Memento Mori Part I

Quid me mihi detrahis? Who is it that tears me from myself?     – Ovid, The Metamorphosis Book VI

I recently began an essay on the evolution of images in anatomy books between 1450 and 1800, and I thought I’d share some of my early research.  All the images I’ve used are from the National Library of Medicine, which has an excellent historical anatomy exhibit.  Clicking on the pictures below will take you to the appropriate section of the NLM website for more images, biographies, and bibliographies.  (And a word of warning, some might find the illustrations graphic, disturbing, or not safe for work.)  Part II will hopefully appear sometime next week.

Sources:

• Books of the Body: Anatomical Ritual and Renaissance Learning by Andrea Carlino
• The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture by Jonathan Sawday
• The Art of Anatomy: Depicting the Body from the Renaissance to Today by Rifkin, Ackerman, and Folkenberg.

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Although curiosity about the body has long been a feature of human culture, anatomical science stagnated during the Middle Ages, a time when the words of classical authorities were valued over discovery.  Rather than working from observation or experimentation, medieval scholars compiled, rewrote, and annotated older medical works, particularly those of Galen.  It wasn’t until the late Middle Ages and Renaissance that increasingly literate and intellectual segments of society, renewed interest in science and discovery, and advances in printing resulted in the production of new anatomical treatises that eclipsed the achievements of the past and led to the foundation of modern anatomy.  But these new volumes were not purely scientific or didactic.  Luxury texts intended for an erudite, upper-class audience beyond the medical profession, they mixed art, science, and religion to create dramatic meditations on the natures of flesh and soul and the meaning of the body’s short existence.

Fasciculus de medicina

The first printed anatomy book was published in Venice in 1492 by the Gregorio brothers.  A Latin translation of a work by a little known German physician named Johannes de Ketham, it was planted firmly in the medieval medical tradition.  The book, which included treatises on subjects such as bloodletting, urinoscopy, and dissection, became an important teaching text, but its sumptuous woodcuts were also geared toward an audience of wealthy intellectuals.  A major success, it was republished in 1493 with new illustrations showing contemporary medical scenes including a dissection, and it appeared in twelve editions within a decade.  Though produced by a workshop, the designs are good examples of the clean, classical style of Venetian Renaissance illustration.  Below is the traditional zodiac man as well as a dissection scene, which portrays an anatomy lesson as performed in the late Middle Ages.  The young lector reads from an anatomical text, most likely Galen, while the sector, an uneducated barber/surgeon, preforms the dissection, and the ostensor, a high ranking professor, translates the words of the lector and directs the sector.  At this time dissection was not an act of observation and discovery, but was a tightly controlled public ritual intended to reinforce the authority of classical medical texts.  The illustration indicates the importance of the text by the prominent placement of the lector relative to the other figures, including the higher ranking ostensor.

Isagogae breves

This book, published in 1522 and 1523 by the humanist physician Jacopo Berengario da Carpi, is credited as the first printed anatomy text based on direct observation of the body.  Berengario was deeply skeptical of traditional anatomical practice, saying that a good anatomist ‘does not believe anything in his discipline simply because of the spoken or written word: what is required here is sight and touch.’  Though the woodcuts are artistically and anatomically crude, part of their importance lies in their reflection of Italian Renaissance culture.  Berengario was an art collector, and many of the figures are based on rediscovered classical art, religious images, and important works by Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael.  Berengario recognized the importance of anatomical knowledge for artists, and he recommended his book for their use as well as that of medical students.  The half-flayed figure below is in the traditional pose of an Apollo with light rays.  Other illustrations represent the redemptive potential of dissection, which was believed to help atone for the sins of the criminals whose bodies were commonly used for this purpose.  Several images of partially draped female nudes indicate a tension between sexual modesty and the display of dissected reproductive organs.

