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beboots Sometime in April, I think, I'm going to organize an excursion for some friends of mine (history dorks, all), which I want to entitle "A Day of the Dead at the U of A". Essentially, it's going to amount to making an appointment to visiting the mummy (we have a mummy! The only one in Western Canada! His nickname is Horace - AKA Horus)... and then, we'll go into the bowels of the Health Sciences library (which is itself in the middle of the labyrinthine building that is connected to the university hospital, so it's a quest to even get that far), heading down to the special collections room to look at... THIS.
Warning: LJ cut because I'm morbid and some people don't really want to see books bound in human skin. A (horrifying) part of European heritage, people.
Taken out of it's little black plastic box.
It is quite small, actually. Just a little bit more square than a bestselling paperback novel, but not much taller. A bit thicker, though. (Of course, since this book is so small, it does raise the horrifying possibility of what happened to the rest of the skin. Are there other books out there bound in the material from the same person?)
I like this warning. Because otherwise it seems that this book is only known through word-of-mouth through librarians. It's notorious... but I don't even known if it's in the online searchable library catalog.
In person, though, if you didn't know otherwise, it really could be mistaken for moleskin.
For the curious, the book between the horrifying covers is a medical treatise from 1722, printed in Latin.
Not knowing more than what I can divine from my French skills and that one Latin 101 course I took in my first year, I THINK it's a reprinting of a classical medical text by a man named Celsus. At the very least there's a frontipiece opposite this page with the lithograph of a bust of a greco-roman looking man labeled "A. Corn. Celsus, ex iconibus a sambuco editis". The last part means, I think, something about this (image) being made from the image of something else. A sambuco or something. I'm not sure. Anybody who knows Latin, please tell me more!
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL in this room. There's also THIS in a box by the door, so you can't help but see it as you leave:
Yeah. That's what it looks like. Not content with the human skin book, which, with a bit of squinting and denial you can pretend it's something that it's not... this disperses no illusions. The little green card says:
"Dissections of an arm and leg, showing vasculature, prepared c. 1804 by John Mewburn as part of his surgical anatomy studies in London, brought to Upper Canada in 1832, and brought west by his grandson, Francis Hamilton Mewburn, in 1885. Dr. Frank Mewburn was the first Professor of Surgery at the University of Alberta. Donated by the Mewburn Family, 1984."
Yeah, it's down there with all the rare medical reference texts.
All right, after that, we'll need something a bit more cheerful, y/y? So you don't go to bed horrified with me for showing you these images?
How about this? I spotted it, almost hiding between two books on nursing on the shelf above the books I was actually there to look at for my thesis research. (Shh- this isn't procrastination, this is education and exploration of the hidden archives of the university!)
Note the pen I placed there for scale. This book is almost adorably tiny. It was printed in... I want to say 1914, possibly a bit earlier. First World War-era or before, anyway. See inside:
I just happened across the definition for hypnotism. It was the second page I flipped to when I opened the book randomly. I love that this definition is even in here. Hypnotism was once viewed with much more scientific credibility than it is today. ;)
The first page I opened it to, incidentally, explained the pronounciation and definition of chloroform, and admonished readers that the chemical "must always be kept in the dark" - although the book, mysteriously, gives no explanation for this stern warning. What will happen if you put it in direct sunlight? Will it become ineffective? Explode?
I also have to include a few of the advertisements at the beginning and end of the book. It's a book of vital information for medical professionals, but the author will still try to sell you stuff! (And we thought that commercialism was something we only had to worry about in recent decades...)
Where's MY sewing pattern for a wimple like that?
Well, if there's no flaw in it's claim to be absolutely pure... and it's endorsed by not only His Majesty the King, Her Majesty the Queen AND Her Majesty Queen Alexandra(??)... and also the MEDICAL FACULTY...! Where's MY malted cocoa? (And really, how can you FAIL to endorse chocolate? <3 <3 <3)
Yeah guys, NOTICE THE VIROL SMILE.
