Exquisite Bodies and Transgression

Anatomical models, ostensibly for education, have always been about transgression. We are not meant to see these things; Galen (103 - 200 AD) was only able to dissect apes, not humans, because of religious edicts.

It was not 1523, when Pope Clement VII (guess what? A Medici. He died through eating a Death Cap mushroom. Those Italians, eh?) permitted dissection for medical purpose that an accurate understanding of the human body could develop. In Christian societies, that is, for interestingly Islamic scholar-physicians as far back as the towering figure of Al-razi (865 - 925) emphasized the value of dissection and the importance of understanding anatomy when treating diseases.

To make up for lost time once His Holiness said "Yes", Vesalius, from Brussels, burst onto the University of Padua in the autumn of 1537, enrolled in the medical school and received his doctorate of medicine very quickly. Upon graduation, he was immediately offered the chair of Surgery and Anatomy. A friendly judge, impressed by his methods, facilitated his procurement of the bodies of executed prisoners to conduct dissections on. And it was only then that Galen's errors were overturned.

It was dissection which allowed Vesalius to produce what were arguably the first proper books of anatomy, most notably "De Humani Corporis Fabrica", with its detailed drawings by, amongst others, da Vinci. It was subsequent books and single sheets of anatomical illustration that invented the "lift the flap" technique, so that layers of illustrated paper could be lifted up in succession to reveal the secrets of the human body. The sheets did not just circulate in medical circles.

Of course, once the field of anatomy had been invented, it needed to be promulgated; nice people did not want to be dissected upon their death, and even in those days there was a shortage of executed prisoners to go round. So the anatomical waxwork was invented, and it was Italy, and more specifically Florence, that led the world. The greatest collection of anatomical waxes from this period was amassed by the Grand Duke of Tuscany and these waxes are still on show at the Museum of Natural History in Florence, the famous "La Specola".

Time went on, and just as the two-headed calf side-show at the fair attracted the masses, so did the anatomical model, which had quickly developed to show not just anatomy but the physical symptoms of diseases too, most notably the "Great Pox" (syphilis). The development of the foetus in the womb and the process of delivery were other great favourites, as were all the usual "prodigies" of nature.

Of the 19th Century London anatomical museums, the most famous was that of Joseph Kahn, which attracted over 2000 visitors a week at the height of its popularity. Education, or transgression? Kahn cleverly offered both, focused on the "diseases of imprudence" and the "dreadful effects of onanism", and allied his models with daily lectures on embryology and sexual health.

In the early 20th Century Senor Roca, a successful fairground entrepreneur, established "The House of Monsters" in Barcelona's Barrio Chino (the red-light district) with a selection of anatomical waxworks, jars of preserved human parts, a "house of murders" and the usual prodigies of nature. Again, to offset the transgression, Roca allied it to information about avoiding the three great "plagues" of humanity at that time and in that place - tuberculosis, alcoholism and syphilis. For a while the Red Cross took over the running of the museum until it closed in 1935.

So, we who do not need to know these things, unlikely as we are to conduct an operation or deliver a baby, like to look at these things. But we know it's wrong. But it's a funny exciting. Wrap it up in some moralizing and we'll all feel better.

Even within the educational, informing environment of the Wellcome Institute I knew that the frisson I experienced was not from the medico-socio-history of the artefacts, but from the feeling of transgression. But God, the things were fascinating. Maybe I was born for the cheap seats.

However, the curator was not unaware either, as the penis exhibits were all behind a red velvet curtain. You could only raise the curtain once you had read a warning notice to the effect that what was behind "may cause distress or offence". Showmanship. Not so different from Mr Kahn after all.

The visit to the Exquisite Bodies exhibition also brought an occasion during a holiday to Florence with my mother come swimming back. This must have been twenty years ago or so, certainly she was only in her sixties then. The museum in the poem is the Museo di Storia della Scienza, or the Museum of the History of Science, and is chock-full of Galileo's stuff and telescopes and microscopes and astrolabes ...

Galileo's Objective Lens (in the middle of a case and you can't actually see it much).

A Newtonian Telescope, I believe.

Ooh, Galileo's middle finger. A reliquary of a man found guilty of heresy particularly rich in contradictions.
Mother Leaving

Exhibition, you remind me
of an afternoon in Florence with Mum
and the visit to that science museum
where we both feigned interest in instruments
that changed the way man viewed the world
until I moved her to my endpoint;
the exhibits upstairs.
She was much younger then,
and made it without moaning.
Arrayed before us, no glass case,
were waxworks of syphilitics,
dusty babies in utero,
chancred cankered faces.
We walked around until she, finally, said,
“I think I’ve had enough now.”