De humani corporis fabrica

One of the most famous medical texts of all time, The Fabric of the Human Body (1543) by Andreas Vesalius, was the first truly modern anatomical book.  Vesalius was a Flemish surgeon of the University of Padua who had been trained in the Galenic tradition.  Based on his own experience with dissection he rejected Galen as the ultimate authority and argued that surgeons should make their own observations, and he corrected many Galenic mistakes, such as the multi-lobed liver, that had been passed from text to text through the Middle Ages.  Vesalius and his collaborators were also some of the first people to grasp the full potential of the printed book, using the title page, illustrations, initials, and chapter/paragraph subdivisions to create a harmonious and practical work.  Vesalius’s illustrations were most likely based on his own careful drawings, and he worked closely with the woodcut artist Jan Stefan van Kalkar, a member of Titian’s studio.  This partnership resulted in extremely accurate and detailed work, better than anything that proceeded it.  But these are not just sterile medical images—the cadavers display human emotions of sadness, despair, and mourning.  The skeleton below ponders mortality in a memento mori which would reappear throughout western culture, including in Shakespeare.  The second appears to pray, or to be bent in agony.  Throughout the book dead trees and barren landscapes, representing death, are contrasted with churches and the promise of eternal life.

De dissectione partium corporis humani

Charles Estienne, a member of the famous printing family of Paris, began work on this book during the 1530s, hoping it would replace the Isagogae breves of Berengario.  He had been a student in Paris at the same time as Vesalius, sharing the former’s interest in dissection and the belief that direct observation was more important than the words of authorities.  Unfortunately, while Estienne’s book contributed some new discoveries to the science of anatomy, it was plagued by legal issues regarding the artwork and was not published until two years after De humani corporis fabrica.  One of the interesting aspects of Estienne’s book is that it includes a number of woodcuts of nude women that were, according to Rifkin, originally intended as ‘genteel humanist erotica’, but were altered by partial dissection and the inclusion of anatomical information relating to reproductive anatomy.  Included are Bathsheba being spied upon by David (below), as well as the goddesses Venus, Antiope, and Proserpina.  A good example of the complex relationships between art, medicine, books, and sex during the early modern era.

If you happen to be in Madison, WI

The UW-Madison Department of Special Collections has created what looks like a fascinating exhibit on the use of color in scientific books between the 15th and 20th centuries.  It’s in conjunction with the 2008 Culture of Print in Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine conference taking place in September, but the exhibit will be open all summer.  It focuses on changing color technologies and how the use of color was approached from a scientific perspective, drawing from the library’s extensive science and natural history collection.   For more information visit the Special Collections website.

Memorable Book Covers

Quillblog points to an Entertainment Weekly piece on 25 classic book covers.  I like some of their choices, but others I’d never seen before.  Or even heard of.  It doesn’t exactly scream ‘classic’ when someone as book-centric as myself has never seen the cover (or did, but didn’t find it at all worth noting).  So I’ve made a short list of covers I’ve found memorable and that I can recall off the top of my head.

*I’d like to list all the designers, but I don’t have time to do the research at the moment.  I might go back and add them later.*

Here are some classics.  The first is probably my favorite book cover of all time.

Does anyone not love Penguin covers, both old and new?  I found this one in a library last year and thought the choice of William Blake for the art was inspired and made the book quite eye-catching.  (I glimpsed it from a few aisles over and just had to walk over to see what it was.)

The following two covers illicited the most curiosity and positive reactions from customers when I worked in a bookstore a few years ago.  They’re simple, but striking enough to stand out on the shelves from across a room.  I especially like the font on Russian Criminal Tattoo.

The following are two recent works whose covers I like a lot.  They’re both sitting on my shelf, waiting somewhat impatiently for me to finish Underworld.  I love the almost 3D look of the Darkmans cover; you want badly to pick it up.  And I know that I’m not in the majority on this, but I really love grafitti, so the Oscar Wao cover appeals to me on multiple levels.

More Miscellany from the Library of Congress

As promised, more images from the Library of Congress Other Digitized Materials collection that caught my fancy. As yesterday, click the image to go to the material at the LOC website.

