Dilettanti Grand Tour Stop Number One: Tim Mullen's Astounding Private Collection of Victorian Electronica Sponsored by Hendrick's Gin!

Hope you can join us for the first iteration of our new venture--The Dilettanti Grand Tour--in the astounding private collection of Tim Mullen! The event will take place November 14 at 8:00pm; tickets are extremely limited and are available here.

Loosely inspired by the Dilettanti Society, a society of 18th century aristocrats and scholars eager to share their love of art and knowledge around a good drink, we’re now embarking on a Grand Tour of the most unique private collections for a series of one-night only celebrations of all things arcane and spectacular. We’ll have drinks compliments of our kind sponsor Hendrick's Gin, we’ll have snacks, and we’ll see amazing things usually hidden behind closed doors.

Tonight's iteration will bring you in to the home of Tim Mullen, a New York based engineer with a mind-blowing collection of strange and beautiful examples of Victorian Electronica, most of which actually work! The collection ranges from antique x-ray devices to a Pre WWII TV to a funeral fan with illuminated religious figures to a “Victorian Teleport.”

To give you a sense of what's in store, above is a episode of The Midnight Archive featuring Tim and his astounding collection, directed by our filmmaker in residence Ronni Thomas.

Hope to see you there!

The Days of the Dead: A Dispatch from Rome, Guest Post by Scholar in Residence Elizabeth Harper, author of All The Saints You Should Know Blog

Below, please find a guest post by scholar in residence Elizabeth Harper of All the Saints You Should Know. in which she reports on her trip to Rome for The Days of the Dea.

All images are by the author. Please click on images to see larger, more detailed version!

The Days of the Dead: A Dispatch from Rome
Halloween in Rome is a quiet night even when it falls on an unusually warm Saturday like it did this year. A handful of kids trick-or-treated at the shops around the Campo de’ Fiori dressed as some pastiche of a corpse, a vampire or a witch and the study abroad students drank in the same bars they always do, but this time with light-up devil horns or a cape. I took a midnight stroll to the Ponte Sant’Angelo to see if the ghosts of any criminals that were executed there from the 12th to 19th century felt like celebrating, but it seemed they had no use for an imported American holiday. I wasn’t really disappointed though because on November 1st, as Americans woke to stare Christmas in its gaping maw, Italy began a two-day Catholic holiday devoted to remembering the dead.

November first was All Saints’ Day, a day devoted to the holy dead—the saints and martyrs in heaven. This is a holy day of obligation, meaning practicing Catholics are obligated to attend mass, so a lot of shops and restaurants were closed. But one of my favorite bakeries was open so I stopped and bought some almond cookies made especially for the holiday called “beans of the dead”.

Beans in Italy have a long and curious history as a food that harbors symbols of both life and death, in the form of supposed dead souls trapped in the bean and in the way beans swell with life like pregnant women. Beans, beans, the paradoxical fruit… Writers Sarah Troop and Colin Dickey have both written fascinating pieces about them and you should absolutely read both of their pieces.

Fortified by my bean-cookies and a double espresso (the Italian breakfast of champions) I set out on a walk through the city until I got to the Campo Verano cemetery, just outside of the Aurelian walls that surround the historic center of Rome. This is where Pope Francis was saying mass today. The cemetery was dressed for the occasion—relatives had spruced up graves with pots of mums and votive candles. 

A growing crowd trickled in and I figured I would try to find a decent place to stand on the outskirts and maybe I could catch a glimpse of the pope. I was unsuccessful. Instead, I got caught in a group of gung-ho nuns who were going to see il Papa come hell or high water (though either scenario seemed unlikely). When Vatican security officers began letting a few people into the gated seating area, it became clear I had two options: go with the flow or die in a nun stampede.

I chose to live and wound up with a great seat for the papal mass. The sun set as incense wound around the tombs and I was thankful to survive… for another day anyway.

That night, I chatted with a friend who jokingly said that the only way a papal mass in a cemetery could be more “me” is if they dug up the graves and sat the corpses around me. I replied in all seriousness, “No, that’s tomorrow night.”

The day after All Saints’ Day is All Souls’ Day, a holiday devoted to all the other Catholic dead—the regular Joes and Giuseppes who might be in heaven or who could be working their way though the fires of Purgatory where souls are purged of sin before being admitted to heaven. This holiday is somewhat less important in the eyes of the Church, but what it lacks in official holy obligations, it makes up for in popular devotion.

Around 4pm, as the starlings began their ritual of ominously swarming overhead, I went to Holy Mary of Prayer and Death, an oratory on Via Giulia that you can’t miss thanks to the huge, laughing skulls and skeletons that decorate the façade year-round. Any other time, you’re likely to find the doors locked but today, a nun kept a side door open and welcomed people inside. Drop a few coins in her basket and she’ll be your own personal Charon who takes you to the land of the dead. She escorted me down a narrow hallway lined with tombstones to what remains of the oratory’s crypt and cemetery.

The previous day’s cemetery had the pomp and formality you would expect from a papal mass. The elegant, 19th century tombs were built when Napoleon issued his public health codes which mandated that burials take place outside the city walls, under sanitary, modern conditions. These laws were put into place to obliterate macabre little ad hoc crypts like this one. Here, vertebrae were made into rickety electric chandeliers. Skulls were mounted on the wall to form a cross, or stacked in cabinets or piled onto the altar. A stray ribcage slumped in a corner. I recognized him from a previous visit, when he used to have a skull and had been propped up on a rod like a human pogo stick. Time keeps on slippin’, I suppose.

I’ve done a bit of research on this oratory so I decided to offer a little context to a group of confused and slightly unsettled folks from Boston who came down. They had just been walking down the street and came in because the nice nun told them to. I explained that this confraternity used to walk out to the countryside to collect the bodies of dead migrant workers from the fields. They gave them a Catholic burial in the crypt here, but a Catholic burial doesn’t actually require you to stay buried. So the bodies were eventually dug up and used as decoration or better yet, as actors in the theatrical scenes the confraternity staged for All Souls’ Day in the 18th and 19th centuries. If you want my full tour, you can read this previous guest blog I wrote which includes old photos of what the crypt looked like in its heyday.

The nun on door-duty seemed to enjoy my little tour because she sent a few more people to talk to me and by this time I was leaning into my fantasy job as Italian crypt-docent. (Please let me know if you hear of an opening in this field.) I would’ve stayed but I looked at the time and realized I had to run. There was no way I was going to be late for my next visit.

I hoofed it over to St. John Calibyte on Tiber Island for a very special once-a-year treat. On the night of November 2nd, and only then, you can join a candle-lit procession for the dead and see the Sacconi Rossi crypt.

