Public Dissections, Frederik Ruysch and the Theatrum Anatomicum: Touring the Waag at Amsterdam Anatomy Weekend

As part of our recent Amsterdam Anatomy Weekend, The Vrolik Museum's Lisa Kuiper gave a fascinating tour of The Waag (above), which is not only the oldest building in Amsterdam (dating back to 1488) but also housed the anatomical theatre where public dissections were performed under the hand of Frederik Ruysch and others from 1691 until the early 19th century. The content of the following post is primarily sourced from Lisa's excellent tour.

The Waag, Kuiper explained, began its life as a city gate; called St Anthony’s Port, it was locked each evening at 10 pm. It went on to become a weighing house (Waag in Dutch) where goods would be weighed before entering the city to evaluate the appropriate taxes before they went to market. From 1588 on, it also served as the home to the city's guilds, including that of the Surgeons; they were given the top space, a testament to thier importance. The Surgeons' Guild built a "Theatrum Anatomicum," or Anatomical Theatre, which could be entered through this door:



Here, they conducted dissections, usually on the bodies of executed criminals; in this way their location was convenient, because criminals were also executed here, as seen in this artwork from 1812:

Guillotine on the Nieuwmarkt, Gerrit Lamberts , 1812.
Via Amsterdam Municipal Archives.

In 1690, neighbors of the Waag sent a letter to the Surgeon's Guild, requesting that the dissections be opened to the curious public; they did so the following year, under the persuasion of famed embalmer, anatomist and so called "artist of death" Frederik Ruysch who also conducted the first dissections. Below you can see him dissecting a child attached to the placenta; more on the man and his work below.

Jan van Neck, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Frederick Ruysch, 1683.
Amsterdams Historisch Museum

Dissections could take as long as seven days to complete, with admission prices varying based on proximity to the body and the day you wished to attend, with earlier dates being more expensive and smelling less vile. The Waag also functioned--as did the Leiden anatomical theatre--as sort of museum, open on Christmas and special fair and market days. Here, one could see a cat with four hind legs, a skeleton of a child playing violin along with other skeletons, the preserved skins of dissected criminals, a taxidermied lion and lioness, and more. At least some of the preparations were made by Frederik Ruysch himself.

Until the 1820's, as explained in a lecture by Vrolik Director Laurens de Rooy, anatomists would dress skeletons and put them in the windows during the the annual market fair, presumably to advertise the contents of the museum; he kindly sent me a copy of the image so I could include it here:

Illustration from Marja Keyser's Komt dat zien!
De Amsterdamse kermis in de 19e eeuw
(‘Come and see! The Amsterdam fair in the 19th century)
Courtesy of Laurens de Rooy

Rembrandt's famous 1632 painting "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp" depicts a dissection which took place at The Waag's Theatrum Anatomicum:

Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, 1632

As with all guild portraits, each doctor would have paid for their own portrait. Dr Tulp is one of very many anatomy guild paintings; we also were lucky enough to see a few more at the Amsterdam Hermitage as part of the exhibition Portrait Gallery of the Golden Age:

Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Jan Deyman, 1656;
fragment; the rest destroyed in a fire.

Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy, The Osteology Lesson of
Dr Sebastiaen Egbertsz, 1619.

Adriaen Backer, Anatomy lesson of Frederik Ruysch, 1670
Amsterdam Museum

The exhibit also housed an image of the Theatrum Anatomicum in the Waag from the 18th century seemingly rendered in gold and silver:

The Theatrum Anatomicum in the Waag, Jonas Zeuner
after Adolf van der Laan, Second half of 18th Century

And a memento mori themed plaque originally on display at an orphanage; it was made during a year when the city of Amsterdam was wracked by plague, with 10% of the population decimated and the orphanages overrun.

Albert Jansz Vinckenbrinck (1604-1664), Death, 1663

Wealthy surgeons might opt for inclusion in a guild portrait, but another and less expensive way surgeons could be immortalized would be to have their family crest painted on the ceiling of the Waag's Theatrum Anatomicum; they can still be seen today




Ruysch's crest is in the very center, reflecting his fame and his importance to the space.