History of Insects. New-York: Printed and sold by Samuel Wood, at the Juvenile Book-Store, no. 357, Pearl-Street, 1813.

[Ivory hornbook] [realia]. [England: s.n., 18--].

[Wood hornbook] [realia]. [United States?: s.n., 18--]

— Hornbooks were tools used to teach children the alphabet, and sometimes a few words and religious verses, before paper was cheap and widely available. The first example above is ivory with a beautiful carved alphabet, and it looks to have been broken and repaired at some point.  The second hornbook is made of wood, with a printed sheet underneath a thin layer of translucent horn to protect the page, which explains the origin of the term “hornbook.” This one appears to be multi-functional, with what looks like an abacus at the top.

The World Turned Upside Down, or, No News, and Strange News. York: Printed and sold by J. Kendrew, Colliergate, [1820?].

Solemn Warning to Dancers, A. New York: Published by N. Bangs and J. Emory for the Tract Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, between 1824 and 1832.

— I have a thing for religious pamphlets. I’ve actually been known to go out of my way to get copies from street preachers. The illustration in the above is great – note the snake off to the side.

Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892. Leaves of Grass. Brooklyn, New York : [Walt Whitman], 1855 ([Brooklyn, New York : Rome Brothers])

— I need to get this as a font.

Wollstonecraft, Mary, 1759-1797. A vindication of the rights of woman: with strictures on moral and political subjects. Philadelphia: Printed by William Gibbons …, 1792.

The LOC has a big collection of magic posters. Below are some of my favorites.

Corded

Slate has an excellent slideshow presentation today, called Corded!, about the depiction of technology in children’s books and why it’s often so out of date.  It also features examples of of recent books that use modern technology in unique and engaging ways. I’m going to have to look for a copy of Jellybeans, by Sylvia van Ommen, in which the characters plan an outing via text message and then one (a cat,) rides a bike and wears a messenger bag with a cellphone pocket on his way to the park.

History of the Birds of New Zealand Part II

I wrote recently about discovering naturalist Walter Buller and his lovely History of the Birds of New Zealand. To find out more, I made an interlibrary loan request for his biography, Walter Buller, the Reluctant Conservationist by Ross Galbreath, and it finally arrived two weeks ago from the Library of Congress. This was really exciting in and of itself because I’ve never borrowed from the LOC before. The downside is that you have to use their books within the library, so I spent a couple of weeks worth of lunch hours reading it.

It was definitely worth it. Galbreath does a great job telling Buller’s life story and setting it within the social, political and scientific contexts of the time. In fact, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in general New Zealand history. It contains a wealth of information about European colonization, including relationships between settlers and Maori, the shady land deals that occurred on a huge scale, and the settlers’ shifting attitudes toward land, nature and the colonial relationship with Britain. The only thing to be aware of is that the author presupposes a familiarity with New Zealand history, including Maori words and cultural concepts that are not well known outside the country.

Best of all for the book historian, Galbreath includes lots of information on the production and distribution of Buller’s books, including a nice explanation of the differences in lithography (used in the first edition) and chromolithography (used in the second edition,) as well as a series of images showing the working process of the artist J. G. Keulemans.

You can see in the following photo some of the differences between the editions, with the more delicate and vibrant hand-colored lithograph at the top and the olive-toned (because of the type ink used in the process) chromolithograph at the bottom.

As for Buller himself, I was completely unprepared for what I found in the biography. I’d read Audubon’s diaries, so I thought I was inured to mindless slaughter in the name of science, but Buller’s sheer effrontery really blew me away. Part of it was due to the time period. Many Europeans justified the destruction of native species as “survival of the fittest,” the fittest being the introduced species and the Europeans themselves. It is clear that Buller held this view his entire life. He wrote repeatedly that New Zealand birds had no hope of survival, and rather than instituting what he saw as useless protective measures, the only logical step was to take as many specimens as possible before they were all extinct.

At the end of the 19th century, however, sentiments changed. Activists in Britain and the colonies began to see native flora and fauna as deserving of protection. This became a moral issue, with New Zealand one of the first countries to incorporate the word conservation into the vernacular.