Anyway, I hope that this post ended on a SLIGHTLY less depressing note. ;) I've been wanting to talk about the human skin book for a long long while. I hope that you were as morbidly interested in this subject as I was!
Warning: LJ cut because I'm morbid and some people don't really want to see books bound in human skin. A (horrifying) part of European heritage, people.
Taken out of it's little black plastic box.
It is quite small, actually. Just a little bit more square than a bestselling paperback novel, but not much taller. A bit thicker, though. (Of course, since this book is so small, it does raise the horrifying possibility of what happened to the rest of the skin. Are there other books out there bound in the material from the same person?)
I like this warning. Because otherwise it seems that this book is only known through word-of-mouth through librarians. It's notorious... but I don't even known if it's in the online searchable library catalog.
In person, though, if you didn't know otherwise, it really could be mistaken for moleskin.
For the curious, the book between the horrifying covers is a medical treatise from 1722, printed in Latin.
Not knowing more than what I can divine from my French skills and that one Latin 101 course I took in my first year, I THINK it's a reprinting of a classical medical text by a man named Celsus. At the very least there's a frontipiece opposite this page with the lithograph of a bust of a greco-roman looking man labeled "A. Corn. Celsus, ex iconibus a sambuco editis". The last part means, I think, something about this (image) being made from the image of something else. A sambuco or something. I'm not sure. Anybody who knows Latin, please tell me more!
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL in this room. There's also THIS in a box by the door, so you can't help but see it as you leave:
Yeah. That's what it looks like. Not content with the human skin book, which, with a bit of squinting and denial you can pretend it's something that it's not... this disperses no illusions. The little green card says:
"Dissections of an arm and leg, showing vasculature, prepared c. 1804 by John Mewburn as part of his surgical anatomy studies in London, brought to Upper Canada in 1832, and brought west by his grandson, Francis Hamilton Mewburn, in 1885. Dr. Frank Mewburn was the first Professor of Surgery at the University of Alberta. Donated by the Mewburn Family, 1984."
Yeah, it's down there with all the rare medical reference texts.
All right, after that, we'll need something a bit more cheerful, y/y? So you don't go to bed horrified with me for showing you these images?
How about this? I spotted it, almost hiding between two books on nursing on the shelf above the books I was actually there to look at for my thesis research. (Shh- this isn't procrastination, this is education and exploration of the hidden archives of the university!)
Note the pen I placed there for scale. This book is almost adorably tiny. It was printed in... I want to say 1914, possibly a bit earlier. First World War-era or before, anyway. See inside:
I just happened across the definition for hypnotism. It was the second page I flipped to when I opened the book randomly. I love that this definition is even in here. Hypnotism was once viewed with much more scientific credibility than it is today. ;)
The first page I opened it to, incidentally, explained the pronounciation and definition of chloroform, and admonished readers that the chemical "must always be kept in the dark" - although the book, mysteriously, gives no explanation for this stern warning. What will happen if you put it in direct sunlight? Will it become ineffective? Explode?
I also have to include a few of the advertisements at the beginning and end of the book. It's a book of vital information for medical professionals, but the author will still try to sell you stuff! (And we thought that commercialism was something we only had to worry about in recent decades...)
Where's MY sewing pattern for a wimple like that?
Well, if there's no flaw in it's claim to be absolutely pure... and it's endorsed by not only His Majesty the King, Her Majesty the Queen AND Her Majesty Queen Alexandra(??)... and also the MEDICAL FACULTY...! Where's MY malted cocoa? (And really, how can you FAIL to endorse chocolate? <3 <3 <3)
Yeah guys, NOTICE THE VIROL SMILE.
Anyway, I hope that this post ended on a SLIGHTLY less depressing note. ;) I've been wanting to talk about the human skin book for a long long while. I hope that you were as morbidly interested in this subject as I was!