Around the building, in gold letters, reads a memento-mori themed exhortation in Old Dutch. said to have been written by Ruysch himself:

Here is what is says, in a impromptu translation by The Waag's Helen Fermante:

Those who have done bad in life
Will be of use after our death
Health has been taken back from death itself
The dead body gives to the pupil even though its dumb and its tongue already dead, advises you not to do as criminals
Head, finger, kidney, tongue, head, lung, brain, bones, and hands
Give you the living a warning example
So you hear and take to heart
that when you go along the different paths of life
you'll be convened that even in the small details God is still hidden there

In this way, one could see the Theatrum Anatomicum as an extension of the aims of Ruysch's home cabinet, where he displayed his unique preparations that were equal part science and memento mori, such as the allegorically themed fetal skeleton tableau in the illustration below. The skeleton at the bottom is holding a mayfly which, as it only lives a single day, is a symbol of mortality. The top skeleton plays a violin atop a mountain of gall and bladder stones, surrounded by foliage crafted from other preserved human remains. You can find out more about the remarkable Frederik Ruysch--who we call our patron saint--here.

To see more photos from our Amsterdam Anatomy Weekend, click here. The next iteration will take place on April 21-23 2007. If you sign our mailing list by clicking here, you will be alerted when the event is announced.

Anatomical Theatre at the University of Cambridge, 1815

A history of the University of Cambridge, its colleges, halls, and public buildings.
Author:     Combe, William, 1742-1823
Published:    London : R. Ackermann, 1815
Extent:    2 v.
Dimensions:    34 x 28 cm.
Digital ID:    RBAI095
Copy Specific Details :    Plate of the Theatre of Anatomy extracted from v. 2.
Printer/Publisher:    Ackermann, Rudolph, 1764-1834

Found on the University of Toronto Fisher Library's Digital Collections. You can see more here.

Greetings from the David J. Sencer Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Museum in Atlanta, Georgia

My apologies for the recent silence; I have been hard at work creating--and now installing!--an  exhibition entitled "Savior of Mothers: The Forgotten Ballet of Ignaz Semmelweis." The show officially opens at the David J. Sencer CDC Museum in association with the Smithsonian Institution at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia next Monday, June 11th.

More on the exhibition, from the CDC Museum website:

Savior of Mothers: The Forgotten Ballet of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis is an installation of artifacts and ephemera related to an imaginary 19th century ballet created by artist Joanna Ebenstein. The ballet is based on the true story of the brilliant, yet reviled Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865). Scenes range from his earliest attempts to curb the "childbed fever" epidemic in his Viennese obstetrical clinic to his premature death of the very disease he had spent his life trying to defeat. Ebenstein was drawn to Semmelweis' distinctive story not only for its topical and scientific theme--albeit tinged by melodrama and mythic elements--but also for its mixture of beauty and the grotesque. His tale, best suited to the form of a popular tragedy, makes ballet the ideal medium for Semmelweis' tale. Ebenstein's installation includes costume designs for the "Plague Demons of Cadaverous Particles"--expressionistic representations of the virulent bacteria Streptococcus pyogenes itself--and the "12 mourning mothers from beyond the grave," as well as model theaters, posters, and more.

More on this to come very soon; In the meantime, above are some photos of the installation as it inches along. My favorite piece is the very truly enchanting model theatre (bottom 2 images), designed by the astounding Chris Muller and executed by the exceptionally talented Jason Ardizzone-West; it depicts a set for of a mid-19th century anatomical theatre in which some of the major action of the ballet takes place.

The exhibition opens on next Monday, June 11th, at the  David J. Sencer Museum at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. More can be found here.

Apologies from Italy

My sincere apologies for the lack of postings and emails, and a special thanks to all of those who have so generously sent in recommendations for places to visit. I am still on the road in Italy with only intermittent internet access and days filled to the brim with museums, churches, anatomical theatres, ossuaries and reliquaries. As a teaser, here are a few of the things Evan Michelson and I have been encountering on our trip thus far. Evan has been posting more details than I; you can find them here. I will post more--with details, I promise!-- very soon upon my return!

Click on images to see larger versions.

