Happy Valentines Day!
Cupid dissecting a heart in a book published in Verona, the setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – does it get more romantic than this?! I don’t think so.
From ‘Cardiomorphoseos sive ex corde desumpta emblemata sacra’ by Francesco Pona, published in Verona, Italy 1665.
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
Through October I shared some of the creepiest illustrations from my 2016 archived collection using #SpookySaturday on Facebook and Twitter.
In the four Saturdays leading up to Halloween, we looked a one gruesome artwork each week – now it’s time to vote for the spookiest!
1. ‘Mummified cadaver’ from Atlas of Legal Medicine by Eduard von Hofmann, 1898. The body of this 50 year old man wasn’t discovered until 10 years after he hanged himself in his attic.
2. ‘Resection of the maxilla’ by Nicolas Henri Jacob from ‘Traité complet de l’anatomie de l’homme’ by Marc Jean Bourgery, 1831. Anaesthetic was first used in 1846…
3. ‘Abnormal twins and placenta’ from ‘Anatomie pathologique du corps humain’ by Jean Cruveilhier, 1829
4. ‘Severe tubercular leprosy (or ichthyosis) of the hand’ from the Wellcome Library, London (original source unknown)
This October saw Spooky Saturday 2015 on Facebook and Twitter; a collection of some the most gruesome anatomical artworks I’ve curated through the year.
In the lead up to Halloween, we looked a one artwork each week in a ‘gruesome-off’, let’s see who won and put it to a vote!
Take a look at the four artworks below and cast your vote in the poll!
1. ‘Tubercules’ from ‘Traité des Maladies de la Peau’ by Pierre François Rayer,1835
2. ‘Surgical technique for correcting a lazy eye’ from ‘Traite complet de l’anatomie de l’homme’ by Jean Baptiste Marc Bourgery, 1831.
3. ‘Fetal skeleton, placenta and embryo, and examples of arteriosclerosis’ from ‘Thesaurus Anatomicus’ by Frederik Ruysch, 1701.
4. ‘Neoplasm from a rabbit, cartilagenous deposits on the spinal cord, ulcerated Peyer’s patches on the small intestine, ulcerated small intestine, intestinal stricture, contractile tissue from a healed burn.’ from ‘Pathological Anatomy’ by Sir Robert Carswell, 1838.
I was recently invited to write a guest blog post on my experience of the new and wonderfully improved Surgeons’ Hall Museums, the collections of The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.
You can read the article here.
We recently invited Cherry Martin, author of The Irregular Anatomist to write a guest article on her experience of the new Surgeons’ Hall Museums. As a frequent visitor and anatomy enthusiast, we were keen to hear what Cherry made of the redevelopments and how her experience compared to previous visits.
Surgeons’ Hall Museums
With a history as dark as its narrow and winding closes, Edinburgh is a great place to live if, like me, you enjoy spending your weekends exploring the eerie and meandering through the macabre. From Burke and Hare to medical breakthroughs, this wonderful city has been home to the sinister and more serious sides of science and medicine for centuries.
With a leading medical school and one the oldest surgical corporations in the world, it is no surprise that Edinburgh hosts some of the UK’s most interesting history of surgery collections. After £4 million worth of developments…
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Roderick Tye, Head, c.1990’s wax © The Artist’s Estate
Roderick Tye: The Human Presence
Monday 28 September – Friday 18 December 2015
UCL Art Museum, South Cloisters, Wilkins Building, Gower Street, London
Mon-Fri, 1pm-5pm. Free Admission
“Blood red wax catching the light, sinewy torsos dripping with life, earth toned bronzes in states of agony and ecstasy.”
That’s certainly one way of describing UCL Art Museum‘s latest exhibition. ‘The Human Presence’ is the first major re-examination of the work of Roderick Tye (1959-2009), a sculptor passionate about the visceral nature of human existence. Shown alongside his expressive head studies in charcoal, Tye’s wax and bronze head sculptures are severed from their bodies and mounted on metal spikes.
Interspersed with medical samples from UCL’s pathology collections and drawings from its art holdings, the displays are welcome to artists and sketchers.
Roderick Tye, Head, c 1990’s bronze © The Artist’s Estate
The exhibition is curated by the Slade School of Fine Art in collaboration with UCL Art Museum, UCL Pathology Collections, and the Anatomy Laboratory (UCL Department of Cell and Developmental Biology). Displays feature large-scale anatomical drawings by Charles Bell, UCL’s first Professor of Anatomy in the 1830s and samples from UCL’s teaching collections, including wax models and human tissue remains.
A public programme of events, talks and workshops will complement the exhibition and will invite attendees to explore, engage with and discuss the work and its themes.
