggs Library, Georgetown University, Washington DC
Organizers: Keren Hammerschlag (Georgetown University),
Michael Sappol (National Library of Medicine)

The Department of Art amd Art History at Georgetown University, in collaboration with the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine (National Institutes of Health), presents an interdisciplinary symposium dedicated to critically and creatively examining medical objects, broadly conceived. Presenters from diverse scholarly and professional backgrounds will undertake close readings of medical objects in a variety of media and genres—book illustrations, paintings, sculptures, pamphlets, photographs, instruments, motion pictures and more—from the collections of the National Library of Medicine, Georgetown University, and other repositories. Our aim is to encourage new ways of engaging with objects that sit at the intersection between art and medicine. The outcome, we hope, will be a broadened conception of how the visual and notions of visuality function or falter in medical practice past and present. The program can be found online at http://art.georgetown.edu/story/1242756485205.html

All welcome but numbers are limited. Please register by emailing: keren.hammerschlag@georgetown.edu

The Knick, Minus Painkillers: Review of Cristin O’Keefe Aptowitz's "Dr. Mütter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine," by Rebecca Rego Barry

This Wednesday, September 10th, The Morbid Anatomy Museum will be hosting author Cristin O’Keefe Aptowitz for a talk based on her new book Dr. Mütter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine. Rebecca Rego Barry--editor of Fine Books and Collections magazine and a collector of nineteenth-century surgical books--has just written a fascinating and informative review of the the book, which follows below. You can find out more about Rebecca here. Hope very much to see you at the lecture with the author on Wednesday night, where copies of the book will be available for sale and signing! More on that here.

The Knick, Minus Painkillers
Gory medical scenes in director Steven Soderbergh’s brainchild, "The Knick," will make viewers squirm. The new Cinemax series, which debuted on August 8, is certainly not for the squeamish (it airs on Friday nights). Five minutes into the first episode, we’re already watching a surgeon slice into an anesthetized pregnant woman in his twelfth unsuccessful—and deadly—attempt at a C-section. And yet, the show’s bloodiness pales in comparison to the torture described in a fascinating new book by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowitz, Dr. Mütter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine (Gotham Books, Sept., $27.50). The difference? Ether.   

"The Knick" is set in a fictional version of the real Knickerbocker Hospital in New York City in 1900, a relatively modern age for medicine. By then, at least, doctors understood that cleanliness, particularly sterilized hands and tools, could seriously diminish the spread of infection. They also had the ability to chemically induce sleep in patients who needed surgical treatment. Not so the physicians in Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter’s time, only sixty years earlier. When he cut into a patient, she felt every incision. During one of the surgeries chronicled by Aptowitz, Mütter removes a chunk of skin from the neck of a 28-year-old woman, who, having been badly burned at the age of 5, was considered a “monster.” With one attendant to restrain her, Mütter took his scalpel to her neck “deep enough to get through the heavy scar tissue, but light enough to, hopefully, avoid the delicate muscles of the neck and the heavily trafficked arteries and veins.” And after he had finished with that, the second stage of the surgery commenced. “The woman tried to stifle her cry as Mütter carved out a piece of skin from her back—six and half inches in length, by six in width, slightly larger but the same shape as the wound on the front of her neck.” He had created a “flap,” which was then lifted over her shoulder and stitched onto her damaged neck—all of that, without so much as a drop of nitrous oxide (they prescribed mouthfuls of wine, as needed). He then starved her for almost a week, which was considered ‘best practices,’ and she lived. 

The Virginia-born Mütter studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and in Paris, but returned to Philadelphia to lead an American renaissance in medical care. This was a world, Aptowitz reminds readers, where bleeding a patient, with a lancet or a leech, was a common treatment for just about anything, and “one in every four births resulted in the death of the infant.” Add to that a lack of electricity, regular outbreaks of cholera, typhus, and dysentery, plus the ubiquitous tuberculosis, and you can understand when the author writes, “Philadelphia in the early 1800s was an easy place to die.”

Dr. Mütter’s particular interest was plastic surgery and helping those with congenital or acquired deformities; he sewed up cleft palates and removed unsightly tumors. As the brash, young chair of surgery at the startup Jefferson Medical College, he inspired thousands of students, facilitated the building of a teaching hospital, championed sanitary practices even though germ theory was still being debated in American medical schools, and introduced the use of ether anesthesia in Philadelphia after two Boston doctors gave the first-ever public demonstration of the drug in October of 1846. (Philadelphia was not impressed; the board of the city’s Pennsylvania Hospital voted to ban surgical anesthesia for seven years.)

Mütter was an innovator, a bit more industrious and a bit less drug-addled, perhaps, than his counterpart on "The Knick," Dr. John Thackery, played by Clive Owen, but Thackery has his moments, too. When faced with an emergency procedure for a man dying of septicemia who also has bronchitis and cannot be put under, the good doctor improvises with a cocaine epidural. A bold and historically appropriate move—the show’s writers and producers have done their homework—because attempting the surgery without sedation would have been impossible, right? Thackery informs his students, “We must operate but we cannot do it to a man who will feel pain.”

That’s why Mütter and his colleagues, even the obtuse ones who refused to believe in contagion, seem quite heroic in Aptowitz’s engaging book. They sawed off entire limbs to the sound of blood-curdling screams, knowing full well that many on whom they labored would die anyway.

Mütter, the handsome and well-dressed doctor with audacious ideas, was not exactly lost to history before Aptowitz picked up his trail, but interest in early medicine—and his Mütter Museum, which he founded with his own collection of anatomical specimens and oddities and $30,000 just before his early death at age 48—was certainly relegated to a small group of fans who like a little history with their blood and guts. Those of us who visit places like the The Morbid Anatomy Museum, watch shows like "The Knick," and read books like this one.

Today and Tomorrow: Vesalius Continuum: Conference Commemorating the 500th Anniversary of Andreas Vesalius: Zakynthos, Greece

I am delighted to be speaking tomorrow, Sunday September 7th, at "Vesalius Continuum," a conference celebrating the 500th anniversary of "father of modern anatomy" Andreas Vesalius.

I will be speaking about The Morbid Anatomy Museum as part of an afternoon session beginning at 2:00 and entitled "Fabrica Vitae; the stuff of life: A perception of the human body seen through the eye of the contemporary artist" and chaired by Pascale Pollier and Martin Kemp of Spectacular Bodies fame.