Morbid Anatomy in the Huffington Post

A special thank you to journalist Tanja M. Laden for writing such a lovely Huffington Post piece about the Morbid Anatomy photo projects The Secret Museum and Anatomical Theatre. Check it out--and vote on your favorite images in the slideshow!--by clicking here. The winning image thus far is shown above. Who knew?

William Cheselden Giving an Anatomical Demonstration to Six Spectators in the Anatomy-theatre of the Barber-Surgeons' Company, London, Circa 1730/1740

In Cheselden’s time, surgeons trained through an apprenticeship during which, they would attend private anatomy lessons. Before the Anatomy Act of 1832, the only legal supply of bodies for anatomical purposes where those of criminals condemned by the courts. The Barber-Surgeons’ Company kept scrupulous control over the use of bodies dissected in their hall, with the macabre ritual of often later displaying the dissected bodies of executed criminals in niches around the walls. Cheselden himself was fined by the Company in 1714 for carrying out dissections without permission, which drew away audience members from regular lectures at the Company. With students having little opportunity to take part in dissections themselves, teachers would rely on models or anatomical preparations for class...

Image and text from The Wellcome Collection blog; you can learn more about this fabulous painting--and read the text in its entirety--by clicking here.

Full image credit: William Cheselden giving an anatomical demonstration to six spectators in the anatomy-theatre of the Barber-Surgeons' Company, London. Oil painting, ca. 1730/1740. Wellcome Images.

Philadelphia Medical Film Symposium Recap

I am still processing the many pleasures and terrors that comprised last week's Medical Film Symposium. I left the symposium completely exhausted, dreaming of bloodily sliced corneas and feeling that I might never need to see another surgical or venereal disease film ever again. But, on the other hand, I was much excited and stimulated by many things I saw or learned and the many fascinating people I had the opportunity to meet.

Highlights of the symposium included (but were not limited to):

• Friday night's experimental film fest in the oldest operating theatre in the U.S., which I liken to being immersed in a kaleidoscopic, phantasmagoric fun house of medical horrors (but in a good way! See above images 2-6).
  
  
• Michael Sappol's meta-lecture on the ethically-fraught pleasures of filming, collecting and viewing medical films paired with a screening of terrible and beautiful silent films from the National Library of Medicine (stay tuned for the opportunity to see this lecture at Observatory in Brooklyn! Click here to get on the mailing list and thus be alerted).
  
  
• Oliver Gayken's lecture on wonder and science in early popular science films.
  
  
• Getting to spend an entire day in the Mütter Museum's elegant and wonderful event space!
  
  
• Saturday night's "Medical Film Cabinet of Curiosities" curated by Skip Elsheimer & Jay Schwartz, which gave all of us shell-shocked attendees the opportunity to laugh again, and made me long for the permissive and Utopian 1970s with the screening of the charmingly and innocently explicit school health film entitled "Achieving Sexual Maturity(1973)--completely unthinkable in today's social climate, with its nudity and celebration of youth sensuality, including on screen erections and masturbation--followed by a surrealistically charming school film demystifying a visit to the school nurse called "Just Awful" (1972).
  
  
• The opportunity to take in the really wonderful Jan van Riemsdyk (aka van Rymsdyk) pastel exhibition outside the old operating theatre, which I highly recommend you check out if you are able before it closes in December 2010 (see bottom 2 photos; more on that here).
  
  
• The grilled grapefruit at Reading Terminal's Down Home Diner!
  

All in all, although emotionally draining and a tad exhausting, the 2010 Medical Film Symposium was a wonderful experience, well organized and programmed, and I hope that the conference organizers have plans for a sequel in the near future.

You can find out more on the symposium by clicking here and here. You can find out about the Jan van Riemsdyk by clicking here.

Very special thanks to official symposium photographer Michelle Enemark (Observatory cohort and Curious Expeditions co-author and photographer) for the use of most of the above photos, and to conference organizers Dwight Swanson and Joanna Poses, for putting together such an inspired weekend and for giving me role of "official blogger."

Philadelphia Medical Film Symposium Weekend!

Today I am busing off for the weekend, to join the already-in-progress Philadelphia medical film symposium for a very exciting Friday night screening in the Pennsylvania Hospital's operating theatre, the oldest of its kind in the United States! Am also very much looking forward to tomorrow's day-long film symposium at the Mütter Museum, followed by Saturday night's "Medical Film Cabinet of Curiosities."

