Early 19th Century Corrosion Cast of a Child: Guest Post by Carla Valentine, Curator of Barts Pathology Museum

I am so excited to announce that the amazing Barts Pathology Museum has launched a blog! On the blog, curator Carla Valentine will regularly report on her detailed research into the over 5,000 fascinating specimens she cares for at the Grade II listed Barts Pathology Museum at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, West Smithfield, London.

To celebrate the launch, I asked Carla if she might like to write a guest post about one of my favorite pieces from the collection which I had admired in the recent Museum of London's "Doctors, Dissection and ResurrectionMen" exhibition.

Following is her post; If you like what you read (and see!) I  urge you to check out the wonderful--and delightfully image heavy--blog by clicking here.

After a short stint at the Museum of London's 'Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men' this year I’m happy to say the above specimen – a corrosion cast of a child covered in shellac - has found its new home here at Barts Pathology Museum. It was originally housed at our sister hospital The Royal London, which is of course the home of Joseph Merrick (The Elephant Man) and in fact it was Frederick Treves, the man who ‘discovered’ the Elephant Man, who actually purchased this specimen on a trip to Paris in the 1800s.

We don’t have much more information about the child except that it probably pre-dates Treves by a long way and is from the early 1800s.

‘Corrosion casting’ similar to this was developed by such pioneers as Jan Swammerdam (above, Wikicommons) and Frederick Ruysch (below, Wikicommons) as early as the 16^th century and was still popular with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century anatomists. Swammerdam and Ruysch had created a technique to inject the blood and lymphatic vessels of corpses with a mixture of wax, talc and pigments that set and endured, and often the surrounding flesh was corroded or removed. Anatomists were still using Swammerdam’s syringe to inject mixtures of varying proportions into their specimens until the early 20^th Century.

According to Museum Vrolik, Ruysch had created the art of injecting specimens with a wax-like substance, dyed red with cinnabar, so that they could be more lifelike when displayed in jars (similar to the pink-tinted embalming fluid used to make loved ones more lifelike today.) However, he also injected tissues and organs which he then ‘embalmed and dried’ which would be more likely to give the dehydrated look of this specimen. In addition to such methods Ruysch introduced a new way of embalming specimens (based upon techniques already known by the ancient Egyptians).”

 
The passage reads: “Examples of organs in the Vrolik collection that have been injected with wax or dried include placentas and penises and, in particular, human and animal hearts. In order to make their anatomical structure more visible, in some cases one half of the heart was injected with red wax and the other half of the organ was injected with dark blue wax. Dry specimens, like bone and certain membranes, were dehydrated by exposing them to the external environment and subsequently coating them with a kind of varnish. The majority of the dry organ and tissue specimens were coated with shellac after drying.” A fate which seems to have befallen our shellac child in his entirety.

Shellac is an incredibly versatile substance which is secreted by the female Laccifer lacca (Lac Beetle), an insect of the order Hemoptera or the ‘true bugs’. It’s well known for it uses as a varnish for garden fences, paintings and musical instruments, but perhaps more surprising is the prevalence of edible shellac compounds in the pharmaceutical and food industries: it is found on medicinal capsules, in the wax of apples and lemons and on confectionery such as M&Ms. Used to limit water loss and prevent dessication, as well as to limit entry of pathogens, it is fairly obvious why this would be a good preservative for prepared anatomical specimens.

The interesting thing about this specimen is that it looks old and of its time – perhaps by using techniques mirroring those of the Ancient Egyptians, Ruysch ensured that an appearance of antiquity was an inevitable by-product. Medical students faced with a specimen such as this today possibly would not value its use as a teaching aid as much as they would have in those heady days of the 18^th and 19^th Centuries and would relegate it to the realms of ‘interesting’ and ‘unusual’ artwork but nothing more.

However that shouldn’t be the case – a study from 2011 was carried out to illustrate the use of shellac as a modern preservation method to replace the dangerous and carcinogenic formalin/formaldehyde which is currently used in dissection rooms. This study (Ref 2) has shown that shellac will preserve a new cadaver indefinitely in a way that is non-toxic, and said cadaver can also be placed into a softening room and in three days’ time be ready for student to use in their dissections. So it seems that an outdated yet beautiful specimen such as this can be used to inspire future generations of medical students and will also be a fascinating talking point on the ground floor of Barts Pathology Museum.