Organized by friends Pascale Pollier and Dr. Ann Van de Velde, the "Vesalius Continuum" will take place on the Greek island of Zakynthos (where Vesalius dies in 1564) from September 4-8, and will host a wonderful mix of scientists and artists, medical historians, art historians, medical artists and contemporary artists.

Full conference lineup fellows; for more--and to register!--click here. Hope very much to see you there!

Vesalius Continuum Commemorating the 500th Anniversary of Andreas Vesalius
Conference Program
Zakynthos, Greece September 4-8 2014

Thursday, 4 September 2014
10.00: gathering of the officials, speakers and guests
10.30: Opening Ceremony (hosted by Theo Dirix)
10.35: Greetings of Welcome by  Mr Stelios Bozikis, Mayor of Zakynthos; H.E. Marc Van den Reeck, Ambassador of Belgium in Athens; Pascale Pollier, President BIOMAB and AEIMS
10.55: Greek representatives of the Ministries of Health, Education and Tourism
11.15: Key-note speaker: Stefanos Geroulanos, MD, PhD, Professor of Surgery, University of Zurich, Prof emeritus History of Medicine, University of Ioannina, President
11.45: Welcome drink and canapes (hosted by Dr. Stephen Joffe)
13.15 – 14.00: Unveiling of the new monument sculpted by Richard Neave and Pascale Pollier and Plinth with Vesalius coat of arms sculpted by Chantal Pollier and Inauguration
17.00 – 19.30: Round Table: "Traveling through time with a camera in Zakynthos:,
Vesalius and the healers in his footsteps" chaired by: Katerina Demeti, Director of the Museum of D. Solomos and Katerina Kabassi, Head of the Protection and Preservation of Cultural Heritage, TEI of Ionian Islands

Friday, 5 September 2014 / morning session 09:00-12:30
Session 1: Andreas Vesalius – The Life.
Chairs: Stephen Joffe (USA) and Pavlos Plessas (GR)
Speakers:
09.00 – 09.20: Raffaele De Caro - Vesalius’ time in Padova
09.20 – 09.40: Theodoor Goddeeris - Itinerarium Andreae Vesalii
09.40 – 10.00: Maurits Biesbrouck - The last months of Andreas Vesalius
10.00 – 10.30: Discussion
10.30 – 11.00: Coffee break
11.00 – 11.20: Pavlos Plessas - Powerful indications that Vesalius died from scurvy
11.20 – 11.40: Sylviane Dederix- The Quest for the Grave, a G.I.S of the vicinity of the Santa Maria delle Grazie church
11.40 – 12.00: Omer Steeno - Franciscus and Anna: Vesalius’ Brother and Sister in the Spotlight
12.00 – 12.30: Discussion
10.30 – 11.00: Lunch break

Topics: The details of Vesalius’ life were established, to a considerable extent, in Charles O’Malley’s biography published in 1964 on the 400th anniversary of his death and in a later work by Stephen Joffe. However, much recent original historical work (by Steeno, Biesbrouck Goddeeris and Plessas) has focused on the circumstances of his last voyage, his death and his burial place on the island (The Quest for the Grave: Pantokrator or Santa Maria delle Grazia?). Presentation of a G.I.S. by Sylviane Dederix of the Foundation for Research and Technology, Hellas (F.O.R.T.H.) and Institute for Mediterranean Studies (I.M.S.) (deputy director Apostolos Sarris) and Pavlos Plessas, seconded by EBSA, the Belgian School in Athens (director Jan Driessen), sponsored by Agfa Healthcare and coordinated by Theo Dirix, will be made by Sylviane Dederix (F.O.R.T.H., UCL). An attempt is made to identify Vesalius’s cause of death (Pavlos Plessas).

Friday, 5 September 2014 / afternoon session 14:00 – 17:30
Session 2: Andreas Vesalius- The Work.
Chairs: Vivian Nutton (UK) and Sachiko Kusukawa (UK).
Speakers:
14.00 – 14.20: Guy Cobolet – Vesalius’ De Humani Corporis Fabrica in context
14.20 – 14.40: Daniel Garrison - Vesalius’ Epistle on the China Root (1546): The Recovering Humanist
14.40 – 15.00: Jacqueline Vons - Vivitur ingenio
15.00 – 15.30: Discussion
15.30 – 16.00: Coffee break
16.00 – 16.20: Stephane Velut.-Vesalius’ Anatomical Observations
16.20 – 16.40: Vivian Nutton - Vesalius and his Annotations
16.40 – 17.00: David J. Williams - Vesalius at Cambridge
17.00 – 17.30: Discussion

Topics: The Fabrica (1543) will of course be the central focus. There are two new developments of special interest concerning what is rightly considered to be one of the great treasures of Western civilisation. A second edition has recently been discovered which scholarly analysis (by Nutton) suggests was annotated by Vesalius himself in preparation for a never published third edition. Karger, located in Basel where the original was published, are bringing out a new English translation (by Garrison and Hast) to coincide with the quincentenary. Attention will also be directed toward his other works such as the Epitome and the China Root Epistle.

20.30: Open Air Concert with Beatriz Macias (flute, voice), Yannick Van De Velde (piano) and Roeland Henkens (trumpet), at the Church of Faneromeni, built in the 17th C, destroyed by the earthquake of 1953, but restored following its original design. The concert opens a tour on the Ionian Islands as part of the cultural cycle: Things from Belgium.

Saturday, 6 September 2014 / morning session 09:00-12:30
Session 3: The art of human anatomy: Renaissance to 21st century
Chairs: Brian Hurwitz ( UK) and Ruth Richardson (UK).
Speakers:
09.00 – 09.20: Robrecht van Hee – Vesalius’s long term impact
09.20 – 09.40: Francis Wells – Leonardo’s working heart
09.40 – 10.00: Roberta Ballestriero – Three dimensional anatomy
10.00 – 10.30: Discussion
10.30 – 11.00: Coffee break
11.00 – 11.20: Ruth Richardson – Gray’s Anatomy
11.20 – 11.40: Paolo Mazzarello and Valentina Cani- Golgi and the fine structure of the nervous system
11.40 – 12.00: Marco Catani- the art of brain imaging
12.00 – 12.30: Discussion
10.30 – 11.00: Lunch break

Topics: Relations between the art and science of anatomy from the time of Vesalius to the present will be considered with particular emphasis on the role of the medical artist and the changing nature of anatomical illustration over the last five centuries. Pivotal changes in the art of anatomy will be examined including the evolution of media and brain imaging from Golgi to Geschwind.