Buller, always keen to impress the European elite, publicly paid lip service to this ideal while continuing to take rare specimens for himself and as gifts for prominent British scientists and aristocrats, often sending multiples of the same species to one person. Even after hunting bans were imposed he continued to take specimens. When an island nature preserve was proposed he offered to organize an expedition to capture live Huia on the mainland and transfer them to the island. Instead, he sent the birds to a collector in Britain and told the government that the trip had been fruitless. At this time he wrote publicly of his sadness at the loss of native species, but in private continued to argue that the birds were doomed anyway.

Galbreath argues that, ironically, it was Buller’s own books that helped change the perception of New Zealand wildlife. The beautiful and widely popular illustrations contributed toward the new perception that the country’s flora and fauna were unique and special, and should be considered a source of national pride rather than something to be replaced by European species. New Zealanders whose conservation ideals had been, in part, shaped by Buller’s work now derided his endless quest for specimens and lukewarm support of preservation schemes.

Buller’s legacy is mixed. Luckily, it was his views of conservation that passed into history, while his book A History of the Birds of New Zealand retains its status as a work of natural history and art. Its approachable text and iconic illustrations helped to shape a culture of preservation that is still an important aspect of New Zealand society.  I’d definitely recommend both the History of the Birds of New Zealand and Ross Galbreath’s excellent biography to anyone with an interest in natural history and the conservation movement.

Metamorphosis

• Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium

I spent a lot of time in our backyard as a kid, looking at bugs and animals. We had a big lot with gardens, a small pond and woods, so there was always something to capture my attention. And when I wasn’t outside I was often reading nature books. So I really identify with Dutch entomologist Maria Sibylla Merian, who was born in 1647 and developed an interest in insects as a child, going on to become one of the most important naturalists and scientific illustrators of her time.

• Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium

One of the most interesting aspects of Merian’s work was that she did not just paint insects, but studied them with a serious, modern scientific sensibility. At this time, many people believed that insects were the result of spontaneous generation, that maggots grew out of rotting flesh, for instance. It is thought that her uncle owned a silk factory, which helped spark her interest in insect life-cycles, and she began raising moths and butterflies herself in order to understand their development. She was one of the first to study insects in this manner, and it was unusual not only because she was a woman, but because very few people showed scientific interest in insects at this time. Merian’s stepfather was a painter who her encouraged her in art, and as a teenager she began accurately portraying the insects that she studied and cataloged. She would became the first naturalist to depict the entire butterfly life-cycle and connect it with the plants on which each species lived.

Not to mention that she was a total bad-ass who, at the age of 52, traveled to Surinam to study insects in the field, a trip which would have been unusual even for a male naturalist.

Merian published three books during her lifetime:

• Neus Blumenbuch (New Book of Flowers), in three volumes, 1675, 1677 and 1680.
• Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandlung und sonderbare Blumennahrung (The Caterpillar, Marvelous Transformation and Strange Floral Food), 1679.
• Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, (I can’t find a translation but assume this is something like ‘Metamorphosis of the Insects of Surinam,’) 1705.

Personally, I’m very interested to find out about the creation of these books. The websites I’ve looked at deal mostly with Merian’s art and scientific work, but of course, as a book historian I’m also interested in the production methods of the books and color plates, the intended audience and reception of the work, how the volumes were advertised and sold, and similar questions. There are several books about her, so I might try to get one and see if I can find out more.

• Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandlung und sonderbare Blumennahrung

There are quite a few websites where you can read more about Merian and see galleries of her artwork.

• Amazing Rare Things: The Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery, a book by David Attenborough and current exhibit at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace.
• Science & the City, the website of the New York Academy of Sciences, has an excerpt from Chrysalis, Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis by Kim Todd and a nice gallery of Merian’s work.
• The National Museum of Women in the Arts website features a short biographical sketch and a gallery, though the images are a bit small.
• Animal, Vegetable and Minera: Natural History Books by Ten Authors, an exhibit from Special Collections in the Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University. Short biography and several plates.
• And, of course, wikipedia.

• Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium

Teeth

• Image courtesy of the University of Michigan Dentistry Library

Having my wisdom teeth removed is a procedure I’ve been putting off for, well, years at this point. So when my jaw started aching this week I didn’t pick up the phone to make an appointment with the oral surgeon. I got online and looked up the history of dental books.

One of the first things I found was a great Flickr collection by rosefirerising from the University of Michigan Dentistry Library.   Tons of stuff, including books, journal articles, anatomical illustrations, cartoons, ephemera and antique dental instruments.  Some of my favorite pictures are in the set called “Dentistry – Women and Children First.”  The one above is fantastic; who knew teeth wore tiny boots. 

• Image courtesy of the University of Michigan Dentistry Library

Additionally, the American and British Dental Associations have history websites that list major works on dentistry.  I’ve compiled some of the most interesting below.

 - Artzney Buchlein (Little Medicinal Book for all Kinds of Diseases and Infirmities of the Teeth,) the first book “devoted entirely to dentistry,” was published in Germany in 1530.  Image courtesy of the University of Michigan Dentistry Library.

 - Libellus de dentibus (A Little Treatise on the Teeth) by Bartholomew Eusttachius, was published in 1563.

Eustachio’s contributions to the development of dental science were substantial. In addition to the many conceptual advances concerning tooth development and function, based on anatomical dissections, he also presented more detailed plates of the musculature of the face, floor of the mouth and neck as well as detailed plates of the tongue and of the crown and roots of the teeth. – Dental Classics in Perspective, Volume 2, 1999

 - “1575—In France Ambrose Pare, known as the Father of Surgery, publishes his Complete Works. This includes practical information about dentistry such as tooth extraction and the treatment of tooth decay and jaw fractures,” (ADA).

 - The first dental book in English, The Operator for the Teeth by Charles Allen, was published in 1685.

 - In 1723 French surgeon Pierre Fauchard published Le Chirurgien Dentiste (The Surgeon Dentist, A Treatise on Teeth).

Fauchard is credited as being the Father of Modern Dentistry because his book was the first to describe a comprehensive system for the practice of dentistry including basic oral anatomy and function, operative and restorative techniques, and denture construction (ADA).

 - The Natural History of the Human Teeth was published by John Hunter in 1771, followed by A Practical Treatise on Diseases of the Teeth in 1778.

These works revolutionised the practice of dentistry and provided a basis for later dental research. The natural history of human teeth is a detailed study of the mouth, jaws and teeth. Its plates are exceptionally clear and accurate (King’s College London, ISS).

 - In 1890 Willoughby Miller publishes Micro-Organisms of the Human Mouth, utilizing the germ theory to explain tooth decay. “This generates an unprecedented interest in oral hygiene and starts a world-wide movement to promote regular toothbrushing and flossing,” (ADA).  The picture below is the Human Mouth as a Focus of Infection, Plate 3, courtesy of the University of Michigan Dentistry Library.

History of the Birds of New Zealand

A few weeks ago I was browsing around the website of the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre when I came across some really interesting bird illustrations. I really like this one titled “The Biter Bit (an incident of bird life in New Zealand).”

The illustrations, by J. G. Keulemans, are from the second edition of A History of the Birds of New Zealand by Walter Buller, 1888. They’re all available at the NZETC along with the full text of the book.

I checked at our local college library and was surprised to find that they had a lovely edition from 1967, edited, annotated and renamed Buller’s Birds of New Zealand, with an introduction by E. G. Turbott that discusses Buller’s life and work. (All quotes in this post are from this copy.)

I was also advised by Alison Stevenson, director of the NZETC, to read Walter Buller: The Reluctant Conservationist, by Ross Galbreath (1989), but have had trouble locating a copy. The cheapest available online would have to be shipped from New Zealand; copies in the US are going for $60 to $200. I made an inter-library loan request, but it might take a while before I have the book in my hands, as the closest copy is in Chicago.