For more information visit www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/uclart/whats-on
It’s that time of year again to get the Christmas songs playing, put on some mulled wine and settle down to some online Christmas shopping. Here you will find a selection fabulous formaldehyde-inspired gift ideas for any anatomy enthusiast. And remember to treat yourself this festive season too…
So where to start? Firstly, you’re going to need a Christmas card. Put a smile on someone’s face with something humerus, get it?!…
1. ‘A Femury Christmas Hippy New Year Card‘, $3.00 each from Mod Dessert.
Next, you’ll need to choose a gift for that special someone who appreciates the anatomical. Here are some ideas to get you started.
2. ‘Chocolate Custom Painted Skull‘, £90 from Conjurer’s Kitchen.
3. Plush organs, $20 from I Heart Guts
5. ‘Large Histology Silk Scarf – Bone‘, £180 by Anatomy Boutique.
6. ‘Anatomical Heart Cufflinks‘, $20 from The Spangled Maker.
7. ‘Gray’s Anatomy Unique Book Garland‘, £18.38 from Bookity.
So it’s going well. Card written, gifts purchased, but wait, you still need gift wrap! Not to fear, you can even buy wrapping paper and gift tags for that skeleton-loving someone, not to mention the coolest sticky tape ever made.
8. ‘L’Anatomie Wrapping Paper‘ by Cavallini Papers & Co, £2.75 per sheet
9. ‘Vintage Anatomy Tags‘ from Angelica Night. £1.97 per digital download.
10. ‘This is Spinal Tape’. $7.99 from www.thinkgeek.com
So you’ve done well; your gruesomely-wrapped gift is sitting in pride of place under your Christmas tree next to the cuddly toys for the kids and Grandma’s brand new slippers. But there is a question lingering in the back of your mind; can you bring yourself to give it away?! Everyone prefers gift vouchers anyway, right?
All photographs featured above are copyright of the noted designers and sellers. Check out their websites through the hyperlinks and images for more Christmas gift inspiration.
This October saw the start of Spooky Saturday on Facebook and Twitter; a collection of some the most gruesome anatomical artworks I’ve curated through the year.
In the lead up to Halloween, we looked a one piece in all it’s grisly glory each weekend and rated it on the ‘Spooky Scale’.
So, which is the winner? Let’s put it to a vote.
Take a look at the four artworks below and cast your vote in the poll!
1. ‘Dissection of a pharynx affected by abscess, shown at post-mortem’ from ‘Principles of Surgery’ by John Bell, 1801.
2. ‘Bone neoplasms on the skull’ from ‘Anatomie pathologique du corps humain’ by Jean Cruveilhier, 1829.
3. Illustration by Max Brödel which was featured in a 1932 article which described “surgical procedures on the eye of a rabbit, illustrating anatomical parts”.
4.’Head and skull of malformed infants; conjoined twins, bilateral cleft lip and holoprosencephaly’ from ‘Surgical Anatomy’ by Joseph Maclise, 1856.
My mummified Egyptian in his sarcophagus
During a lovely, sunny break in Egypt this summer, I swore to myself I wouldn’t return home with typical, tacky, tourist tat. I failed. It’s just too easy to get carried away when shopping in Egypt. Initially wary of the market-place style haggling, it turned out to be one of the highlights of our holiday, spending some good times laughing and bantering with the local shop owners. It was on one of these occasions that I broke my tat-less promise. Shelves upon shelves of knick-knacks (including a lot of confusing penis-adorning Egyptian ornaments) I somehow managed to spot a gruesome gem. Imagine my deathly delight when I came across, not only a mummy’s sarcophagus, but one containing a creepy mummified corpse! The shopkeeper, clearly taken aback by my physical reaction to this morbid little mummy turned to my partner as asked, “She likes this kind of stuff?”. “Oh yeah,” he replied, “she loves the dead stuff!” Next came the customary ‘are you a bit weird?’ look that I’ve become accustomed to accept in such situations. The shopkeeper in a surprising ‘why didn’t you say so’ manner began to hunt high and low amongst the thousands upon thousands of goodness knows what that lined the shelves on the walls. “Here he is!” he exclaimed, “Anubis. The God of Death.”
Anubis tends to the mummification process
One of the most iconic of the Ancient Egyptian gods, Anubis was known as guardian and protector of the deceased, their mummification and their journey through the underworld. A man with the head of a jackal, Anubis’ black appearance depicted death and fertility, representing rebirth and the afterlife. In the many statutes, artworks and archaeological finds in which he is depicted, he can be seen in various states of part jackal, part man but never as man in his entirety. Jackals and desert dogs would hunt at the edges of the Egyptian desert where the cemeteries and necropolis lay, like Anubis, watching over the dead.
A mask of Anubis worn by priests during the mummification process. (Courtesy of Harrogate Borough Council, Museums and Arts Service)
The Ancient Egyptians were famously known for the careful mummification of their dead whom they preserved with sweet-smelling plants and herbs. Anubis was thought to use his heightened sense of smell to sniff each mummified body and only allow the purest on to paradise. He would watch over the process, ensuring that the priests, who were known to wear masks of Anubis, conducted the mummification process to the utmost accuracy.