If you haven't registered for this amazing looking conference, do not despair; you can still attend screenings of your choice and pay on an event-by-event basis.

Hope very much to see you there! More on the details and locations of this event here.

Image, which I could swear I also saw in the original Wellcome Medicine Man Exhibit, via Rapeblossom.

Medical Film Symposium, January 20-23, Philadelphia, PA

The Medical Film Symposium will examine—through screenings, presentations and papers—the relationship between moving images and medical science. Medical films comprised one of the earliest film genres, but the vast majority of these films are unseen and unknown today...

I can hardly wait for the upcoming Medical Film Symposium, taking place later this month in Philadelphia, PA--January 20-23 to be exact. As far as I know, this ambitious event--featuring over a dozen academics, film-makers and film-historians screening and expounding on films that explore "the relationship between moving images and medical science"--is the first of its kind, and promises to be a really fascinating, compelling, and, at times, perhaps even disturbing event.

As if the stellar line-up (see below) and opportunity to see obscure, under-seen old medical films weren't enough of a draw, the spaces housing the symposium are nearly as alluring as the events themselves; the incomparable Mütter Museum (!!!) will be hosting Saturday's day long program, and Friday night's screening will take place within (yes, within!) the Pennsylvania Hospital Surgical Theatre, the oldest surgical theatre in the United States. As an added bonus, attendees of this screening will have the opportunity to take in the Jan van Rymsdyk pastel drawings on view at the Pennsylvania Hospital's medical library--as mentioned in this previous post--before and after the event.

Other highlights of the symposium include Saturday night's "Medical Film Cabinet of Curiosities" co-curated by the Secret Cinema and North Carolina's A/V Geeks, and friend-of-Morbid-Anatomy Michael Sappol's presentation "Difficult Subjects," in which he will screen some harrowing medical film clips from the collection of The National Library of Medicine and "think aloud about the cultural meaning, scientific uses, ethical issues that arose in the making and showing of such films in their first historical moment" as well as today.

Full conference text follows; its a bit wordy, but well worth reading. The deadline for registration is this Friday, the 15th of January; the conference cost is only $80 ($50 for students), which includes admission to all events, plus breakfast and lunch on Saturday. I will definitely be there, in my role as "official blogger" for the event, and hope to see you there, too. This looks seriously not-to-be-missed, and lets hope it is the first of many such events exploring seriously the interstices of art and medicine, death and culture.

Medical Film Symposium, January 20-23, 2010

Wednesday, January 20
7:00pm
Screening of A Man to Remember at International House
(presented by Nico de Klerk of the Nederlands Filmmuseum) [info]
Preceded by opening of Radiologic Images exhibit (begins at 6:00pm)

Thursday, January 21
7:00pm
Film screening at International House
(curated by Barbara Hammer) [info]

Friday, January 22
7:00pm: Film screening within the historic Pennsylvania Hospital Operating Theatre
(curated by Andrew Lampert and Greg Pierce, open to symposium attendees only)

Saturday, January 23
9:00am to 5:00pm
A full day of presentations at the Mütter Museum
(Philadelphia College of Physicians )

1. "The Body Visible"
   R. Nick Bryan, University of Pennsylvania
   
   While mankind has always been driven by morbid curiosity to see inside its own body, medical practitioners have had a more urgent need to do so – their business lies there-in. The spatial complexity of the body demands imaging not only for diagnosis but for successful treatment. However, the unaided human visual system that depends on visible light cannot see below the skin. Prior to Rontgen’s discovery of x-rays in 1895, the interior of the body could be imaged only by cutting through the skin and ‘letting the light in.’ Unfortunately, until the late 19th Century, such invasive medical imaging was usually performed after or immediately prior to death. Despite an initially slow and crude start with ‘Rontgenography’, the eternal goal of real time, safe, non-invasive, detailed imaging of the living human body has come to dramatic fruition in the past decade. With modern CT, nuclear, MR and ultrasound scanners, vivid static as well as moving images of all major organ systems are now routinely performed, as will be illustrated by videos of, “My Body”, a self-exposé by the presenter.
   