1) The Anatomical Preparations of Frederick Ruysch
2) Shellac: A Non-Toxic Preservative for Human EmbalmingTechniques

You can find out more about Barts Pathology Museum by clicking here. To can check out their new blog by clicking here. You can find out more about Carla Valentine by clicking here.

Image credits: Top image: Joanna Ebenstein; all other images of the specimen: Barts Pathology Museum, QMUL; portraits: wikimedia

Museo di Anatomia Patologica dell'Universitá degli Studi di Firenze : Italy Trip Guest Post by Evan Michelson, TV's "Oddities" and Morbid Anatomy Library

Following, please find one more guest post in which Evan Michelson (2nd photo, right hand side) of "Oddities" fame documents our recent trip through Italy researching the history of the preservation and display of the human corpse.

Here, her response to the amazing Florence pathology museum, or the "Museo di Anatomia Patologica dell'Universitá degli Studi di Firenze"; interestingly, the fine and senstivie pathological waxes you see here were made in the early 19th century by the la Specola workshop, which also brought us Clemente Susini's unforgettable Anatomical Venuses:

The Museo di Anatomia Patologica dell'Universitá degli Studi di Firenze is a happy example of a newly-renovated, early anatomical collection that has been well loved and cared for. The waxes, osteological preparations and wet specimens are all housed in their original, highly ornamental wood and glass display cases, making the place seem more like a treasury than a didactic collection of pain, healing and preserved suffering. Indeed some of the small, ornately jarred specimens, with their delicately handwritten labels are nearly indistinguishable from sacred relics.

The history of this collection goes back to 1824, with the founding of the Medical Society in Florence. It was always intended as a teaching tool for the medical students at the university, and the wax models here are some of the most beautiful examples of the ceroplast's art. The casts were individually commissioned by the anatomy professors and executed by some of the most renowned wax workers of Florence. The result is a 3D catalogue of benign and cancerous tumors, burns, venereal infections, abnormal growths and congenital birth defects, all rendered with the greatest loving care and verisimilitude. The full-sized wax leper could be a saint in any church, his suffering as profound as any wax Christ.

Our guide Gabriella Nesi (2nd image, left; a professor of pathology who has taken the museum under her wing) was particularly eager to point out the models of before-and-after facial reconstructive surgeries, which demonstrated the progress of 19th century plastic surgery by recording not only the sutures and healing wound sites, but the more subtle details like post-surgical stubble on a shaved head. The results are strangely intimate, and we were surprised to learn that many of these models were not only cast from actual patients, but that the museum still has most of the case histories. It is rare to know the story behind any given wax medical model - once a thing has a name, it all becomes unavoidably real.

Although the wax models themselves are breathtaking, it was the presentation of some of the smaller waxes, housed in delicate paper and glass boxes, that drew our attention. These preparations, although clearly intended for a scientific audience, utilize the decorative, visual language of spiritual offerings. Indeed, many of the wax modelers of the 19th century functioned in both the religious and the didactic realm, and the result is a transcendent form of visual art that straddles the spiritual and the scientific, lending the anatomy itself an air of great mystery.

You can find out more about the museum by clicking here; you can see more photos by clicking here or here. You can read future posts by Evan both on this blog and on her Facebook page, which you will find by clicking here. All photographs are my own. Click on images to see larger version.

A Very Merry Christmas Indeed: 18th Century Italian Pathological Nativity Scene Crèches!

Towards my sincere wish that each of you has a very merry Christmas today, please accept this virtual gift: two intriguing and lovely pathologically-detailed 18th century Italian nativity scene crèche figures from the collection of the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library, Yale University.

An excerpt from the article on Atlas Obscura:

Holiday Creche Figures With Goiters

...The lovely ladies seen above were made to be part of a classic nativity scene, welcoming the infant Christ into the world. They are shown suffering from what was once a relatively common malady: goiters. These enlarged thyroids caused painful swellings in the throat usually due to iodine deficiency in the diet, and were particularly prevalent in Alpine regions of Europe where the soil was naturally low in iodine.

These two dolls are known as Crèche (or Presepio) figures, and are found in Nativity scenes. The country women, garbed in handmade peasant dress, have unusual features that led to their inclusion in the Yale’s Medical Historical Library. Both have prominent goiters on their necks. Goiters are swelling of the thyroid gland.

Creche figures often depicted “realistic” features, and in the 18th century, peasant and country folk were thought to be a great addition, often in the background of the scene. Figures with goiters attending the birth of Baby Jesus is an entire level of realism never expected in a Nativity scene...