Anubis weigh a heart on the Scales of Justice
Anubis guided the souls of the dead through the underworld, testing an individual’s commitment to the gods and weighing their heart on the Scales of Justice. As Guardian of the Scales, Anubis would measure the weight of ones heart against the Feather of Ma’at which represented truth. If the heart was lighter than a feather, the deceased would be led into the underworld but if heavier, Anubis would feed the souls of sinners to Ammit the Destroyer; destructor of the souls of the corrupt and wicked.
So was my little Anubis worth taking home the tat for? According to the shopkeeper, I hope so; “Now you can have as much dead stuff as you want! Anubis will make you a mummy ever day. A hundred! You need him, he’ll always bring you dead stuff.” Sold. I’ll hold him to that.
Photograph by Maja Daniels; Getty Images via Financial Times Magazine. Read the full article
Yesterday the Financial Times published an article about the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at the University of Dundee.
Established in 2008, a year after I left the Dundee anatomy lab behind, CAHID is now a world leading centre in human identification, lending its expertise to global natural disasters, criminal identification and facial reconstruction. Police and forensic teams now travel from around the globe to receive training and guidance from Professor Sue Black and her expert team who have recently been awarded the prestigious Queens Anniversary Prize for their ground breaking work.
The facial reconstruction of King Richard III. Photography by Dan Kitwood, Getty Images via National Geographic News
Perhaps most famously, CAHID were responsible for the impressive reconstruction of the face of Richard III whose skeleton was found under a car park in Leicester during an archaeological dig in 2013. One of the most enjoyable modules of my degree was Biological Identity which was taught by Prof Caroline Wilkinson who is now professor of craniofacial identification at the centre. In an article by BBC News she commented on the project: “It was a great privilege to be able to analyse a skull thought to be Richard III. The facial reconstruction was produced on the assumption that the remains were unknown and portraits of Richard III were not used as reference.”
A comparison between traditional formalin embalming (left) and the more realistic Thiel technique (right) Original photographs via bbc.co.uk
But CAHID are now breaking ground in different ways. Some of you may be aware of the Thiel embalming process; a technique pioneered in Austria that produces life-like cadavers for medical study, improving surgical training with undeniable real-life textures which simply cannot be achieved with the rubbery, lifeless results of traditional embalming with formalin. Now receiving approximately 75 body donations per year (some 40 more than when I started there in 2003), Prof Sue Black’s ‘Million for a Morgue’ project has resulted in brand new state-of-the-art Thiel embalming facilities which happen to be the only of their kind in the UK.
A plastinated hand, from the University of Otago featured in the New Zealand Medical Journal
When, as a school pupil at the young age of 17, I visited the anatomy department at the University of Dundee for the first time, I knew I had discovered a life-changing place. On that day in 2002 I met one of the “three men all over 60” who managed the department as mentioned by Prof Black, Dr Christie. By then I knew that I wanted to study anatomy, the question was where. The leading university in the country for its degree, Dundee was always going to be tough to beat, but after visiting the department at the University of Glasgow during their post-application open day, I needed more than their ‘what is anatomy?’ poster on the wall to impress me. Dr Christie was a gentle, older gentleman who was smartly dressed and whose softly spoken voice welcomed you into the small anatomical museum in the Medical Sciences Institute. (Little did I know at the time that the dissection room was just the other side of those specimen-lined walls.) The small group of parents and their ambitious but apprehensive teenagers listened keenly to Dr Christie’s description of the course and the department’s facilities, fighting the temptation to be distracted completely by the specimens, models and bones that decorated the modest room. From nowhere, like a magician, he produced a brain and a hand, cut off just above the wrist; to say I sat up in my seat would be an understatement. As the specimens were passed around the room (we were getting to hold real body parts! But we had no gloves…) Dr Christie told us the background of the prosections which had been painstakingly dissected and in fact plastinated by none other than Gunther von Hagens, years before he was known to the public for his ghoulish exhibitions and televised human dissections. Well, that was it. It seems dramatic to say I’d fallen in love, but I thought about that little room, the jars that lined the walls, von Hagens’ specimens and Dr Christie’s gentle pronunciation of the word ‘dissected’ constantly until I walked through the doors again as a first year Anatomical Sciences student over a year later in 2003.
And of the other “three men all over 60”? One would turn out to be my true inspiration and an uncle away from home….
Read the FT article and interview with Prof Sue Black here
Read more about undergraduate, postgraduate and short courses run by CAHID here.
Thank you to all of you who have supported the Facebook Page, Twitter, Pinterest and blog over the past 12 months. I hope that you have enjoyed following them as much as I have enjoyed creating and sharing their content.
A huge thank you to the dearly missed Dr David L. Dawson for everything he taught me and for continuing to be an inspiration. (He would rally dissection classes to sing Happy Birthday to students in the anatomy lab!)
Thank you!
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The Irregular Anatomist 