Saturday, 6 September 2014 /afternoon session 14:00-17:30
Session 4: 21st century anatomy teaching and learning Quo Vadis?
Chairs: Peter Abrahams (UK) and Francis van Glabbeek (BE).
Speakers:
14.00 – 14.20: Bernard Moxham – A modern way of learning gross anatomy/dissection by the students
14.20 – 14.40: Susan Standring - Grays anatomy: past, present and future roles of a major reference book
14.40 – 15.00: Shane Tubbs - Translational research: can surgery focus anatomical research and education- the reverse of Vesalius’ time?
15.00 – 15.20: Marios Loukas - Radiology and imaging : a servant of anatomists or shining light of clinical anatomy education?
15.20 – 15.40: Discussion
15.40 – 16.00: Coffee break
16.00 – 16.20: Robert Trelease – Ideal world or not: designing modern anatomy teaching and facilities for meeting changing demands in evolving curricula.
16.20 – 16.40: Richard Turnstall - Latest technology: how can emerging technologies enhance anatomy teaching and learning and has 3D technology got an important future role?
16.40 – 17.00: Tom Lewis – Mobile technology and medical Apps in modern anatomy education: an innovative replacement for the cadaver experience?
17.00 – 17.30: Questions and discussion-Final summary
Speakers all Sponsored by: St. George's University, Grenada, West Indies

Saturday, 6 September 2014 /evening 19:00-20:00
Film: ‘Do we feel with our brain and think with our heart?' by Jan Fabre and Giacomo Rizzolatti

Film: Fabrica Vitae by Sofie Hanegreefs and Jelle Jansens

Sunday, 7 September 2014 / morning session 09:00-12:30
Session 5: 21st century art of human anatomy.
Chair: Ann Van de Velde (BE).
Speakers:
09.00 – 09.20: Eleanor Crook – Depicting a mechanism of life: why the dissected body will not lie down and die.
09.20 – 09.40: Rachael Allen – Project ANATOME: when artist meets anatomy education.
09.40 – 10.00: Margot Cooper and Catherine Sultzmann- Staying ahead of the curve: the future of 3D models and the past from which they developed
10.00 – 10.30: Discussion
10.30 – 11.00: Coffee break
11.00 – 11.20: Lisa Temple-Cox and Glenn Harcourt – “It’s my own invention”. Looking glass and speculum: an anatomical Alice.
11.20 – 11.40: Tonya Hines - Open Access Publishing: The Role of Medical Illustrators in Open Science
11.40 – 12.00: Lucy Lyons – Drawing parallels
12.00 – 12.30: Discussion
10.30 – 11.00: Lunch break

Topics: The role of the medical artist in the 21st century will be addressed together with strategies for the education of medical artists and medical students. The wider field of medical art in the forensic field, in the research field and in the publishing world and literature will be explored, and a close look taken at European ‘Art and Science’ courses and collaborations.

Sunday, 7 September 2014 / afternoon session 14:00-17:00
Session 6: Fabrica Vitae; the stuff of life: A perception of the human body seen through the eye of the contemporary artist
Chairs: Pascale Pollier (BE) and Martin Kemp (UK).
Speakers:
14.00 – 14.20: Stelarc - Engineering aliveness and affect in humanoid robots.
14.20 – 14.40: Nina Sellars- The optics of anatomy and light
14.40 – 15.00: Mara Haseltine – Geotherapy, Art from the Nano to the Geo : Art that addresses the link between our biological and cultural evolution.
15.00 – 15.30: Discussion
15.30 – 16.00: Coffee break
16.00 – 16.20: Joanna Ebenstein – The Morbid Anatomy Museum: A new institution devoted to art and medicine, death and culture, and the things which fall between the cracks
16.20 – 16.40: Andrew Carnie – A change of heart
16.40 – 17.00: Film; Fabrica Vitae by Jelle Jansens and Sofie Hanegreefs. (Andere
Wereld films)
17.00 – 17.30: Discussion

Topics: A session devoted to a variety of cultural events at the interface between the human body, science and technology, sci art, the cyborg body, quantum physics, encompassing performance art, theatre, music and poetry.

Special Plenary Lecture
17.30: Martin Kemp ‘Rhetorics of the real in the Fabrica: Vesalius’s graphic and textual strategies’

Sunday, 7 September 2014 / evening 18:30 -19:30
18:30 – 19:30: Private View exhibition Fabrica Vitae with Champagne reception

Monday, 8 September 2014 / morning session 09:00-10:00
09:00- 10:00: Annual General Meeting for
MAA, AEIMS, and other associations

With thanks to our sponsors

• Paulsen Media BV
• Dr. and Mrs Stephen N. Joffe, USA
• The Wellcome Trust
• The Vesalius Trust
• St George’s University Medical School, Grenada
• Association Européenne des illustrateurs Médicaux et Scientifiques (AEIMS)
• Biological and Medical Art in Belgium (BIOMAB)
• H.E. Marc Van den Reeck, Ambassador of Belgium, Athens
• Theo Dirix, Consul, Embassy of Belgium, Athens
• The Municipality of Zakynthos, Greece
• The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Belgium
• The Organizing Committee expresses its gratitude to all organizations and individuals offering advice and support.

Image: Frontispiece to Andreas Vesalius's De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem. Basel: Johannes Oporinus, 1555. Found here.

Stage Actress Ellen Terry's Lady Macbeth Gown, Made of 1000 Jewel Beetle Wings, 1888

A fascinating bit of news just sent my way by good friend, the über-talented Matt Murphy:

Victorian-Era Dress, Made With 1,000 Beetle Wings, Restored for £50,000

It took 1,300 hours and £50,000 ($81,000), but a glittering emerald gown made from 1,000 beetle parts is ready for its stage entrance once more. Decked with the sloughed-off wings of the jewel beetle, and worn by actress Ellen Terry in the role of Lady Macbeth at London’s Lyceum Theatre in 1888, the dress was one of the most celebrated costumes of the era. Although it’s immortalized in a John Singer Sargent portrait currently at the Tate, the dress has seen much wear, tear, and alterations in its 120 years, rising to the top of the National Trust’s conservation priority list."