The Sacconi Rossi were a confraternity similar to the one at Holy Mary of Prayer and Death, but they worked inside the city limits, picking up the bodies of people who died on the streets and fishing poor souls out of the Tiber. They offered these bodies a similar type of temporary burial followed by an eternity as crypt decoration.

Sacconi Rossi is a nickname and it literally means “red sacks” because they wore bright red robes. Their official name is “Devotees of the Brotherhood of Jesus Crucified at Calvary and Holy Mary of Sorrows” so you can see why they needed a nickname. They don’t really exist as an organization anymore but every year for All Souls’ Day, people from the parish of Santa Maria dell’Orto don the red sacks and honor the unknown and forgotten dead. After a mass, the priest and the red-robed parishioners led a candlelit procession down to the banks of the Tiber. There, the priest threw a wreath of white flowers into the river to honor all the unknown people who died. Then the procession went back up to the piazza were the crypt was unlocked for its annual blessing and visit.

In this crypt, the bodies were so old that the smaller bones had all crumbled into dust. What remained was mostly toothless, jawless skulls stacked on tibae and femora. The only whole-ish skeleton was missing his feet and wore the red robe of the confraternity. He was splayed out on the ground between two pews, inviting everyone to take a seat and ponder him. As David Sedaris says in his essay Memento Mori, “The skeleton has a much more limited vocabulary, and says only one thing: ‘You are going to die.”

A cloud of incense filled the crowded rooms of the Sacconi Rossi crypt and dozens more red votive candles burned as the priest sprinkled holy water on the bones. A few people joked under their breath that it was so hot that it was a shame that only the dead were getting sprinkled. But that’s the way it is. This is their day. Every other day is for the living.

Happy Halloween Everyone!

CALL FOR PAPERS: Death, Art and Anatomy Conference: University of Winchester, June 3-6, 2016

Call for papers just in from our friends at the University of Winchester! Abstracts due by Friday 11th December 2015! You can find out more here.

Death, Art and Anatomy Conference
University of Winchester, June 3-6, 2016

An interdisciplinary conference exploring the intersections between death, art and anatomy, by bringing together art historians, medical historians, and practising artists.

An interdisciplinary conference exploring the intersections between death, art and anatomy, by bringing together art historians, medical historians, and practising artists
The intersection between death, art and anatomy is a largely marginalised area of study, but one this conference hopes to explore.

A major strand of the conference will be addressing a core problem in medical history, that is the growing awareness of human anatomy in Britain between the medieval and early modern periods (c.1350-1560). This will be explored through the study and analysis of extant late-medieval carved cadaver sculptures which largely pre-date Vesalian knowledge of anatomy and suggest sculptors may have had an opportunity to study and recreate, emaciated (and eviscerated) human corpses.  This raises the question of what religious and ethical considerations surrounded the creation of such pieces, and how their creators may have gained access to the emaciated dead and/or dying. As such, central to the conference will be the presentation of a newly-commissioned carved cadaver sculpture inspired by historical counterparts, with reflections by the artist, world-leading anatomical sculptor, Eleanor Crook. 

Allied subjects such as medieval hospitals, visual culture and death, the inspiration of the dead in medical art, physicality and poetry, and death and medieval theology will also be explored by invited speaker.

Papers are invited that broadly address the theme of death, art and anatomy in the following areas:

• Death and art
• Anatomy and death
• Anatomy and art
• History of anatomy
• History of death
• Religion and anatomy
• Religion and death
• Medieval and early modern death beliefs and practices

Presentations should be in English, and will be allocated 20 minutes each, plus 10 minutes for discussion. Prospective participants are invited to submit abstracts of 200-250 words in Word. Proposals must include name, institutional affiliation (if relevant), a short bio (no more than 100 words) and an e-mail address. Proposals for panel discussions (organised by the participants) will be considered.

Deadline for receipt of abstracts is Friday 11th December 2015

For enquires please contact Christina.Welch@winchester.ac.uk

It is proposed that a selection of papers will be published

Ghosts And Gadgets : Communicating with the Spirits : A New Film by Ronni Thomas for Morbid Anatomy Museum Presents!

Below, Filmmaker in Residence Ronni Thomas--director of The Midnight Archive--introduces "Ghosts And Gadgets : Communicating with the Spirits," the newest episode of his Morbid Anatomy Museum Presents film series. In this film, we are introduced to Brandon Hodge and his collection of planchettes, instruments intended for use in communicating with spirits and ancestor to today's Ouija board. Stay tuned for news of a Kickstarter campaign by Thomas intended to fund the production of more films for the museum!

You can view the film above or by clicking here; Stay tuned for more episodes which will premiere monthly on our new You Tube channel, which can be found here

My latest film bridges a gap between my interests in both novelty items and genuine spiritual communication. Collector Brandon Hodge has, in his Austin home, one of the largest, most impressive collection of spirit communication devices, most notably, his collection of planchettes. Many of us know the ‘planchette’ from our toy Ouija board set; the little heart shaped plastic table that spells out our next true love’s name. However, before the popularization of the Ouija board and it mass-manufacturing, Spiritualists would use this device (and many others) to try to communicate with the spirits of our ancestors… Think of these ‘devices’ in terms of technology meets spirituality. Remember, there was a time when faith and science were parallel lines and not pitted against one another.  And, in some cases, as with the devices in Hodge’s collection, the two were employed to work hand in hand. As someone who appreciates both the anomalous and the scientific, I view these devices as early, perhaps naive attempts to demonstrate some solid proof of life after death.

Call for Papers: The Way of the Flesh, City University of New York, The Graduate Center, April 7-8

This spring, The Morbid Anatomy Museum will be partnering with The Graduate Center at the City University of New York in a 2-day conference exploring ideas of "the flesh."

Proposals (of 250 words or less) are now being solicited for papers; they can be sent to thewayofallfleshconference [at] gmail [dot] com by October 15, 2015. Full call for papers follows; for more information, click here.

The Way of All Flesh English Student Association Conference
City University of New York, the Graduate Center
April 7-8

"Where are we to put the limit between the body and the world, since the world is flesh?" (Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, 138)

What possibilities arise when we discuss flesh in the absence of a body? If the term body denotes a set of codes that determines and delimits flesh, then flesh might, in this framework, be conceptualized as that which the body can never fully contain. In Merleau-Ponty’s configuration, the flesh of the world is the mutually constitutive thickness between perceiving subject and perceived object. On a more intimate scale, how might discrete bodies — human and animal, animate and inanimate — enmesh? If the ideal body contains and encloses, how does flesh dissolve bodies through shared sensations, sufferings, pleasures? What kinds of knowledge do experiences of the flesh produce?

