While I like to sew (and refuse to knit), my quilting has never gotten this interesting. I think I’ve been inspired. Artist Katrin Rodegast created this large quilt that was exhibited in Dortmund, Germany. On her site, you can see the details of all the figures she’s incorporated, many of them anatomical. Brains, hearts, skeletons, you name it, have earned their spot.

It is coated with a pattern of 270 illustrations observing the social reality. With my quilt I connect traditional quilt art and modern computer technology.

Something like this would be too pretty to sleep with, and def too large for my apartment. I’m so glad to find this unique piece to gaze at!

Rebecca Ladds has exhaled these wonderful Soft Anatomies. As, according to Ladds, seeing the beauty in all things makes creating as natural a process as breathing. Only in her first year at the Ontario College of Art & Design, her lungs are still pink and ready to breathe new life into the world of anatomical art.

To check out her collection and purchase a print of your own, head to her Etsy!

The Annals of Eugenics--now The Annals of Human Genetics--has just made its 1925-1954 journal content available online for researchers in the history of science and medicine. Their current issue also features four specially commissioned articles that contextualizing the content, and highlighting the ways in which Eugenics "embodies the history of human genetics as a scientific enterprise and exemplifies the complex relationship of this discipline with wider society [as well as] the somber role that human genetics played in providing what was taken to be a scientific framework to social prejudice during the period."

This is sure to be some fascinating stuff.

Full details, as told by Advances in the History of Psychology:

The Annals of Human Genetics (AHG), formerly named Annals of Eugenics, has recently made its 1925-1954 journal content available online for researchers. Among the now controversial eugenics research appearing throughout these issues, researchers can also expect to find statistical publications by mathematician Karl Pearson, whose work at University College London concerned the widely used Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient, the Pearson Chi-Square test, and P-value.

The AHG editorial cites “ongoing use and reference to materials”… “and the somewhat limited availability of the original printed copy” as justification for making the content available online. Furthermore,

"Online access to the Annals of Eugenics archive will also be of interest to historians of science. In many ways, the history of the Annals embodies the history of human genetics as a scientific enterprise and exemplifies the complex relationship of this discipline with wider society. The somber role that human genetics played in providing what was taken to be a scientific framework to social prejudice during the period of “Eugenics” is a well-known case of the complex interaction between science and society. The present issue of the journal includes four specially commissioned articles that attempt to contextualize the online publication of the Annals of Eugenics archive. To exemplify some of the major scientific contributions made during that period, the article by J. Ott highlights key papers on linkage analysis published by the journal. The contributions by K. Weiss, G. Allen, and D. Kevles deal with aspects of the history of eugenics and of human genetics, and explore their relevance to ongoing debates regarding the social implications of human genetics research."

You can read the full article by clicking here.

While at the AAHM meeting in Philadelphia a few weeks ago, I met a number of fascinating folks, among them Rachel Ingold, the curator of the History of Medicine Collections at the Duke Medical Center Library & Archives. She was telling me about a wonderful exhibition on flap anatomies (images above) that will be on view there until July of this year; here is what she had to say about it:

Animated Anatomies explores the visually stunning and technically complex genre of printed texts and illustrations known as anatomical flap books. This exhibit traces the flap book genre beginning with early examples from the sixteenth century, to the colorful “golden age” of complex flaps of the nineteenth century, and finally to the common children’s pop-up anatomy books of today. The display—which includes materials from the Rare Book Manuscript and Special Collection Library at Duke University, the Duke Medical Center Library & Archives’ History of Medicine Collections, and from the private collections of the curators of the exhibit—highlights the history of science, medical instruction, and the intricate art of bookmaking.

Through the hands-on process of exposing layer after layer of anatomical illustrations, flap books mimic the act of human dissection, inviting the viewer to participate in a virtual autopsy, so to speak. Whether it’s a sixteenth-century hand-colored treatise on the layers of the eye or a nineteenth-century obstetrical guide in 3-D for performing cesareans, these books draw the viewer in. Over time, as advances in both science and printing promoted more widespread medical knowledge, anatomical flap books began to appeal to more general audiences eager to learn about their own bodies’ inner workings. Technological developments in machine printing also allowed for more colorful and precise illustrations than the hand-colored treatises of the early modern period.

A symposium was held on April 18 and we hope to have videos posted from this event soon. To learn more about the symposium, exhibit, see photos of anatomical flap books, and watch videos of them in action, visit the exhibit website. For more information, contact Meg Brown at meg.brown@duke.edu or Rachel Ingold at rachel.ingold@duke.edu. The exhibit will be up through July 17, 2011, and is free and open to the public.