Full story can be found on Ecouterre by clicking here.

Photos by Zenzie Tinker.

"Brooklyn’s Morbid Anatomy Museum: A New and Resplendent Temple of Weirdness," Ariella Budick, Financial Times, August 2014

One of us, one of us, we accept her, one of us, gooble gobble, one of us.” If you, too, are one of us – that is, a slightly embarrassed devotee of all things creepy and surreal – you might recognise that chant. It comes from Tod Browning’s 1932 horror film Freaks, as a troupe of circus sideshow performers welcomes a horrified new member.

A similar fearful camaraderie unites those who make their way to the Morbid Anatomy Museum, a new and resplendent temple of weirdness in New York. With its collection of oddities – a wax model of a man disfigured by syphilis, a mummified rodent, and so on – the museum speaks to a cluster of fascinations that has only tangentially to do with death.

Rather, its aficionados – and I speak from the heart, here – are attuned to the slightly bizarre aspects of ordinary existence. We respond to the nostalgic frisson emanating from surrealist photographs, 17th-century cabinets of curiosity, graphic histories of hysteria, faked photos of seances, studies of conjoined twins, and Coney Island in its tawdry heyday. We claim a distinguished roster of elders: Edgar Allan Poe, Edward Gorey, Georges Bataille, WG Sebald and Susan Sontag. I imagine this conclave of eccentrics gathered around a Ouija board, with Freud acting as master of ceremonies. His concept of the uncanny – what he called a “ghastly harbinger of death” – hovers invisibly throughout the museum.

This indispensable new institution was founded and funded by a cadre of likeminded obsessives, led by creative director Joanna Ebenstein.... offers classes in areas where art and morbidity overlap: how to articulate a snake skeleton; how to stuff, mount and costume rabbits in anthropomorphic poses; how to draw a human skull. Almost nightly lectures merge the outlandish with the scholarly. “Lizard Mummies and Giant Squid Tentacles” gets behind the scenes at the American Museum of Natural History, and “Industrial Ladies” examines early 19th-century department store wax mannequins. All this erudition supports the museum’s overarching point: that a concern with the once-alive and the eerily lifelike has long suffused modern culture.
--"Brooklyn’s Morbid Anatomy Museum: A new and resplendent temple of weirdness has opened in New York," Ariella Budick, Financial Times, August 2014

The Morbid Anatomy Museum has been very lucky to have received quite a bit of press attention since opening our doors almost two months ago, but none has so aptly and elegantly summed up the larger Morbid Anatomy ethos, aesthetic and community as Ariella Budick's wonderfully insightful piece in last weekend's Financial Times.

I have quoted the piece at length above; you can read it in its entirety by clicking here (note: you must sign up to read it, but its free and worth it!)

The photographs above are all courtesy of Stanley B Burns and the very excellent Burns Archive, one of the main loaners to our Art of Mourning exhibition, on view through December 4th.

If you would like to support The Morbid Anatomy Museum--wonderfully described in the article as an "indispensable new institution" (!)--please consider becoming a member (with all the benefits that entails!) here, or making a donation by clicking here. 

"Vanitas; the Transience of Earthly Pleasure" : Exhibition Catalog Review by Brenna Pladsen, Morbid Anatomy Docent and Volunteer

Vanitas: The Transience of Earthly Pleasures is an exhibition catalog for a Frieze Art Fair exhibition of the same name staged in 2010 by London's All Visual Arts Gallery. Morbid Anatomy Museum docent--and volunteer extraordinaire--Brenna Pladsen took a liking to the book, and kindly offered to write the following guest post about it; if you are interested in finding out more, you can spend some quality time with it at The Morbid Anatomy Library!

Vanitas is a prime example of a good exhibition book. This is partially because it seems to have been an excellent exhibition. Judging from the book, the art skewed toward the luxurious and the animal. Bits of birds and bugs are a striking part of the collection and bring home the concept of the vanitas painting, which is given a robust and generous explanation in the introduction.

The setting and curation are carefully matched to inspire the visitor into the correct frame of mind to appreciation the philosophy of the genre. The book follows that idea, and the wonderful photographs of the space can really transport you there and give a sense to the space and scale of the works. The Tim Noble and Sue Webster pieces, especially Metal Rats Fucking, need the accompanying context to be striking. The art is beautifully recorded by the photographs, but the exhibition photos are really transporting and have the dark, hyper-real quality of an original vanities painting. While the photography is luscious and luxurious, it is thankfully given space to breathe. I was struck by how contemporary and modern the book feels without loosing that decedent, velvety touch.

Plague Buboes and Preserved Primates – The Morbid Anatomy/Museum Vrolik “Amsterdam Weekend of Anatomy”: Guest Post by Schemenkabinett

The following is a review of the recent Morbid Anatomy/Museum Vrolik Amsterdam Weekend of Anatomy originally published by Katharina von Oheimb and Parm von Oheimb on their German-language Schemenkabinett blog. A translation of the piece, especially for Morbid Anatomy readers, follows; you can see the original piece by clicking here. To get on the Morbid Anatomy mailing list and thus be alerted to similar events in the future, click here.

In Amsterdam, we devoted ourselves to the field between anatomy and arts for a whole weekend.

He was called the “Artist of Death.” On the screen in the small lecture room at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, a surreal scene appears, showing human fetal skeletons that seem to wipe away their tears with handkerchiefs made of preserved meninges. It is one of Frederick Ruysch’s (1638-1731) anatomical dioramas (top image). With his preparations and dioramas, Dutch anatomist and botanist Ruysch created unique works of art. The attendees in the lecture room look with fascination at his works. More than sixty participants have gathered at the weekend of 10th and 11th May 2014 to take part at the “Amsterdam Weekend of Anatomy” at Museum Vrolik. The event was brought into being by Joanna Ebenstein from Morbid Anatomy and Laurens de Rooy, the director of Museum Vrolik. Together with the other attendees--who came mostly came from the Netherlands, but also from Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Poland, and the USA--we are listening to the first talks of this day. We will encounter Frederick Ruysch several times again during the next days, because his connection between scientific accuracy and artistic presentation can be discovered in every corner of this place.