Uncovering alternative histories of flesh might compel more nuanced theorizations. Though flesh typically refers to the interior meat of human and animal bodies, we invite papers that reconsider this term, in ways that include but are not limited to the following:

• Ecologies of flesh, relations between flesh, bodies, and environments 
• Affective encounters through and between flesh, the emotional/affective expressivity of flesh 
• Flesh, sexuality, and identity
  Racializing logics of embodied difference/sameness, histories of taxonomizing, and commodifications of flesh Dissection and anatomy, revivification of flesh, pathologization of flesh, illness, pregnancy, tumors, and cell growth 
• Sensing flesh, synesthesia, touching/feeling flesh, the pleasure of flesh
  Historical and theoretical distinctions among flesh, meat, and edible bodies 
• Flesh in devotional practices from prayer to mortification, the memento mori, transubstantiation and the Eucharist 
• Transitioning and transforming flesh, shaping flesh, shrinking and expanding flesh
  Possession of flesh, the flesh trade, appropriating flesh 
• Violations of the flesh, flesh objects, torture, marking/exalting the flesh 
• Flesh — from animal skin to plant matter — in book production
• Discarded, forgotten, and wasted flesh, flesh after life and the afterlife of flesh 
• Nonconforming and extraordinary flesh, normative and ableist discourses of flesh 
• Technologies of the flesh, prostheses as flesh 
• The flesh of the text, writing (on) the flesh, the erotics of the text, textual surfaces

Please send proposals of 250 words or less to thewayofallfleshconference@gmail.com by October 15, 2015. fleshtheconference.wordpress.com

Image: The Apostle St Bartholomew, 1480 by Italian painter Matteo di Giovanni c.1430-1495. Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Hungary.

Medical Movies on the Web: The Mysterious Case of Petr Anokhin, Soviet Scientific Cinema, and the Conjoined Twins, Circa 1957

Our good friend Michael Sappol--author of A Traffic of Dead Bodies, curator of Dream Anatomy, and historian at the National Library of Medicine--just alerted us to a rare 1957 film about conjoined twins produced by the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences in Moscow that has recently been digitized by the National Library of Medicine.

Full details on the film follow, and a few stills from the film can be found above. You can view the film in its entirety above (click play on top image) or at Medical Movies on the Web by clicking here.

In 1957, the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences in Moscow released an unusual motion picture, Neural and Humoral Factors in the Regulation of Bodily Functions (Research on Conjoined Twins) (Исследования на неразделившихсия близнетсах). The Russian-language film was never widely circulated and is extremely rare: today the only accessible copy can be found in the historical audiovisuals collection of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. The 45 minute movie documents research conducted on two pairs of conjoined twins (Ira and Galia, and Masha and Dasha) each of whom had a shared circulatory system, but completely separate nervous systems. Supervised by the founder of Soviet neurocybernetics Petr Anokhin (1898-1974), the first pair was studied during 1937-38 and the second in 1950-57. Never intended to reach beyond a narrow specialist audience, the film offers a rare glimpse into the history of Soviet physiology and “scientific cinema,” a peculiar cinematographic genre that had a long and distinguished history in Soviet Russia.

While the conjoined twins presented a unique opportunity for research into a variety of interesting questions — physiological and also psychological, genetic, immunological, and embryological — the movie only addresses the issue of the relative roles of neural and humoral (circulatory and lymphatic) factors in the functioning of the human organism, according the theories espoused by Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), Russia’s first Nobel Prize winner and the doyen of Soviet physiology. Yet surprisingly, Pavlov himself is never mentioned in the film’s running commentary, and the film gives very little information on either Ira and Galia or Masha and Dasha. Only Masha and Dasha lived to adulthood and, even though they were made to serve as child human research subjects, without the consent of parents or guardians, in some ways the film marks the happiest part of their lives, up to around the time of their seventh birthday, when they were well attended to and received relatively good treatment.

These puzzles are the subject of Nikolai Krementsov’s article, “A Cinematic and Physiological Puzzle: Conjoined Twins Research, Scientific Cinema and Pavlovian Physiology”.

To see the film in its entirety (in both a Russian-language closed-captioned-for-the-hearing-impaired version and an English-subtitled version) — and to read the essay, go to Medical Movies on the Web at https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/collections/films/medicalmoviesontheweb/index.html.

Morbid Anatomy Museum Built On Top Of (Or Adjacent To) Revolutionary War Burial Ground?

On the corner that the Morbid Anatomy Museum now occupies, there was once a plaque marking the intersection as the "Burial place of ye 256 Maryland soldiers who fell in ye combat at ye Cortelyou House on ye 27th day of August 1776." If Wikipedia is to be believed, these soldiers were part of the Maryland Regiment, who were termed "immortals" due to their bravery, and nicknamed "The Dandy Fifth" because they came so fancily equipped.

More on the regiment and the battle, also from Wikipedia:

The Maryland Regiment had joined the Continental Army barely two weeks before the Battle of Long Island. Unlike most of Washington's Army, the Maryland contingent had been well drilled at home and were so well equipped – they even had bayonets, a rarity for the Army – that the Regiment was known at home as the Dandy Fifth, and to the rest of the Army as "macaronis", the then current word for dandies...

The bravery of the Maryland Regiment earned them the name "immortals". The dead were buried in a mass grave consisting of six trenches in a farm field. The gravesite is located on what is now Third Avenue between 7th and 8th Streets. Until the widening of Third Avenue in 1910, the site was marked by a tablet that read: "Burial place of ye 256 Maryland soldiers who fell in ye combat at ye Cortelyou House on ye 27th day of August 1776." The result of the brief battle was stunning for the Americans. More than a thousand men were killed, captured, or missing. Generals Stirling and Sullivan were in the enemy's hands. The battalion had lost more than 250 of their number. Most of the Marylanders' casualties occurred in the retreat and desperate covering action at the Cortelyou House. Ultimately, of the original Maryland 400 muster, 96 returned, with only 35 fit for duty.

Historian, Thomas Field, writing in 1869, "The Battle of Long Island," called the stand of the Marylanders "an hour more precious to liberty than any other in history." Four companies of the 1st Maryland stood as the final anchor of the crumbled American front line, and their heroic action not only saved many of their fellows but afforded Washington critical respite to regroup and withdraw his battered troops to Manhattan and continue the struggle for independence.

Source: The Battle of Brooklyn 1776 by John J. Gallagher (Sarpedon Publishers, 1995)

More here. Click image to see larger version of image.

Thanks, Movie Mike, for bringing this to our attention!

AUCTION ALERT: "Out of the Ordinary" Auction of Curiosities; September 10, 2015 South Kensington, London

A few highlights from Christie's upcoming "Out of the Ordinary" curiosity auction; 10 September 2015 South Kensington, London. Thanks, Bart Grob, for bringing this to our attention!