   
2. "Between Photography and Film: Early Uses of Medical Cinematography"
   Scott Curtis, Northwestern University
   
   From the beginning, medical researchers and physicians eagerly appropriated the new technology of motion pictures. For some, especially those interested in a more "scientific" approach to medicine, film represented an improvement upon and transformation of serial photography--that is, they regarded motion pictures as a series of still images. Others extended medical photography's more common use as documentary evidence to their application of cinema. Still others emphasized the spectacular and moving quality of the cinematic image in their promotion of film as an educational tool, often distinguishing it from photography. This presentation, then, will survey the professional perceptions and uses of medical cinematography in its first two decades and compare those uses to the functions, genres, and venues of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century medical photography.
   
   
3. "The Flow of Life: Moving Images of Magnified Blood"
   Oliver Gaycken, Temple University
   
   A staple of medical moving-image presentations was the spectacle of blood as seen under a microscope projected onto a screen. This talk will consider some examples of this tradition that range from nineteenth-century lantern lectures to reminiscences of researchers to the incorporation of this genre into the medical motion picture.
   
   
4. "Complexities and Enigmas of Cinefluorography in the work of Dr. James Sibley Watson and Colleagues"
   Barbara Hammer (Independent filmmaker) and Patti Doyen (George Eastman House
   
   This presentation will explore through Watson et. al.'s text and images the discoveries and problems of the Rochester medical team that led to mechanical inventions that enabled views of the interior of the human body. The uses and abuses of the techniques will be highlighted as well as the artistic curiosities Watson pursued in spectacles that had no scientific purpose.
   
   
5. "Telephone Operator, Camera-Operator: Laryngoscopy and High Speed Motion Pictures at Bell Labs"
   Mara Mills, University of Pennsylvania
   
   During the early twentieth century, telephone engineers became authorities on psychoacoustics and otolaryngology. In the interests of visualizing speech production and the movement of circuit components, they also made key contributions to high speed motion picture photography. This talk will survey the history of laryngoscopy through the 1940s, concluding with a few remarks about the nature of the "telephonic gaze."
   
   
6. "Edgar Ulmer and the National Tuberculosis Association: Fighting Faith in the War Against TB"
   Devin Orgeron, North Carolina State University
   
   From the late 1930s through the early 1940s, well-known “B” movie director Edgar Ulmer (sometimes called the King of PRC) directed eight health shorts for the National Tuberculosis Association. A strain of fatal contamination runs though all of Ulmer’s work and is brilliantly, if oddly articulated in these tuberculosis films, many of which are aimed at specific American racial minorities and the inadequacies of their sometimes imported faith in the face of the disease. Along with their fit within Ulmer’s career, I hope to illustrate the role these films played in shaping 1930s/1940s notions of race, religion, and disease.
   
   
7. “‘Spectacular Problems in Surgery’: Medical Motion Pictures at the American College of Surgeons”
   Kirsten Ostherr, Rice University
   
   Early in the twentieth century, the American College of Surgeons was a leading national force in the use of motion pictures for educational purposes. This movement encompassed all facets of the motion picture industry (ranging from education to entertainment), and established the ACS as a central institution in the history of cinema. Moreover, the ACS became an important vehicle for international medical education through motion pictures after World War II, and this aspect of ACS activities provides an important and unique perspective on the varied global uses of medical media in the postwar era. This presentation will address the medical motion pictures produced, reviewed, distributed, and exhibited by the ACS, from the late 1920s to the present. The talk will be based on research at the American College of Surgeons archive, which contains paper records related to a vast range of medical motion pictures. These films were primarily technical medical films produced by specialists for other specialists, as well as for medical student and resident training. Since the ACS films were concerned not only with medical education but also with the public image of the medical profession, this history serves a critical function in assessing the role of visual images in shaping the popular and specialist cultures of medicine throughout the twentieth century.
   
   
8. "Difficult Subjects: Working with Films from the Collection of the National Library of Medicine"
   Michael Sappol, History of Medicine Division at the National Library of Medicine
   
   Historical medical film is notable for its representation and documentation of "difficult subjects"—the interior of the body, death, disgfigurement, radical medical intervention, infliction of pain on patients and research subjects, behavioral disturbance, venereal disease, emotional and physical distress, etc. Although publicly available, such films are rarely screened and, as a result, rarely studied. This presentation will screen a selection of these difficult films, explore their unique history, uses and abuses, effects on viewers, and the larger issues that they raise.
   