Marieke Hendriksen reports in her talk about the puzzle of the beaded babies, which she investigated for her dissertation. An image on the screen shows a newborn baby in a jar filled with preservational liquid, decorated with beaded strings around its neck and wrists. In total, only eleven of such decorated specimens are known. All of them are from Dutch collections and from between 1780 and 1810. Hendriksen explains how she thoroughly investigated historical collections and how she examined literature to find evidence for the origin of these unique specimens. Probably, they stem from Dutch colonies; this puzzle, however, has not been finally solved yet.

In the afternoon, we participate in a wax modeling course (second image down). Medical wax models, so called moulages, are lifelike moldings of diseased body parts. They served for the training of physicians, but have also been used for explaining disease symptoms to the public. Due to the plasticity of the presentations, they have been clearly superior to drawings. For the creation of moulages, modeling material has often been applied directly to diseased parts of skin to obtain highly realistic moldings. In this way, whole series could be created, which documented the development of diseases or the effect of therapies. Only with the emergence of color photography, moulages became less important.

As we are entering the course room, pale wax faces already wait at our workplaces. During the next hours, we add disease symptoms and several wounds to them under the tutelage of Eleanor Crook. The London-based artist Crook has specialized in the creation of moulages. In courses like this, she explains impressively how plastic plague buboes can be formed from a special wax and later get colorized in bluish black. After finishing the course, we proudly bag our grotesque faces that are terribly disfigured by plague and syphilis and meet for the end of the evening at the exhibition room of Museum Vrolik, which has been exclusively opened for us. In the midst of all the showcases full of medical specimens, we have the opportunity to acquaint with the highly interesting group of participants.

The next day starts with a talk about the history of the moulages held by the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam (third image down). These artfully designed moldings stem from the early 20th century. Soon afterwards, we find ourselves in the part of the building complex, where the moulages are stored today. Faces that are badly marked by diseases but appear strangely alive, as well as arms, hands, and genitals are stored in showcases and cabinets. Most of these medical artworks have been created at the island Sumatra and present tropical skin diseases.

Afterwards, the preparator Inge Dijkman gives us an introduction to her work at Museum Vrolik (bottom image). She has brought a small selection of specimens with her. Very cautious, Dijkman lifts an almost 10 cm large, preserved fetus out of the liquid and shows it to us. She explains that this fetus had implanted outside the uterine cavity. During such a so-called ectopic pregnancy, the fetus dies in most cases.

After this exceptional insight into the preparation laboratory, we take part at a guided tour to selected specimens of Museum Vrolik, where we learn about several fascinating details. Willem Vrolik (1801-1863), for example, one of the founders of the collection, was the first person that recorded multiple congenital disorders. He described, for instance, the first known case of the Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome. Individuals who suffer from this syndrome are not able to produce cholesterol. The external characteristics of the syndrome are diverse and range from female genitalia in combination with a male chromosome set, to malpositions of hands and feet, and to supernumerary fingers and toes. Depending on the severity of symptoms, where internal organs are also mostly limited in their functionality, this genetic disease often ends fatally.

At the end of our weekend at Museum Vrolik, a guided tour leads to the collection rooms in the basement of the Academic Medical Center, which are usually closed to the public. During the Cold War, a nuclear bombproof underground hospital was installed here. Today, the thick walls and heavy door locks bring the former function still to mind. Curator Laurens de Rooy guides us to the first room, which contains parts of the anthropological and zoological collections. In the second room, multiple specimen jars are stored in shelves. Animals with malformations are a main focus of the collection and have been used for comparative anatomy studies. In the third room, dry preparations are stored. Various preserved skulls of humans and other primates stand close together. One of our highlights in this room is the artfully created historical dry preparation of a human arm, where the pattern of tendons is clearly visible. By leaving the underground rooms, our “Amsterdam Weekend of Anatomy” ends.

During the two days at Museum Vrolik, we could gather various exciting impressions and meet a lot of interesting people. The event connected arts and science in a unique way and was worthwhile in all respects. Due to the high approval of the “Amsterdam Weekend of Anatomy,” the event is planned to take place again next year in a similar form.

Figures:

1. Anatomical diorama by Frederik Ruysch (engraving by Cornelius Huyberts)
2. In the course it is learned how medical max models are created. Photo courtesy of Katharina von Oheimb and Parm von Oheimb.
3. Collection of historical moulages at the Academic Medical Center. Photo courtesy of Katharina von Oheimb and Parm von Oheimb.
4. Insights into different preparation techniques. Photo courtesy of Katharina von Oheimb and Parm von Oheimb.

Anatomical Venuses at Mildred's Lane: Lecture this Saturday, August 2

For any those in the vicinity of rural New York/Pennsylvania: I am beyond honored to be giving a talk this Saturday night as part of "Social Saturdays" at the fabulous Mildred's Lane, founded by amazing artists J Morgan Puett and Mark Dion. The lecture will be held at The Mildred Complex(ity) project space, in the DVAA building at 37 Main Street, Narrowsburg, NY.

Talk description follows, and tickets--which include "a delicious locally sourced meal prepared by a guest chef" as well as the lecture--can be purchased here.

Hope to see you there!

Morbid Anatomy with Joanna Ebenstein
August 2, 2014
Tour – 5:00 p.m.
Cocktails – 6:00pm
Presentation – 6:30pm
Dinner – 8:00 p.m.

Clemente Susini’s "Anatomical Venus" is a life sized, dissectible wax anatomical woman with real human hair still entombed in her original rosewood and Venetian glass case created in Florence, Italy around 1790. It—or, better she—was conceived of as a means to teach human anatomy without need for constant dissection of real human cadavers, which was messy, ethically fraught, and prone to quick decay. The Venus also tacitly communicated the relationship between the human body and a divinely created cosmos, between art and science, between nature and mankind as understood by Natural Philosophy, the science of its day.

How could a creature so perplexing and peculiar to the modern eye have seemed, at one point, the perfect way to demonstrate anatomical understandings of the body? How could our cultural attitudes have changed to such an extent that she, who once seemed the perfect way of expressing anatomical understanding, now seems bizarre to the contemporary eye? How might these differences help us to better understand the historical moment of her creation as well as our own time? How can we use our own response to these confounding creatures as a way to understand what we might have lost, how we might have changed? This highly illustrated talk will explore those questions.