We often think of the beauty associated with the Nativity, but in reality, people in earlier centuries had a variety of ailments that manifested on the outside, and weren’t removed. Skin diseases, tumors, and goiters, which we don’t often see in people with the help of modern medicine, were not unusual.

--Melissa Grafe is the John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History at Yale University.  

You can read the whole article--from which this is excerpted--on Atlas Obscura by clicking here. And thanks, Dylan Thuras, for sending this along!

And Merry Christmas, y'all!

Images of creche figures courtesy of the Yale University, used with permission.

The 51 Preserved Dogs of Castle Bitov, Czech Republic

They can sit and stay – and are excellent at playing dead – but this room full of obedient dogs will never go walkies again. The odd-ball collection of 51 stuffed dogs is the star attraction at the picturesque Castle Bitov in the Czech Republic.

The castle’s last owner, the ever-so-slightly eccentric Baron Georg Haas, was an animal lover – to say the least. He was the proud owner of thousands of animals – including a lioness called Mietzi-Mausi, with whom it is said he enjoyed sharing lunch every day.

But his favourite style of four-legged friend was the humble canine, and he eventually had more than 200 in the castle grounds. It means the castle might well have been the hardest building to sneak into in the 1940s – certainly the hardest to walk around without looking down.

When the playful pets passed away, the baron buried the majority of them – their final resting places can still be seen in several cemeteries in the castle grounds, each with a wooden cross and small metal plate bearing their name.

But, for a select few, the baron had loftier plans – and the handiwork of the local taxidermist is still being enjoyed today. It’s clear that the baron did not play favourites. Spaniels, terriers, poodles, boxers – hounds of every shape and size – are included in the collection...

Georg Haas was as eccentric an aristocrat as they come. But he was also ahead of his time, designing a magnificent zoo for his animals, with terrariums, bird cages, and various paddocks that he filled with exotic creatures from around the world.

--"The perfectly preserved pooches of Castle Bitov," The Daily Mail, July 19th 2011

You can read the whole entire story--from which the above images were drawn--by clicking here. Click on images to see much larger, more detailed version.

Thanks to Eleanor Crook for bringing this to my attention!

Oltre il Corpo, L’uomo (Besides the Body, the Man), Florence, Italy

Now up in Florence, Italy through February 12, 2011: a number of waxes and preparations from the amazing and elusive museum of the Institute of Pathological Anatomy; See images and video tour above to get a sense of what this collection has to offer.

More, from the Tuscan Traveler website:

For those visiting or living in Florence, only a short time is left to experience one of the most unique and wonderful exhibits for those interested in either the art of wax modeling or the science of medical-surgical pathology practiced in the 1800s.

The free exhibit, called Oltre il Corpo, L’uomo (Besides the Body, the Man), will end February 12, 2011.

...Whereas the anatomical wax models at [such museums as] Museo La Specola show the body in its perfect and healthy state, the creations at the Pathology Museum, from which curator Elisabetta Susani selected prime examples for Oltre il Corpo, L’uomo, are sometimes shocking representations of diseases that were treated in the 1800s. One of the most interesting is a the wax model side by side with the skeleton of a child with an incurable case of hydrocephalus...

The Pathology Museum was created in 1824 at the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, built in 1288 by the father of Dante’s muse Beatrice. It wasn’t until 1742 when there was a move to create a medical academy to formalize the sharing of information among doctors and scientists.

It took another eighty years to establish the Florentine Medical-Physical Society. One of the first acts of the Society was to set up a Pathological Museum. It was not a museum for the public, but rather a repository for information about the pathology and medical-surgical treatment of diseases...

Due to the difficulty of ensuring correct conservation of the pathological materials, it was decided to have some duplicates fabricated in wax. The Museum’s model-makers studied the techniques practiced in the other wax-modeling laboratory in Florence, La Specola.

Surprisingly realistic models were fabricated, providing a fascinating glimpse of the major pathologies in the 19th century. The collection of anatomical wax figures includes numerous wax reproductions, mainly the work of Giuseppe Ricci, Luigi Calamai and Egisto Tortori.

A remarkable example of symbiosis between science and art, the wax models were important, above all, for their value in teaching, allowing professors to illustrate the most important diseases to future physicians without having to depend the dissection of cadavers or the preservation of diseased organs....