See all lots and find out more here.

Images:

1. An Italian Carved Marble 'Vanitas' Bust Of A Woman, Late 19th Century
2. A South German Or Austrian Group Of Carved And Pierced Ivory And Bone Miniature Furniture
3. A Life-Size Prototype Model Of A Gorilla, Dr. Louis Thomas Jérôme Auzoux, Circa 1863
4. A Welsh Taxidermy Specimen Of A Polycephalic Lamb (Ovis Aries); Early 20th Centur
5. A Late Victorian Taxidermy Caiman (Caiman Crocodilius) Mounted As A Dumbwaiter; Late 19th Early 20th Century
6. A Taxidermy Model Of An Australian Flying Fox Or Fruit Bat (Pteropus), Late 19th Century
7. French School, 18th Century, Ménage A Trois
8. Sir Joseph Noel Paton, R.S.A. (Dunfermline, Fife, 1821-1909 Edinburgh); The Commander-In-Chief Of British Forces In The Crimea, And Staff.

The Most Dangerous Game (1932) - The Hunt for Human Prey Showing on 16mm Film with Movie Mike: Guest Post by Peter M. Parrella (aka "Skeleton Pete")

Following is a guest post by Peter M. Parrella (aka "Skeleton Pete") about The Most Dangerous Game, a delightfully shocking pre-code tale of sex, violence and exoticism shot on the same sets--and starring much of the cast, including Fay Wray--as King Kong. 

Movie Mike will be screening the film at The Morbid Anatomy Museum in real 16mm next Tuesday, September 1st; more and tickets can be found here. Hope very much to see you there!

The Most Dangerous Game

Peter M. Parrella

In November of 1932, RKO Pictures released The Most Dangerous Game (MDG) based on Richard Connell’s short story with its treacherous twist on hunter and quarry. On the surface the film appears to be a typical jungle-chase adventure of its time. In the early 1930s the “bring ‘em back alive” exploits of zoo animal collector Frank Buck spawned two bestselling books. At the same time the first of the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan series (Tarzan, The Ape Man,) the tropical island love story Bird of Paradise, and the most outre of “animal” films The Island of Lost Souls were released.

The Most Dangerous Game, with its great looking Hollywood leads, Fay Wray and Joel McCrea, lecherous villain broadly played by Leslie Nielsen, and “shocker” trophies of his “game losers”, would also fulfill the fancies of a depression era audience hungry for thrills both exotic and (pre-Hays Code) erotic. In a historical context, The Most Dangerous Game serves as a Rosetta Stone for unlocking obscure details of its surrounding productions. As an inheritor of the artistic DNA of an aborted prehistoric monster film, Creation, and mid-wife to King Kong (KK), a masterpiece of celluloid fantasy, it reveals the genesis of collaborative convergence between two real life adventurers, a cutting edge special effects artist, and an art department steeped in the engravings of a renowned 19th century illustrator.

By late 1931, the co-producer/director team of Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Beaumont Schoedsack had come to RKO Pictures under the auspices of new vice president for production David O. Selznick. “Coop” and “Monty” had an ace in the hole when it came to adventure, both had a long list of real exploits behind them that would have made great movies in and of themselves. They had since exchanged their weapons for cameras, capturing footage of animals and indigenous populations in their natural habitats. Taking the standard travelogue a step further to include sparse but real life narrative, those raw materials, became the well-reviewed and money earning proto-documentaries, or “dramas of the wilderness,” Grass (1925) and Chang (1927). They also supplied spectacular live action scenes for the team’s feature version of The Four Feathers (1929). What they would imbue in their wholly fantastic films was a sense of verité. Both The Most Dangerous Game and King Kong share a frenetic quality created by men who knew what it meant to run for their lives, escaping human captors during World War 1 and wild animals while on safari. In The Most Dangerous Game Schoedsack applied some of the same visual techniques from his expeditionary days filming Zaroff’s slavering hounds from a low angle, having them literally trod over the viewer, just as he had years earlier with a herd of stampeding elephants in Chang.

Part of Selznick’s mandate at the failing studio was to assess the earning potential of films currently in the works, and to that end he requested Cooper’s aid. One such project was Creation, a lost world dinosaur drama that Cooper found wanting for its tepid script and lack of centralized antagonist. Though his assessment of Creation led to its shutdown, Cooper saw a “one door closes, another door opens” scenario. He had long been brewing a story about a giant gorilla battling ancient lizards. It has been reported that in those days before “no animals have been harmed during the making of this film” consciousness, he considered using live animals. Fortunately he found a perfect solution in the stop motion animation techniques of Willis O’Brien. He quickly pitched the idea to Selznick who trusted Cooper’s instincts enough to give a tacit go ahead and some funding cribbed from other productions. Cooper still needed final approval from the RKO executive board in New York City and put the fallow Creation team to work creating a now legendary “test reel” to convince them to green-light “Kong,” then alternately called The Beast and The Eighth Wonder.

Though The Most Dangerous Game is often looked upon as the little sibling of King Kong, one can point to their co-production as a reason the latter film was made at all. A healthy portion of the cost of live jungle set construction was charged against MDG’s budget, while its yacht set became King Kong’s ship cabin. King Kong’s script clearly notes where MDG assets are used, often referring to the “fog hollow” and jungle “ledge” sets. In fact, “fog hollow” is the same swampy terrain through which Count Zaroff’s hounds and Kong’s apatosaurus chase their respective victims. The films also shared a screenwriter in part. James Ashmore Creelman penned MDG's taut 63 minutes and the main action of King Kong’s jungle scenes, but ultimately left the production when he felt the story had become too convoluted. Still, Creelman’s no-time-to-think pacing of MDG likely informed the final release edit of King Kong. Several planned scenes of dinosaurs were ultimately cut to focus the action back on main story of beauty and the beast.

In addition to their jungle adventure trope, Creation, The Most Dangerous Game and King Kong also share a visual vocabulary based firmly on the etchings of illustrator Gustave Doré (1832-1883). In 1930, Lewis W. Physioc, a founding father of cinematography, wrote an article for the Cinematographic Annual exhorting cameramen to go beyond “crank turning” and embrace more artistic methods in mounting and lighting scenes. Though Doré’s influence can be traced as far back as the films of effects pioneer George Méliés, it is Physioc who delineated in print the value of the artist’s style pointing out that “…if there is one man’s work that can be taken as a cinematographer’s text, it is that of Doré’s. His stories are told in our own language of “black and white,” are highly imaginative and dramatic and should stimulate anybody’s ideas.” (Physioc, Lewis W. “Cinematography an Art Form.” Cinematographic Annual, April 1930, p. 25.) 