   
9. “Research, education, and patient care: archival medical film collections at academic health institutions”
   Timothy Wisniewski, Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives, Johns Hopkins University
   
   This presentation will focus on the institutional context of archival film collections produced within academic health centers, using the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions as the primary example. The presentation will look at historical examples of centralized and decentralized models of film production at Johns Hopkins, and compare genres of medical film as produced for educational, clinical, or biomedical research purposes. Finally, the presentation will discuss the value of making these often unprocessed or restricted collections accessible for research and use by diverse groups of users.

Saturday, January 23
8:00 pm
A MEDICAL FILM CABINET OF CURIOSITIES
Film screening at Moore College of Art (curated by Skip Elsheimer & Jay Schwartz)
Admission: $7.00 [admission included with symposium registration]

Co-programmed by Jay Schwartz of the Secret Cinema and Skip Elsheimer of North Carolina's A/V Geeks, who will be present at the screening. This will be Skip's first return visit since he presented his popular program S IS FOR SISSY! at Moore, just over one year ago.

The program will include:

• FEET AND POSTURE (1920s) - This reel, from the earliest era of 16mm educational films, aims to explain the physiology of feet and how to best take care of them. It demonstrates through x-rays how the well-dressed young flapper of the time often did not choose the best footwear. Made with the cooperation of M.I.T. and the American Posture League.
  
  
• CELL WARS (1987) A lively introduction to immunology that shows kids how the body´s cells defend themselves against invading germs. Crazy-costumed actors and dazzling video effects demonstrate what happens after germs enter the body through a skinned knee.
  
  
• CRYOEXTRACTION (195?) - A sales and demonstration film showing off the Thomas Cryopter--a device which resembles a power router, which is then shown in use for eye surgery.
  
  
• COLDS AND FLU (1975) - Kids dressed in armor battle each other to seize control of a giant-mouthed castle.
  
  
• ACHIEVING SEXUAL MATURITY (1973) - At a time when DEEP THROAT played in neighborhood cinemas alongside traditional Hollywood fare, educators struggled as to how to best meet increasingly rebellious high school and college students on their own terms. It was during this possibly unique moment in pop culture that ACHIEVING SEXUAL MATURITY was successfully sold to school districts around the country. Its use of graphic live photography of nude males and females to explain and illustrate sexual anatomy from conception to adulthood is today quite surprising.
  
  
• NON-SYPHILITIC VENEREAL DISEASE (195?) - This short film made for the medical community--in still-stunning Kodachrome color -- details a variety of exotic venereal diseases, in close-up after horrifying close-up. This mainstay of Secret Cinema Halloween screenings is guaranteed to have audiences screaming in terror.
  
  
• JUST AWFUL (1972) This film was made to help eradicate any fears children may have about visiting the school nurse.

SECRET CINEMA WEBSITE: http://www.thesecretcinema.com

For more information about the symposium, visit the conference website by clicking here; you can find out more about registration here. For more about symposium hosts the Mütter Museum and Pennsylvania Hospital Surgical Theatre, click here and here, respectively. Please feel free to contact me with any questions by clicking here.

Hope to see you there!

Images: From top: Still from SANCTUS, dir. Barbara Hammer, Courtesy of Barbara Hammer; X-rays by Dr. James Sibley Watson, Courtesy of Barbara Hammer; Maurice L. Blatt, Samuel J. Hoffman, & Maurice Schneider, “Rabies: Report of Twelve Cases, with a Discussion of Prophylaxis,” Journal of the American Medical Association 111 (1938): 688-91

Wedding at the Anatomical Theatre! Museum Boerhaave, 2009

Bart Grob, curator of modern medicine Museum Boerhaave, just alerted me to a momentous and truly spectacular occasion--the first-ever wedding held in the anatomical theatre of the Museum Boerhaave! I asked Bart to send along some photos (see above) and write up a brief report about the wedding; here is what he had to say:

Happily ever after in Museum Boerhaave

On the 10th of September Vincent Scheerman and Anoeska Wouterse celebrated the most important day of their life. That memorable day the couple got married in the anatomical theatre of Museum Boerhaave. And what better place to choose for celebrating their love for each other then in this unique theatre of life and death.