 Photos of Anatomical Venuses by Joanna Ebenstein

A Trip to Hell at Tiger Balm (Haw Par) Gardens, Hong Kong : Guest Post by Eric Huang

The delightful Eric Huang (aka dinoboy) recently paid a visit to a theme park which quite simply defies imagination: Tiger Balm (Haw Par) Gardens of Hong Kong. This attraction, built in 1937, is a sort of theme park filled with tableaux illustrating Buddhist and Chinese mythology. The highlight: a depiction of "The Ten Courts of Hell" and the punishments enacted there.

Eric kindly agreed to write a guest post for the readers of Morbid Anatomy about this amazing place, which follows; all photos above are also his own!

I heard about the Tiger Balm Gardens whilst visiting a friend in Hong Kong. The park near where she grew up was once one of three gardens built by the heirs to the Tiger Balm fortune, brothers Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par. Only the Singapore garden, called Haw Par Villa after the brothers - exists today. The park in the Fujian province of China was never completed, and is now a museum. The Hong Kong gardens closed in 2004, though the mansion where Aw Boon Haw lived has been preserved.

What a garden Haw Par is! Roughly the size of Fantasyland at the Disney theme parks, the attraction built in 1937 is a maze of grottoes, monuments, and tableaux of Buddhist morality and Chinese mythology. Many will likely recognize Monkey from the Buddhist legend, Journey to the West, that spawned numerous TV series and films as well as the Damon Albarn musical/opera, but the familiar bits are the least interesting.

Human-beast hybrid monsters abound, mainly aquatic: yes there are mermaids, but also scallop shell ladies, crab women, manta ray men, fish dudes – and all are angry, in mid-battle wielding feudal and magical weapons, seducing silly humans, and cavorting with any thing – living or otherwise - nearby. Most are players in epic legends involving the gods and their loves, jealousies, and savage revenge on each other and on helpless (but hot) humans.

There’s also a giant wall depicting the sins of urban life: dancing to gambling to liquor and loose women. Scenes of good deeds and piety mirror the sinful acts. The park opposite the wall is an odd assemblage of anthropomorphic animals, a giant gorilla family, frogs riding ostriches, and a load of Australian animals: kangaroos, koalas, and emus.

The very, very best attraction at Haw Par Gardens is undoubtedly the Ten Courts of Hell. The entrance is a park-like path lined with decapitated heads. It’s clear you’re about to enter something nasty – very Temple of Doom. The tableau nearby depicts a brutal war between rats and squirrels!

The Courts themselves are set inside a dark and appropriately hot – tropical, humid, Singapore hot – cave guarded by Ox-Head and Horse-Face, escorts of Hell. Don’t let their names fool you into thinking they’re funny circus animals. Ox-Head and Horse-Face chase newly arrived souls into Hell with a steel spear and an ivory stick.

Once inside the cave, the exhibit leads visitors through the process of judgement, sorting, punishment, and finally redemption through reincarnation. Each Court in Hell punishes those guilty of particular crimes. Many crimes have the same punishment. For example, in the Third Court of Hell, the following crimes are judged and punished:

Ungratefulness, Disrespect to elders, Escaping from prison = Heart cut out.

Drug addiction and trafficking, Grave robbing, Seducing people into a life of crime, Creating social unrest = Tied to a red-hot copper pillar and grilled.

To the modern visitor and unbeliever, the crimes and punishments are unlikely to make any logical sense. Money lenders with exorbitant interest rates face being thrown onto a hill of knives – quite right! The misuse of books and wasting food are both punishable by having your body sawn in two – not at the waist, but down your body in a lateral cut.

But fear not, even the most heinous of crimes – disobeying your siblings, for example – are eventually forgiven. Once souls have been punished for the prescribed length of time, they are led through the Pavilion of Forgetfulness where a draught of magic tea administered by an elderly woman named Men Po causes all to forget their past life. Then it’s off to Samsara and the Wheel of Incarnation. Depending on the crimes committed in the past life and the punishment meted out, the soul will be reincarnated either as an invertebrate, a sea creature, a land animal (mammal), a flying creature, someone poor or foreign, or Han Chinese nobility – in that order.

The Courts are beautifully gruesome and very camp at the same time. It’s worth it to go to Singapore just to see the Courts of Hell themselves. Sadly the gift shop was closed when I visited. I can only imagine the souvenirs I might have purchased. Maybe this is the just one of the punishments I deserve for my crimes …

Dental casts of the Extraordinary Aztec Children, 1853 : Guest Post by Kristin Hussey, Hunterian Museum, London

Kristin Hussey--Assistant Curator of the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons with responsibility for the Odontological Collection--has kindly agreed to write a series of guest posts for Morbid Anatomy about some of the most curious objects in her collection.

The eighth post from that series--entitled "Dental casts of the Extraordinary Aztec Children, 1853"--follows; you can view all posts in this series by clicking here.

"…he looked over an immense plain, extending to Yucatan and the Gulf of Mexico, and saw at a great distance a large city spread over a great space, and with turrets white and glittering in the sun…"
– John Lloyd Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan

In the mid-19th century, explorers like John Lloyd Stephens believed in the existence of a mythical Aztec city lost to time and somehow protected from European incursions. It is not surprising that when two inhabitants of this mystical city appeared on the shores of Britain it caused an instant sensation. In June 1853, Pedro Velasquez of San Salvador, Mexico arrived on the docks of Liverpool with two children he claimed to have taken from the high priesthood of the sacred city of Ixamaya. Known as the Aztec Children, Maximo and Bartola were exhibited across Europe and American for almost 40 years between the 1850s and 1890s. Their diminutive stature and distinctive head shape prompted the scientists of the age to wonder whether these children were indeed the last descendants of a lost ancient people.  For medical men such as Sir Richard Owen (1804-1892), the answer to whether the last of the Aztecs had been discovered lay in hidden in their teeth. 