Physioc’s assessment of Doré as a master of the escapist art form of his time was spot on. The French illustrator’s visions for dozens of written works including Paradise Lost, the fables of La Fontaine, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and the Bible still inform our general view of how angels, devils and all things in between appear. I consider Orlando Furioso and The Rabelais milestones of pre-cinema fantasy.

Apparently embracing this entreaty, Chief Effects Technician and head animator Willis O’Brien (The Lost World, 1925) supplied copies of Doré prints to the production artists, matte painters and miniature set builders who dutifully emulated the engravings from the ancient gnarled roots of dark forests where the sky is rarely seen except through a dense canopy of leaves and vines to the striations of their craggy rocks and mountains. Many of Doré’s major plates exhibit an engraving method that gives the illusion of great depth even in their two dimensional medium. A dark surrounding area in the forefront, analogous to the proscenium arch of a theater stage, draws the viewer into the well lit mid-area where the action takes place, while less contrasty engraved lines in the background create the look of distance. RKO studio artists and technicians followed this guide, using severals layers of glass painted mattes, miniature foliage on multiple animation tables, and low contrast backgrounds painted on masonite flats all meticulously aligned to complete the effective vision.

One example of this method—possibly the most iconic of shared sets—features a jungle chasm spanned by a log bridge and was prominently used in the scenarios of all three films discussed here. It has its origins in a beautifully detailed Doré plate for François-René de Chateaubriand’s Atala (1801), that depicts several Native Americans crossing a log bridge in a primeval setting.


Had Creation been completed it would have been the scene of a giant dual horned prehistoric mammal, an arsinoitherium, attacking a group of sailors attempting to cross to safety. Though no remnants of it appear to exist it was apparently interpolated into the “Kong” test reel only to be excised for final release. Of course, Kong himself gets his own star turn on the other side of that log, shaking the sailors to their doom at the bottom of the chasm. The action was famously changed from their being devoured by giant spiders and insects to dying in the fall for the release print. The Most Dangerous Game actually affords us the loveliest view of the miniature log set

as Wray and McCrea traverse it to escape Zaroff’s dogs and henchmen, stopping just long enough to allow us to take in the grandeur of its scope.

By benefitting from several disparate serendipities The Most Dangerous Game stands above its pot-boiler trappings.

Though never completing another adventure of the caliber of King Kong, Merian Cooper, Ernest Schoedsack and Willis O’Brien went on to create the totally engaging Mighty Joe Young in 1949. The art of Gustave Doré found later acolytes in O’Brien/Physioc protegé Ray Harryhausen (Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, 1957, Jason and the Argonauts, 1963) and in the characters of Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal (1982) and Labyrinth (1986). 

Images:

1. RKO-Radio Pictures' pre-Hays Code poster art for The Most Dangerous Game made no secret of the fate met by losers of Count Zaroff’s hunts.
2. Atala, by Chateaubriand “In a valley to the north, at some distance from the grand village, was a wood of cypresses and deals, called the Wood of Blood; it was reached by the ruins of one of those monuments of which the origin is ignored, and which were the work of a people now unknown.” In the days before movies, Gustave Doré’s illustrations represented the pinnacle of popular art. His compositional nuances and handling of light and shade made his works a perfect guide for early cinematographers invested in elevating their own art a generation later. This magnificent plate for Chateaubriand’s “new world” romance, Atala, deeply influenced the look and action of The Most Dangerous Game, King Kong and their uncompleted forefather, Creation. Scanned from the author’s collection, original size 8 x 9.75 inches on 9.5 X 13 inch page.
3. This collaborative pre-production art (circa 1930) by Byron Crabbe, Willis O’Brien, and Mario Larrinaga, for the unrealized Creation project, depicts a scene eventually brought to the screen in King Kong. The ancient ruins and rendering of that telltale log bridge clearly reveals the influence of Doré’s Atala illustration.
4. Though King Kong employs the log bridge set to much more dramatic effect, this shot from The Most Dangerous Game, a mix of live action, multiple layers of glass painting, miniature and real foliage, and matte art, affords us the most artfully lit and Doré-esque glimpse of the tableaux. The two films share more than a similar cast. MDG’s budget defrayed the costs of many of Kong’s production assets.
5. Clearly bearing the influence of Gustave Doré’s aesthetic, the action on the log bridge became a centralized motif, likely under Willis O’Brien’s urging. Between December 1931, when it was pitched, and March 1932, when it was green lighted, King Kong inherited most of the effects assets (including dinosaur animation models) as well as some of the scenarios of the cancelled film Creation. Top Left: Byron Crabbe and Willis O’Brien’s concept art for Creation depicts a prehistoric mammal, an arsinoitherium, attacking sailors crossing a log bridge. Top Right: The scene realized in miniature on an animation table and likely finalized for King Kong’s “proof of theory” test reel. Middle: A change of antagonist. King Kong shakes sailor’s to their death in later production art. Bottom: The live stage set in early production closely adheres to the chiaroscuro effects of the production artwork.

Guest Book Review of Alan Finn's "Things Half in Shadow" by Jennifer Berman

Following is book review of Alan Finn's Things Half in Shadow by Jennifer Berman, one of the contributors to our first exhibition, The Art of Mourning. The book was donated to the library by writer Todd Ritter.

In his new novel, Things Half in Shadow, Alan Finn, showing a great command of history, has created a wonderful world full of interesting people living, dead and otherwise. He weaves a delightful yarn recreating post-Civil War Philadelphia in all its multi-layered, multi-tiered glory. A world filled with appealing characters and a ghost story/mystery that keeps twisting till the very end.

The most appealing character among them is Edward Clark a young crime reporter and spiritualist scoffer, who reluctantly takes on an assignment to uncover phony spiritualists and unwittingly winds up involved in the mysterious murder of Philadelphia’s most famous medium.

He sets out at once to clear his name and we follow right along with him. Anyone who enjoys ghosts, ghouls, shadowy societies, dark secrets, misalliance, deception, romance, murder and mystery, and who doesn’t, will have a lot of fun reading this.

Let’s hope, like the spirits, Mr Clark and Company will return for another visit soon.

Seeking Attribution for Wax Dying Christ Figure

The photo above of what appears to be a wax dying Christ was taken on a trip to Europe in 1994. I am not sure where, but might well have been Austria or Germany. If anybody knows from whence it came, we would be most grateful if you'd let us know! Email joanna [at] morbidanatomymuseum [dot] org with any leads!

Saint Florian Gowanus Pageant and Procession! Isadora Duncan at Greenwood Cemetery! Call for Dilettanti Collectors! Morbid Anatomy News and Events

We have many wonderful goings on this week at Morbid Anatomy, but first, a special alert: Morbid Anatomy is currently seeking a 2011 or later model Macbook laptop in order to upgrade our A/V system. Donor will receive a one-year membership. If you can help, please email cristina [at] morbidanatomymuseum.org!