Vincant and Anoeska had a long standing wish to get married here. The both share a common interest in scientific discoveries and nature. Besides Vincent has a special connection with the anatomical theatre, he’s working in the conservation department for more then 20 years now.

The Museum was honoured to act as a wedding location for the first time in it’s history.

In the evening the wedding guests were treated to a special guest. The Leyden butcher Ed Noseman showed his craftsmanship. He dissected a two years old pig and explained were our meat comes from. It was almost like the old days were back again.

In 1593 the University of Leiden was one of the first to build an anatomy theatre in Europe. It was constructed in a former church, which had fallen to the city of Leiden after the Reformation.

In the winter the professor of anatomy conducted public dissections of corpses. During the summer months there was no teaching and the theatre was turned into a kind of museum containing human and animal skeletons. There were also curiosities such as Egyptian mummies and Roman antiquities. It was a place where visitors could stand in amazement and ponder the transience of life.

In the 19th century the anatomy theatre closed down, leaving no trace. What you see here is an actual-size reconstruction of how it must have looked in about 1610, based on manuscripts and prints. The skeletons are also modern, but a few of the curiosities have survived.

The choice of having holding the wedding in the anatomical theatre also reminds me, in a lovely way, of the antique memento mori-themed wedding portraits one runs across from time to time, such as this one:



"The Judd Marriage Portrait" from 1560, to be found in the book Death in England: An Illustrated History (click here to find out more). All share a concern with the ritual contemplation of mortality meaningfully combined with a celebration of the beginning of a new life; I like this combination very much, and find it quite in keeping with the tone of the Museum Boerhaave anatomical theatre.

Congratulations, Vincent Scheerman and Anoeska Wouterse, on the beginning of your new life together, so beautifully heralded in at the Museum Boerhaave anatomical theatre! Thanks so much, Bart, for this report and the photos. Click on images to see larger versions; well worth it on all counts. You can visit the Museum Boerhaave website by clicking here; you can see photos of the Museum Boerhaave collection, and of its epic skeleton-decorated anatomical theatre, by clicking here.

Alabama, Anyone?

The details have been cemented for my upcoming exhibition Anatomical Theatre: Depictions of The Body, Disease and Death in Medical Museums of the Western World at The University of Alabama at Birmingham's Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences. This will be a photographic survey of medical museums with an eye towards their art and history, and how they function as cultural artifacts of a particular time and place. If anyone resides 'round Alabama way, I would like to cordially invite you to attend both the exhibition opening and the lecture and slide show I will be giving in conjunction with the opening. There will be wine and cheese amidst photographs of medical museums from around the world. What could be more fun on a hot, humid Birmingham afternoon? Hope to see you there! Details above. If you can't make it, no worries. This is to be a traveling exhibition so, with any luck, you'll have the opportunity to drink wine among anatomical models closer to home.

The photos in Anatomical Theatre were taken on a month-long pilgrimage to a number of medical museums throughout Europe and The United States. At each, I sat with curators and keepers, asked questions, and photographed the collections, sometime behind the scenes as well as the museum displays proper. I received a Reynolds Associates Research Fellowship In the History of the Health Sciences from UAB to work on this exhibition.

Some of the museums I visited and photographed: The Vrolik in Amsterdam, La Specola in Florence, Musée Dupuytren in Paris, The Josephinum and The Federal Pathologic-Anatomical Museum in Vienna, The Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, The National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington D.C., The Museum of Anatomical Waxes (Museo delle Cere Anatomiche) in Bologna, the Mobile Medical Museum and the Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences in Alabama, The Semmelweis Museum in Budapest, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, The Gordon Museum in London, and The Hunterian Museums in London and Glasgow.

Thanks so much to all the curators who took the time to open their cabinets and talk to me about this project. And a special thanks to photographer Rosamond Purcell for loaning me one of her wonderful Ruysch photographs for this exhibition!