This fantastic looking exhibition will be on display in the Perkins Gallery, Perkins Library, at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, until July 17, 2011, and in the History of Medicine Gallery in the Medical Center and Archives Library from April 13-July 17, 2011. To find out more--or to pay a virtual visit!--check out the exhibition website by clicking here.

The BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time has just produced an episode about Robert Burton's 17th masterwork The Anatomy of Melancholy; the book is essentially a 17th Century multi-disciplinary investigation of what was then known as melancholy, and, as the BBC describes, brings together "almost two thousand years of scholarship, from Ancient Greek philosophy to seventeenth-century medicine. Melancholy, a condition believed to be caused by an imbalance of the body’s four humours, was characterised by despondency, depression and inactivity. Burton himself suffered from it, and resolved to compile an authoritative work of scholarship on the malady, drawing on all relevant sources."

Can't wait to give this a listen!

You can listen to the episode by clicking here. Found on the Advances in the History of Psychology website; click here to read full post.

Image: Frontspiece to Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy, or The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, Opened and Cut Up, 1621

As many of you know, I have been hard at work on an exhibition called The Great Coney Island Spectacularium, which opened just a few weeks ago at The Coney Island Museum (more on that here).

As part of the exhibition, we are--with the help of scenic painters, lighting designers and prop builders from the theater and opera world--in the midst of building a new component for the exhibition, an 19th Century-style panorama/cosmorama that will allow visitors to experience the 1911 complete destruction of Dreamland by fire in an immersive 360 degree sound, sight, and light spectacular. This component is set to premiere on May 27th, the centenary of the disaster, and is inspired by the immersive disaster spectacles so popular in Coney Island around the turn of the century.

Here's the rub: immersive amusements of this sort, as we are learning the hard way, are quite expensive to produce--probably a large reason that they were put out of business by cinema!--and we are, sadly, seriously under budget.

If 19th Century-style immersive spectacles of this sort are the kind of thing you would like to experience, and you would like to help contribute towards making this project a reality, we would be so pleased to welcome your contribution! Tax-deductable donations to Coney Island USA--our mother institution--can be made by clicking here and then hitting the "Donate" button. No amount too small! All donations appreciated.

Whether you are able to donate or not, please mark your calendar for the cosmorama opening party, which will take place on the centenary of the great disaster on Friday, May 27th, 2011. Or, come experience it later; The Comorama and the rest of The Spectacularium will be on view to the public at the Coney Island Museum until April 29th, 2012.

You can find out more about The Cosmorama by clicking here. You can join our mailing list to get updates about the opening party and other events by entering your email under "events mailing list" on the upper right hand side of the webpage. You can join our Facebook group by clicking here.

Thanks, and see you at Coney!
Joanna

...“The Immortalization Commission” is a fascinating piece of intellectual history, exploring the intersection of science, religion, mysticism and a kind of philosophical curiosity that made the early 20th century so much more intellectually dynamic, so much more open-minded and eclectic, so much more magical than either philosophy or science is today. If contemporary god-builders — seeking to stave off death with blue-green algae, Bikram yoga and cryogenics — are more crass and materialistic than those in Gray’s story, ultimately they fail to appreciate the same point: that life seems to get much of its meaning from the fact that it ends. --The Scientific Revolt Against Death, review of John Gray's The Immortalization Commission, The New York Times Book Review

You can read the entire review of John Gray's fascinating The Immortalization Commission: Science and the Strange Quest to Cheat Death in today's New York Times by clicking here. You can find out more about the book--and purchase a copy--by clicking here.

Thanks, Aaron, for sending this review my way.

Image: Getty Images, captions reads:The search for eternal life: Even Charles Darwin hedged his bets and attended a seance; found at The Daily Mail.

The Brooklyn-based Morbid Anatomy Library is currently seeking a volunteer to watch over the library on Saturdays from 12-6, do a bit of book cataloging, and take on assorted odd jobs. The position would begin the weekend of May 21-22; Class credit can be worked out if applicable.

For those who have not yet visited, the Library (see photo above) is an open-to-the-public research library and private collection housing books, photographs, artworks, ephemera, and artifacts relating to medical museums, anatomical art, cabinets of curiosity, death and dying, arcane media, collectors and collecting, and curiosity and curiosities broadly considered. You can find out more information about the library here.

If interested, please email me at morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com.

Thanks!

Above photo of the library by Shannon Taggart.