AND: to all you collectors out there: if you are interested in participating in our Dilettanti Society show and tell happy hour (here for previous incarnation), please email info@morbidanatomymuseum.org, subject line: Dilettanti!

For new events this week: First up is an official save the date for our First Annual Morbid Anatomy Saint Florian Gowanus Pageant and Procession; we are still accepting proposals for short works for this event, responding to the ideas relating to the Gowanus Canal or saints (Sunday, August 16; more here). We also have Dial P for Pagan: Madeline Schwartzman's Campus of Curiosities Shown on 16mm Film! (Wednesday, December 2nd, more here).

And, if taxidermy is your thing, we have a number of excellent newly announced Divya Anantharaman classes to choose from: Anthropomorphic Mouse (One or Two Headed) (Saturday, September 12th, more here); English Sparrow (Sunday, September 13th, more here); Fancy Chicken (with Katie Innamorato; Sunday, September 20th; more here); Anthropomorphic Rabbit (Saturday, October 3rd; more here); and Archaeopteryx, Microraptors and Hopeful Monsters - Rogue Taxidermy Bird Dinosaur class (Sunday, October 4th, more here)

We have a number of excellent events taking place this very week, beginning with Movie Mike presenting Bluebeard (1944) with John Carradine as the serial strangler of women in old Paris on real 16mm (Tuesday, July 28th, more here) followed by Catherine Gallant on Isadora Duncan’s Dances of Mourning as part of "Common Shade" at Greenwood Cemetery (Wednesday, July 29; more here); 'The Gothic Sensibility: Victorian 'Gloomths' and the Contemporary 'Death Curious' with Romany Reagan Wednesday, July 29th, SOLD OUT); The Even More Disturbing and Absurd World of Medical Patents with Patent Attorney Eric Indin (Thursday, July 30th; more here); Chipmunk Taxidermy Class with Divya Anantharaman (Saturday, August 1st. SOLD OUT; and Skunk Taxidermy Class with Divya Anantharaman (Sunday, August 2; more here).

If you want to avoid sold out events, and get early access to our August 30 flea market, become a member today! Besides early entry and advance notice of events, members also enjoy discounted admissions and unlimited free museum entry. Find out more here.

There is also still time to enter our special fundraising raffle, where you have a chance to win a trip for two with hotel and airfare included from your home city to the Morbid Anatomy Museum this October for Day of the Dead! Must enter by September 20th, and winner will be announced on September 21; Details can be found here.

List of events follows. Hope to see you at one or more!

 _______________________________________________________

 IMMEDIATELY UPCOMING EVENTS 

• Movie Mike Presents : Morbid Movie Madness - Bluebeard with John Carradine as the serial strangler of women in old Paris in 16mm!
  Tuesday, July 28th, 8pm, $10, Tickets (and more info) here.

• Common Shade: Catherine Gallant on Isadora Duncan’s Dances of Mourning at Greenwood Cemetery
  Wednesday, July 29, 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm, $25/Member $20 OFFSITE at Greenwood Cemetery, Tickets (and more info) here.

• 'The Gothic Sensibility: Victorian 'Gloomths' and the Contemporary 'Death Curious': An Illustrated Lecture with Romany Reagan 
  Wednesday, July 29th, 8pm, $8, SOLD OUT (more info here).

• The Dilettanti Society Happy Hour Presented by Art in the Age: Cocktails and Show and Tell in the Morbid Anatomy Library: Prepared Skulls of Tribal Oceanic and African Culture with Special Guest Cole Harrell 
  POSTPONED Thursday, July 30th,  6pm - 8pm, $12 for members. Tickets and more info here.

• The Even More Disturbing and Absurd World of Medical Patents: An Illustrated Lecture with Eric Indin, Registered Patent Attorney. 
  Thursday, July 30th,  8pm - 10pm, $8, Tickets (and more info) here.

• Chipmunk Taxidermy Class with Divya Anantharaman
  Saturday, August 1st, 12pm - 6pm, $185 (all tickets include admission to the museum), SOLD OUT ( info here)

• Skunk Taxidermy Class with Divya Anantharaman
  Sunday, August 2nd, 12pm - 6pm, $450 (includes admission to the museum), Tickets (and more info) here

_______________________________________________________

NEWLY ANNOUNCED EVENTS

• SAVE THE DATE First Annual Morbid Anatomy Saint Florian Gowanus Pageant and Procession, Sunday, August 16
  Currently seeking short pieces--talks, performances, screenings, spectacles--responding to the ideas relating to the Gowanus Canal or saints. More here.

• Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class, One or Two Headed with Divya Anantharaman
  Saturday, September 12th, 10pm - 6 pm, $120. Tickets and more info here.

• English Sparrow Taxidermy Class with Divya Anantharaman
  Sunday, September 13th, 12 pm - 7 pm, $195. Tickets and more info here.

• Fancy Chicken Taxidermy Class with Divya Anantharaman and Katie Innamorato
  Sunday, September 20th, 12 pm to 7:30 pm, $400. Tickets and more info here.
  
  Anthropomorphic Rabbit Taxidermy Class with Divya Anantharaman
  Saturday, October 3rd, 10 am - 7 pm, $300. Tickets and more info here. 

• Archaeopteryx, Microraptors and Hopeful Monsters - Rogue Taxidermy Bird Dinosaur class with Divya Annantharaman
  Sunday, October 4th, 12 pm - 6:30 pm, $180. Tickets and more info here.

• Dial P for Pagan: Madeline Schwartzman's Campus of Curiosities Shown on 16mm Film!  
  Wednesday, December 2nd, 8 pm, $10. Tickets and more info here.

_______________________________________________________

ALL UPCOMING EVENTS

• Movie Mike Presents : Morbid Movie Madness - Bluebeard with John Carradine as the serial strangler of women in old Paris in 16mm!
  Tuesday, July 28th, 8pm, $10, Tickets (and more info) here.

• 'The Gothic Sensibility: Victorian 'Gloomths' and the Contemporary 'Death Curious' : An Illustrated Lecture with Romany Reagan 
  Wednesday, July 29th, 8pm, $8, SOLD OUT (more info here).

• Common Shade: Catherine Gallant on Isadora Duncan’s Dances of Mourning at Greenwood Cemetery
  Wednesday, July 29, 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm, $25/Member $20 OFFSITE at Greenwood Cemetery, Tickets (and more info) here.