In 1850 Velasquez published his book Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America in which he described his discovery of the lost city of Iximaya and the Aztec Children. In his work, Velasquez included sketches of hieroglyphics in Central American temples showing the distinctive cranial shape of the ancient figures, which he claimed as proof that his Aztec Children were a direct link with a lost race. The ‘discovery’ caused much excitement in medical and phrenological circles. Maximo and Bartola began touring in the United States in 1850, eventually arriving in England in June 1853. So popular was the pair that in July of that year the Aztec Children were brought before the Ethnological Society of London where they were described and analysed by leading anatomical expert and Conservator of the Hunterian Museum, Professor Richard Owen. In order to determine whether the children were in fact Aztecs or something else altogether, Owen only had to look at their mouths. 

After a detailed examination, Owen approximated the age of Maximo and Bartola by analysing the development of their teeth. He determined that both were developing normally and that Maximo, the male, was approximately twelve years old and Bartola, a female was about seven. The teeth Owen saw were sound and not indicative of any disease nor any noticeable difference from a modern child. He did however note a lack of language development seemingly correlated to their cranial deformity. Owen concluded that the figures in the hieroglyphics and the Aztec children only superficially resembled one another. Maximo and Bartola were simply children with an abnormal cranial development. The casts in the Royal College of Surgeons were taken of the pair later that same year, in December 1853. The casts first appear in the Odontological Museum catalogue in 1904, although they were likely acquired earlier. 

We now know that the Aztec Children suffered from microcephaly, a neurodevelopmental disorder which results in restricted head circumference and reduced cognitive abilities. The striking deformity of the skull which accompanies the condition meant that people with this disorder were often exhibited as human curiosities. Despite Owen’s judgement, Maximo and Bartola successfully toured Europe and the United States for a further 40 years, eventually dropping the ‘children’ from their title. While the general public remained enthralled with the idea of their mystical origins, for those with an interest in teeth, the sacred city of Ixamaya may have lost some of its wonder.

Image top to bottom:

1. Maximo and Bartola c.1867. Source: Wikipedia Commons
2. Sketches of figures from Central American temples from Pedro Velasquez’s book. Source: Project Gutenberg
3. Sourced http://www.sideshowworld.com
4. Advertisement for the Aztecs, unknown date. Source: Wellcome Library, London
5. Dental casts of Bartola (left) and Maximo (right). Courtesy of the Royal College of Surgeons of England

A Case of Missing Identity: Researching a Phrenological Bust: A Guest Report by Museum Studies Student Liza Young, St. John's University

Liza Young--a museum studies student at St. John's University--took interest in an enigmatic recent acquisition to The Morbid Anatomy Library: the 19th century plaster phrenological death mask bust seen above. Working with our Head Librarian Laetitia Barbier, she unearthed a fascinating history and possible provenance. Below are her findings thus far; stay tuned for more installments! You can also find out more about Liza and her work by clicking here.

This spring the Morbid Anatomy Museum welcomed a fantastic new addition to its collection of unusually beautiful things: a plaster bust created for the study of phrenology. The bust portrays a man whose age lies somewhere between young and ageless. The white of the plaster has tarnished over the years, yet a faint phrenological map is still visible, sketched across his crown and eyes. At the base of the bust, where a label identifying to whom he belonged or in which museum he was housed, only a single word remains immediately visible: tragique.

Such slight hints to the story behind this bust present the opportunity for an ideal research project for an archivist-in-training such as myself. Somehow, I have been chosen as the lucky one to assist in undertaking this mission for information, to discover where the bust originated, who created him, and who had posed as the model. But where does one begin when dealing with a head created for a dead science whose only identifying mark (the label) has worn away? I’m not sure, but I began with self-guided history lesson.

Part One: A Little History

Phrenology, originally known as “cranioscopy,” is a pseudoscience created by the German physician Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) in 1796. The discipline spread throughout Europe, finding particular popularity amongst the British, between 1810 to 1840. To briefly sum up the essence of a fascinating practice, each lump of the skull was believed to correspond to a particular moral or immoral temperament localized within a specific area of the brain, which would swell or dip in relation to the volume of the temperament’s presence. Phrenology was believed to allow the true nature of one’s character be read through the skull, which would enable mankind to identify both the gifted and, most importantly, the deviant members of society without any previous knowledge of the individual’s history. The early nineteenth century marked the rise of the Industrial Revolution, which brought with it the birth of city life and, consequently, the crime-infested city streets that would one day inspire the likes of Jack the Ripper. Phrenology was a science that many looked to as a tool that might curtail these escalating crimes by tagging the deviants before they deviated.

Left image is an edible print available for sale in the Morbid Anatomy Museum gift shop. Click the image to view/purchase/eat!

Illustrated phrenological maps of skulls were used to study the lay of land, or the head, so to speak, along with three-dimensional busts like the one in question. Some busts were created without a model, while others were taken from plaster casts of human faces. The Morbid Anatomy’s bust depicts a face nearly perfect in form, though lacking the too-smooth features of a generic piece for study. The shape of the nose, definition around the mouth, and, most importantly, the shallow undulations of his skull mark the piece as a cast from a unique human head. Who might have supplied his head for such a study? While some men did sit for personalized casts, the majority of the busts were made from less voluntary gentlemen.

In order to hone the new science, phrenologists studied the skulls of exceptional characters on the opposing ends of the spectrum: the most brilliant of men and the most errant. However, the only abundant cache of skulls available was provided by the local executioner. Yes, following death by guillotine or some such unfortunate fate, scientists would make a cast of the head, now relieved of its body, and study the plaster copy for the lumps of the brain that would, they believed, mark the subject as the criminal he was now known to be. While it cannot be stated indisputably that the bust in question was cast from a criminal (the length of his neck suggests he was not guillotined, unlike these men), it is safe to say that he was indeed dead. This conclusion is evidenced by the opening of his eyes, which would have been unbearable for a living model. Understanding the ultimate end of the model is very likely as close to identifying him as I will able to come, so let’s put a pin in that and move forward to where this man lived out his life before it was cut short.

Remnants of text on the phrenological bust. 

Part Two: Heritage of the Headless

As mentioned, the only fully legible of the three words along the base of the bust spells the French word tragique. This suggests, of course, that the bust is of French, or possibly Swiss, origin. It is possible that the first word reads Sestinia, though it is difficult to say, particularly as the only information I could find in relation to the word is that it is an Italian surname and an obscure plant of no particular use or potency. However, a few other clues point strongly toward French heritage.