I’m looking forward to it arriving, though, because from what I’ve read Buller sounds like a really interesting character. He was one of the first to compile serious field information on New Zealand bird populations and habitats, and his work was widely praised by the European scientific community. The most important aspect of his research is that it occurred at a time when European colonization was first beginning to impact the avifauna of the islands. Buller carefully documented these ecological changes and related them in prose that was entertaining and equally accessible to amateurs and professionals. A good example is his discussion of the introduction of the rat, from the chapter on the Bellbird:

The cause of the rapid disappearance in New Zealand of some species of birds, and absolute extinction of others, is a very interesting question… As the result of long observation, I have come to the conclusion that, apart from the effects produced by a gradual change in the physical conditions of the country, the chief agent in this rapid destruction of certain species of native birds is the introduced rat. This cosmopolitan pest swarms through every part of the country, and nothing escapes its voracity. It is very abundant in all our woods, and the wonder rather is that any of our insessorial birds are able to rear their broods in safety. Species that nest in hollow trees, or in other situations accessible to the ravages of this little thief, are found to be decreasing, while other species whose nests are, as a rule, more favourably placed, continue to exist in undiminished numbers.

Not all of Buller’s assertions have been borne out by further research, but as of 1967 the work still retained “its place as one of the essential works of reference on the bird fauna of New Zealand.”

Buller, born 1838, became interested in ornithology as a young man living in Wellington, where he met the naturalist William Swainson. By the mid 1860s he was writing well-received essays on ornithology, and the first edition of his History of the Birds of New Zealand was published in installments beginning in 1872, in a total of 500 copies. Each copy contained 35 hand-colored lithographs by J. G. Keulemans. “Reviews commending the new work began to appear immediately after the publication of the first part. In the newspapers of the day and the leading scientific periodicals the work was acclaimed as a notable contribution to science…”

Buller continued to compile information and began work on a second edition of the History which would be of a larger size than the first and include expanded text and new color plates by Keulemans. “Reviews of the time show that the work was received most enthusiastically, and before the book had been issued finally in bound form (1888) subscribers had ordered the entire edition of 1000 copies.”

One of the major differences in the two editions was in the quality of the lithographs.

It may be of interest to add that the first edition plates, in addition to being fewer than those of the second edition which are reproduced here, [here being the 1967 edition] differ from those of the second in both style and treatment. Keulemans’s work in the first edition was characterized by delicate lines and often exquisite colouring, the hand colouring accentuating the more vivid portions of soft parts and plumage. Connoisseurs of bird illustration who have not already done so would do well to familiarize themselves with the first edition plates.

Buller’s final work was his Supplement of 1905 which contained accumulated species information and, most interestingly, an

exposition of his views on Darwinsim (more especially as illustrated by the New Zealand bird fauna) and comments on bird and forest protection (his enlightened views on the need for forest protection were well in advance of his day.)

From the little I’ve read, Buller’s view on conservation seem to have been complex. Like Audubon and other naturalists of the 19th century he was a hunter and specimen collector. He wrote of this extensively and the 1967 edition of Buller’s Birds actually edits or entirely omits some passages that “would be sure to offend current tastes.” Buller didn’t just shoot birds; he would take them alive when possible and study their behavior in his home. His casual description of the captivity and death of a Little Blue Penguin really did offend my modern, tree-hugging sensibilities (and was edited out of the copy I got from the library). Unfortunately, Buller’s Birds doesn’t include an in-depth discussion of his views on conservation, so it looks like I’ll have to wait until I can read the biography I’ve ordered.

In the meantime I’ll continue reading through the text of Buller’s Birds and enjoying the illustrations of some of my favorite species. All those below courtesy of the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre:

• Chick of the North Island Brown Kiwi

• Takahe

• Huia male (front) and female (rear) – now extinct. Plant: Titoki.

• Tui young (left) and adult (right). Plant: Kowhai.