• The Dilettanti Society Happy Hour Presented by Art in the Age: Cocktails and Show and Tell in the Morbid Anatomy Library: Prepared Skulls of Tribal Oceanic and African Culture with Special Guest Cole Harrell 
  POSTPONED Thursday, July 30th,  6pm - 8pm, $12 for members. Tickets and more info here.

• The Even More Disturbing and Absurd World of Medical Patents: An Illustrated Lecture with Eric Indin, Registered Patent Attorney. 
  Thursday, July 30th,  8pm - 10pm, $8, Tickets (and more info) here.

• Chipmunk Taxidermy Class with Divya Anantharaman
  Saturday, August 1st, 12pm - 6pm, $185 (all tickets include admission to the museum), SOLD OUT ( info here)

• Skunk Taxidermy Class with Divya Anantharaman
  Sunday, August 2nd, 12pm - 6pm, $450 (includes admission to the museum), Tickets (and more info) here

• Raccoon Shoulder Mount Class with Karie Innamorato
  Tuesday, August 4th, 12 pm - 6 pm, $450, Tickets (and more info) here.

• Evening Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class with Divya Anantharaman 
  Wednesday, August 5th, 6:30pm - 10:30pm, $110 (all tickets include admission to the museum), SOLD OUT here

• Dead and Lovely: An Illustrated Lecture with Elizabeth Harper, All the Saints You Should Know.
  Thursday, August 6th, 8pm, $12. Tickets and more info here. 

• Psychedelics and Death: A Brief Introduction: An Illustrated Lecture with Psychotherapist Dr. Neal Goldsmith
  Friday, August 7th, 8pm - 10 PM, $8, SOLD OUT (info here)

• Victorian Hair Art Workshop with Master Jeweler Karen Bachmann
  Saturday, August 8th, 11am - 6pm (with lunch break), $150 (includes museum admission), Tickets (and more info) here.

• Anthropomorphic Insect Shadowbox Workshop with Daisy Tainton
  Sunday, August 9th, 1pm - 4pm, $75, Tickets (and more info) here.

• "Man-Eater: The Life and Legend of an American Cannibal: An Illustrated Lecture and Book Party with Harold Schechter.
  Monday, August 10th, 8pm, $5, Tickets and more info here.

• Common Shade: Dr. Seth A. Gopin on the Rural Cemetery in Paris and Beyond at Greenwood Cemetery
  Tuesday, August 11, 7:30 pm,  $25 / Members $20, Tickets (and more info) here** Offsite: Location: The Historic Chapel at Greenwood Cemetery (500 25th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11232)

• Midcentury Stereopanorama with Eric Drysdale: Look and see the 1950s in 3-D!
  Thursday, August 13th, 8pm, $20, Tickets (and more info) here.

• SAVE THE DATE First Annual Morbid Anatomy Saint Florian Gowanus Pageant and Procession, Sunday, August 16
  Currently seeking short pieces--talks, performances, screenings, spectacles--responding to the ideas relating to the Gowanus Canal or saints. More here.

• The Embalmed Head of Oliver Cromwell: A Memoir: An Illustrated Lecture with Marc Hartzman
  Wednesday, August 19th, 8pm, $8, Tickets (and more info) here.

• Book Party for "The Zombie of Great Peru," by Pierre-Corneille Blessebois, translated by Doug Skinner
  Thursday, August 20th, 8pm, $5, Tickets (and more info) here.

• Starling Taxidermy Class with Katie Innamorato 
  Saturday, August 22nd, 12pm - 6pm, $275 (all tickets include admission to the museum), Tickets (and more info) here

• Rat/ Guinea Pig with Wings Gaff Taxidermy Class with Katie Innamorato 
  Sunday, August 23rd, 12pm - 6pm, $235 (all tickets include admission to the museum), Tickets (and more info) here

• Demystifying Shamanism: An Illustrated Presentation with Dr. Stanley Krippner
  Friday, August 28th, 8 pm, $12, SOLD OUT (more info here).

• Myth, Magic and Michael Jackson: Illustrated Presentation and Michael Jackson Karaoke Birthday Party
  Saturday, August 29th, 8pm, $20/$15 for members, Tickets (and more info) here.

• Morbid Anatomy Flea Market at the Bell House
  August 30th, 12 - 6 pm (Members get 11:00 AM entry) at The Bell House (149 7th St, Brooklyn, NY 11215, a block away from the Morbid Anatomy Museum). More info here.

• Charles Fort and the Forteans that Followed, an Illustrated Lecture with Doug Skinner 
  Thursday, September 10th, 8pm, $8, Tickets (and more info) here.

• Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class, One or Two Headed with Divya Anantharaman
  Saturday, September 12th, 10pm - 6 pm, $120. Tickets and more info here.

• English Sparrow Taxidermy Class with Divya Anantharaman
  Sunday, September 13th, 12 pm - 7 pm, $195. Tickets and more info here.

• Fancy Chicken Taxidermy Class with Divya Anantharaman and Katie Innamorato
  Sunday, September 20th, 12 pm to 7:30 pm, $400. Tickets and more info here.

• Morbidity of Mathematics #2: Mathematical Murder, An illustrated lecture with Michael Carlisle
  Tuesday, September 22nd, 8pm, $8, Tickets (and more info) here.

• The Luxor Mummy: The Fantasy and Reality of Egyptian Mummy Magic, an Illustrated Lecture with Ava Forte Vital 
  Tuesday, September 29th, 8 pm, $8, Tickets (and more info) here.

• Down the Hatch: The History and Anatomy of Sword Swallowing: An Illustrated Lecture with Ilise S. Carter aka The Lady Aye 
  Wednesday, September 30th, 8pm, $8, Tickets (and more info) here

• You Can't Kill Me, I'm Already Dead: An Illustrated Lecture with Evan Michelson.
  Friday, October 2nd, 8pm, $15 ( Oct. 2nd. Lecture + Oct 3rd Party Pass is $25 for Morbid Anatomy Members ) Tickets and more info here.

• Anthropomorphic Rabbit Taxidermy Class with Divya Anantharaman
  Saturday, October 3rd (DAY), 10 am - 7 pm, $300. Tickets and more info here. 

• Propaganda Magazine Party with Fred Berger.  
  Saturday, October 3rd (EVE), 8pm, $25 ( Oct. 2nd. Lecture + Oct 3rd Party Pass is $25 for Morbid Anatomy Members ) Tickets and more info here.

• Archaeopteryx, Microraptors and Hopeful Monsters - Rogue Taxidermy Bird Dinosaur class with Divya Annantharaman
  Sunday, October 4th, 12 pm - 6:30 pm, $180. Tickets and more info here.

• Hannibal Lecter, Book Collector, An Illustrated Lecture with Elisabeth Brander, Rare Book Librarian at Washington University 
  Thursday, October 8th, 8pm, Tickets (and more info) here.