Upon further examination of the head, I noticed a phrenological zone behind the left ear had been labeled with amativité. It is the French translation of “amativeness,” meaning the inclination toward sexual arousal. If an individual presented an overdeveloped amative temperament, phrenologists believed his character would be plagued by obscene and licentious behavior.
 

Details of phrenological bust.

If underdeveloped, he might suffer from a cold, detached personality. A second, nearly entirely erased label appears above the left eye. Though it is completely illegible, it seems to mark the zone associated with “tune,” which relates to a love of music. It is tempting to read into the meaning behind these isolated labels. Do they allude to the crime for which the model was executed? Or are they coincidental remains? Having studied the character of music throughout art and history, I am well aware of the perceived intoxicating effects attributed to listening to music for pleasure, rather than for devotion to God, which, according many an old master (Bosch, Vermeer, etc.), will inevitably lead to licentious behavior. However, phrenology was considered a science, not a form of artistic expression, so I must put a rest to any further symbolic interpretation.

The facts state that tragique and amativité are French. If I were pressed to volunteer a possible answer as to what the label reads in full, I would suggest “Sestinia, La Discipline Tragique," though I would say it very hesitantly. The case for French heritage is further enforced through the bust’s acquisition history. Joanna Ebenstein, the mother of the Morbid Anatomy Museum, purchased the bust from the Upper West Side shop Maxilla and Mandible (sadly, now closed), who purchased it from “the Auzoux workshop” during the 1990’s in Normandy, France. So who then is Auzoux?

Part Three: The Creator

Louis Thomas Jerôme Auzoux (1797-1880) was a French physician frustrated by the body’s inability to be preserved long enough for thorough anatomical study. Cadavers decomposed too rapidly. Anatomical drawings and texts proved too dry. Wax models melted under prolonged touch. In response to these issues, Auzoux turned to the popular art of papier-mâché, typically used to created dolls for children, and built life-size anatomical models of the human body. The organs of these faux cadavers could be removed and handled, mimicking the process of dissection. However, while Auzoux was certainly interested in the functions and design of the cranium, he was devoted to the science of anatomy, not phrenology. He, as far my research can tell, never created casts like the one in question. What, then, was the bust doing at Auzoux’s workshop? After a brief interview with the gentleman who sold the bust to Joanna, I learned that the piece was likely not manufactured by Auzoux, but possibly used as a reference piece in the factory’s collection. Perhaps it was sold during a weeding of their collection.

Just upon reaching this dead end, I received word that Laetitia Barbier, the Head Librarian of the Morbid Anatomy Library, had a lead. It seemed the creator may have been another Frenchman known as Dumoutier. And so began another plunge into JSTOR.

Dumoutier’s “Cephalometre,” a machine the phrenologist created to study the exact contours of the skull via Dumont d’Urville’s Phrenologist: Dumoutier and the Aesthetics of Races

Pierre Marie Dumoutier (1797-1871) was a famed phrenologist and adventurer. He accompanied the naval officer and explorer J. S. C. Dumont d’Uvrille on his expedition to the South Seas in 1837. The mission of the expedition was to further the study of phrenology (as well as ethnography) through analyzing the skulls of natives living in Patagonia, the Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea. Dumoutier was to be the “natural historian” of the voyage, which entailed casting the heads of many living me, as well as collecting the skulls of the dead. Upon one such attempt to acquire a particular skull from “a most ferocious tribe of Malays,” Dumoutier was refused. Instead, the native offered to quickly decapitate the head of an enemy and present that to the phrenologist. As generous as the offer was, Dumoutier declined. Upon his return to Toulon, in the south of France, Dumoutier had created more than fifty plaster busts, many painted to match the color of the individual’s skin tone, as well an equal number of skulls. While these artifacts of phrenological research were, at the time, property of the government, many are now in the care of the Flaubert Museum and the History of Medicine in Rouen.

 
Morbid Anatomy’s bust on the left, the Flaubert Museum’s on the right

Upon researching Dumoutier’s work, I found his style to be very similar to that of the one in the hands of the Morbid Anatomy Museum. The simplistic bases and the length of the neck are identical. Though not exact replicas, the materials, the labeling of only the left portion of the skull, the style of script, and the color of the plaster all appear very alike in comparison. The main differences between the two are the closed eye lids of the finished piece in Rouen, its paper label, and the script to the side of its base. It is possible that these details were performed during the finals phases of the cast’s completion – phases at which the Morbid Anatomy’s piece never quite arrived. While there remains many details to be scrutinized, questioned, and scrutinized again, it seems we are heading in the right direction – or at the very least a logical direction founded on evidence-based research. We now have a sketch of the history surrounding the bust, including who created it, the type of character the model may have been, as well as where both gentlemen likely lived.

This project will continue until more solid conclusions are unearthed. I have contacted the Flaubert Museum (using my pitiful French) regarding my and the Morbid Anatomy Museum’s research. I will report the diagnosis when the results are in. I also intend to explore the possibility of another French phrenologist’s involvement with the piece: François-Joseph-Victor Broussais (1772-1838), whose style is quite similar to that of Dumoutier. Until then, should there happen to be a phrenology scholar out there reading this, any suggestions are certainly welcome.

Sources

Combe, George. The Phrenological Journal and Magazine of Magazine of Moral Science, for the Year 1843, Vol. XVI. Edinburgh: Maclachlan, Stewart & Co., 1843.

Gordon, M and R. “1830S Phenological Head: Broussais's System" - Antique Scientific Instruments and Early Technology for Discerning Collectors... (accessed June 29, 2014).

Mclaren, Angus. “A Prehistory of the Social Sciences: Phrenology in France.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 23, no. 01 (1981): 3.

Pierpont, et al., Rev. John. Annals of Phrenology, Vol. 2. Boston: Marsh, Capen and Lyon, 1835.

Rochette, Marc. “Dumont d’Urville’s Phrenologist: Dumoutier and the Aesthetics of Races * Translated from French by Isabel Ollivier.” The Journal of Pacific History 38, no. 2 (2003): 251-268.

"The Death Mask of Napoleon." Musées en Haute-Normandie. (accessed June 29, 2014).

"The Phrenological Organs." Phrenology. (accessed June 29, 2014).

And of course Joanna Ebenstein and Laetitia Barbier