Osservatorio dei Saperi e delle Arti (OSA)
Open: Monday – Friday 10am – 5pm, Saturday 10am – 1pm (Free)
Ends: February 12, 2011
Address: Largo Brambilla 3, New Entrance of Careggi Hospital

Click here to read the full story and see more images. Images and video above drawn from the Tuscan Traveler website.

A Pathological Fantasy from "Pohádky Pro Dospělé" or "Fairy Tales For Adults," By Jean Qui Rit and Illustrated by Artuš Scheiner, 1925

The pathological fantasy seen above featured in the fascinating looking book Pohádky Pro Dospělé or Fairy Tales For Adults, written by Jean Qui Rit and illustrated by Artuš Scheiner and published in 1925.

This image is sourced from josefskrhola's Flickr Stream and can be found in his wonderful (and highly recommended) "Fairy Tales & Adventure Stories" Flickr set, which includes, among other things, many more images from this same book. Click here to view the full set; click on image to see much larger more wonderful version.

Found via hypnerotomachi(n)a.

Girl Born with Two Heads, 1649?, Biblioteca Francisco de Burgoa, Mexico

A special thanks to Morbid Anatomy reader Katherine Lewis for sending in the wonderful photo you see above. She explains:

I thought you would be interested in seeing this item I came across while on vacation last week. Attached is a picture of a manuscript about a girl born with two heads. It is kept in the Biblioteca Francisco de Burgoa in the ex-monastery of Santo Domingo in the city of Oaxaca, Mexico. I'm guessing from the roman numerals on the bottom right of the left-hand page that it is from 1649. Unfortunately, it was storming, and the light was too low for me to be able to capture the script any better. The library is very beautiful, I recommend visiting if you are ever in southern Mexico.

You can visit the website for the Biblioteca Francisco de Burgoa by clicking here. You can see some of Katherine's work by clicking here. Click on top image to see larger version.

More Dery on Boing Boing, Crypt of the Capuchin Monks

Mark Dery has just uploaded his latest fascinating Boing Boing guest-post which examines and riffs on the crypt of the Capuchin monks in Rome. His post begins "In the dream life of 18th and 19th Europe, Italy and the Gothic were conjoined twins..." And trust me--it just gets better from there.

Click here to view the entire post. More on Dery's guest-blogging stint here .

Mark Dery, Guest Blogging on Boing Boing, Parses the Pathological Sublime

If you have not already done so, do hop over to Boing Boing to check out author and cultural critic Mark Dery--who you might recall from this previous post--as he guest posts on the blog about his Italian Grand Tour of the Pathological Sublime. My favorite entry thus far is called "A Young Person's Guide to the Pathological Sublime" and touches on--among other things--the Lam Qua paintings (see above, from post), Mütter Museum photography, and the fine flickering line at the edge of spectacle and edification. Not to be missed!

Click here to visit the post. You can view the complete Yale Lam Qua collection, commissioned by Peter Parker (but not that Peter Parker!), by clicking here.

The Agricultural Museum, Cairo, Egypt, Est. 1930

Cairo based Morbid Anatomy Reader Oliver Wilkins recently sent me an email telling me about--and linking to photos of--one of his favorite museums, the amazing looking Agricultural Museum of Cairo, Egypt. I asked him to tell me a bit more about the museum, which I had never heard of; Here is what he had to say:

The Cairo Agricultural Museum was founded in 1930 in the palace of Princess Fatima, in what is now Dokki. With it's numerous buildings, laboratories, themed halls, botanical gardens, cinema and greenhouses, it must have been quite a complex. Little has changed since it was established including the entrance fee of 10 piastres (around one cent).

The museum has fallen into disrepair and many sections are now closed, although the caretaker will take you behind the scenes for a small tip. Highlights include the bread museum, a room of wax models of typical meals of Egypt, a large selection of preserved animals, digestion displays including an inflated cows stomach, and the museum of disease and health. Most of the exhibits date from the 1930s and include exquisite wax models, hand drawn posters and curious taxonomy.

Lack of investment and minimum wages have not helped. A small tip is demanded to see the stuffed Lion, his legs broken from being dragged across the floor and various exhibits are damaged or missing. The Mathaf Al-Zira'ee is a museum that should be in a museum, who knows how long it will be until it goes the way of Cairo's other lost museums? See it while you can.

Click here to find out more about the museum. Click here to see Oliver's complete photoset (these are just a small few of what you will find there; many more amazing photos to be found there.)