• The Witch of Lime Street: Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World, an Illustrated lecture with David Jaher.
  Friday, October 16th, 8pm, $5, Tickets (and more info) here.

• "Witchcraft Through the Ages" (Häxan) - Polka music! Butter Churns!! 16mm silent film screening with Victrola!!! 
  Monday, October 26th, 8pm, $12, SOLD OUT (and more info) here.

• "Spirit of the Magpie: Hidden Keys to the Scavenger's Scrapbook" An audiovisual trance journey with stopmotion animation and improvised sound
  Wednesday, November 18th, 8pm, $12, Tickets (and more info) here

• Dial P for Pagan: Madeline Schwartzman's Campus of Curiosities Shown on 16mm Film!. 
  Wednesday, December 2nd, 8 pm, $10. Tickets and more info here.

Image: Saint Sebastian (left) and Saint Florian (right). Oil painting by an Austrian painter, 18th (?) century. Wellcome Library.

How to Kill an Animal Humanely: Guest Post by Michael Sappol, National Library of Medicine

Below is a guest post by our good friend Michael Sappol, author of A Traffic of Dead Bodies, curator of Dream Anatomy, and historian at The National Library of Medicine. It was originally posted on their wonderful Circulating Now blog.

Is empathy innate? Are we all born with the ability to identify with the emotions of others, to feel someone else’s pain? Today’s media is chock full of stories about experiments in neuroscience and child psychology that seem to show that the emergence and growth of the ability to empathize is a natural part of human psychological development, present even in toddlers.

Yet human beings periodically commit terrible acts of cruelty and violence, and are often indifferent to suffering. What if the development of empathy is a precious and fragile cultural accomplishment, something that has developed in fits and starts over time, in certain historical moments, in certain places, among certain people? Maybe most people have the ability to empathize, but what if empathy is a set of practices and beliefs that have to be learned and cultivated in order for individuals to exercise it? Those practices and beliefs would, of necessity, only fully develop in a society that has come to place a high value on empathy, that formally and informally rewards empathic behavior and punishes cruelty and indifference, a society that devotes resources to teaching, rehearsing and developing methods of empathy.

How to Kill Animals Humanely is a relic of the history of empathy. English-speaking people originally used the terms “human” and “humane” interchangeably, merely to distinguish human beings from other “brute” animal species. Sometime in the early 18th century, “humane” began to have a special use: to denote a compassionate, caring attitude toward the suffering of other humans and animals, a profound sensitivity that was both a moral obligation and a psychological condition. The word “humane” increasingly came to be used in opposition to “inhumane,” a term that was applied to acts of cruelty to other living beings, and to the people who took pleasure in inflicting suffering or who were just callously indifferent. In the 19th century, “humane” societies were founded to “prevent cruelty,” first to animals (and later to children), first in Great Britain and then in the United States.

This pamphlet, a publication of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA), is both a polemic against “needless cruelty” and a handy guide for those who are obliged to slaughter animals for food, medical research, or—in the case of injured or ailing animals—for purposes of euthanasia. “If you must kill them, do it without cruelty. Every animal has a right to justice and protection at the hands of the superior animal—man….” (This was very unlike contemporary antivivisectionism and vegetarianism, and later People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which absolutely opposed the slaughter of animals, and which criticized the very notion of human moral superiority.)

The author, Dr. Daniel Denison Slade, was a socially prominent surgeon and veterinarian, founder of the Boston Veterinary Institute, professor of applied zoology at Harvard, director of the MSPCA, and a man of many other interests. Being a veterinarian of longstanding practice, Dr. Slade was an expert on animal slaughter. In his little pamphlet he considers how “the Jews,” Germans, French and Dutch do their killing, but in the end makes his own recommendations, supplemented by helpful illustrations. Ways to kill animals “in the most humane manner possible,” must vary according to the varying anatomical structure of different species: horses, cows, dogs, pigs, cats, poultry, Dr. Slade tells us. Even fish should be killed humanely. For most mammals, the creature should receive powerful blows to the head with a mallet— precisely where depends on the species and individual beast—stunning the animal into unconsciousness, and then finishing it off with more blows or a bullet or a blast from a shotgun. Slade also considers other techniques to lessen the suffering, even chloroform. But he warns against “pithing” a method “commonly in vogue,” in which the “spinal cord is severed or punctured between the first and second bones of the neck.” Such an approach, he worries, is “undoubtedly attended by more suffering than other methods.”

Although humane techniques of slaughter may require some practice to get right and a bit more work, Slade argues, they can also improve “the wholesomeness of meat for food, and the market value of the animal slaughtered; there being no question as to the effects of torture, cruelty and fear upon the secretions, and if upon the secretions, necessarily upon the flesh.” He finishes the pamphlet with a long listing of the mission and accomplishments of the MSPCA (including the provision to Boston police stations of “hammers and hoods for killing horses mercifully”), followed by the Society’s “thirty-nine articles of faith” and a fee schedule for membership.

Read other How To… features from the NLM Collections here.
Michael Sappol is a historian in the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine.

Image List

1. How to Kill Animals Humanely, 1879. By D. D. Slade, M. D. 
2. A longitudinal section of the skull of a horse. Original caption: Situation of the brain. Fig. 1 
3. A drawing of a horse's head indicating where the humane stunning blow should fall. Original Caption The horse may be destroyed by blows upon the head, by the bullet, or by chloroform.1. by blows.– Having blindfolded the horse, the operator, armed with a heavy axe or hammer, should stand upon the side and to the front of the anumal, directing his blow to a point in the middle of a line drawn across the forehead from the dentere of the pit above the eye. See Fig. 2. One vigorous and well-directed blow will fell the animal, but the blow should be repeated to make destruction sure.
4. A longitudinal section of the skull of a cow.
5. A drawing of a cow's head indicating where the humane stunning blow should fall.  Page 9…vessels, or by plunging a long and sharp-pointed knife into the heart and large blood-vessels at a point corresponding to the upper potion of the brisket, and just above the breast-bone.
   Failure to fell the animal at the first blow cannot be attributed to any difference in the anatomical structure of the part, but rather to the fact that the blow was ill-directed, almost invariably too low, that it was not sufficiently powerful, or that both of these faults were combined.
6. "Thirty-Nine Articles of Faith". D. D. (Daniel Denison) Slade (1823–1896), How to Kill Animals Humanely (Boston: Issued by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, [1879?]). 15 pp., illustrated. 4” x 6½”.
7. "Rates of Membership". D. D. (Daniel Denison) Slade (1823–1896), How to Kill Animals Humanely (Boston: Issued by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, [1879?]). 15 pp., illustrated. 4” x 6½”.