Anatomical Alphabet from William Cowper's "Myotomia Reformata," 1724; By Paul Dijstelberge of the Special Collections Amsterdam

Paul Dijstelberge of the Special Collections Amsterdam has created a fantastic (if not quite complete) anatomical alphabet from initial caps drawn which pepper William Cowper's 1724 book Myotomia Reformata: or an Anatomical Treatise on the Muscles of the Human Body.

You can see the whole collection on the blog "A Beautiful Book"by clicking here. You can find more about this book in a recent guest post by Morbid Anatomy for the New York Academy of Medicine.

Thanks so much to Eve Sinaiko for sharing!

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.

"Vision of Ezekiel," Giovanni Batista Britano Ghisi or Mantuano, 1554

Title: 'Dabo super Vos Ner Vos Et Succrescere Facia sup Vos Carne'
Maker: Giovanni Batista Britano Ghisi or Mantuano
Year: 1554, published by Gio Iacomo de Rossi in Roma alla Pace in ca.1660
Description: Rare antique print  (copper engraving) of the Vision of Ezekiel by Giovanni Batista Britano Ghisi also called Mantuano (1520-1582), printed by Gio Iacomo de Rossi in Roma alla Pace.
The text on the ribbon is ’Dabo super Vos Ner Vos Et Succrescere Facia sup Vos Carne’ (I will lay sinews and flesh upon you) The tablet (lower left) shows the inscription ‘Io: Baptista Britano Mantuan In’. The water mark of the paper shows a ‘fleur de lis’ in a circle 
Subject: Antique religious prints / Vision of Ezekiel

For sale at ISCRA antiquarians in The Netherlands; more here. Click on top image to see larger, finer version.

"The Devil Examining the Head of a Boy" Frontspiece to a Manual on Phrenology; 1847, The Wellcome Library

From the wonderful Wellcome Library where I am busy doing research at the next week or so:

The devil examining the head of a boy; three other boys lurk under the devil’s wings; frontispiece to a manual on phrenology. Steel engraving

1847 By: Hippolyte Bruyères after: Jean Denis Nargeot
Published: Aubert & c.ie,[Paris (Place de la Bourse, 29) : 1847

V0009469 Credit: Wellcome Library, London

Clink on image to see larger version. You can learn more on Wellcome Images.

"A History of Mourning" Richard Davey, 1890

“The body of Inez was lifted from the grave, placed on a magnificent throne, and crowned Queen of Portugal. The clergy, the nobility, and the people did homage to her corpse, and kissed the bones of her hands. There sat the dead Queen, with her yellow hair hanging like a veil round her ghastly form. One fleshless hand held the sceptre, and the other the orb of royalty. At night, after the coronation ceremony, a procession was formed of all the clergy and nobility, the religious orders and confraternities which extended over many miles each person holding a flaring torch in his hand, and thus walked from Coimbra to Alcobaga, escorting the crowned corpse to that royal abbey for interment. The dead Queen lay in her rich robes upon a chariot drawn by black mules and lighted up by hundreds of lights.”

Text and images drawn from A History of Mourning, by Richard Davey, 1890, as found on the wonderful Public Domain Review website.

Click on images to larger, more detailed images. Click here to peruse the entire book. And thanks so very much to Aaron Beebe for sending this along.

Cover Art for Agatha Christie's "The Body in the Library," Rein van Looy (1910-1994)

Cover art for The Body in the Library (Dutch edition) by Agatha Christie, by Rein van Looy, (1910-1994).

Found via the fantastic "The Macabre and the Beautifully Grotesque" Facebook group; this particular scan of the cover found here. Click on image to see much larger, more detailed version.

Dream Anatomy Video

The interior of our bodies is hidden to us. What happens beneath the skin is mysterious, fearful, amazing. In antiquity, the body's internal structure was the subject of speculation, fantasy, and some study, but there were few efforts to represent it in pictures. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century-and the cascade of print technologies that followed-helped to inspire a new spectacular science of anatomy, and new spectacular visions of the body. Anatomical imagery proliferated, detailed and informative but also whimsical, surreal, beautiful, and grotesque — a dream anatomy that reveals as much about the outer world as it does the inner self. --Introduction to Michael Sappol's Dream Anatomy exhibition

I have just stumbled upon a really nice video based on the now-legendary Dream Anatomy exhibition at the National Library of Medicine, curated by friend and friend-of-the-blog Michael Sappol. To check out--and purchase a copy of!--the beautifully illustrated and provocatively insightful catalog for the exhibition, click here.

Found on Street Anatomy.

Theatrum Anatomicum, Caspar Bauhin, 1605

Caspar Bauhin Theaturm Anatomicum 1605
Description: [xvi], 1314 pp. Engraved title page with engraved portrait on verso, engraved armorial device on verso of following leaf; 129 engraved plates included in pagination. (8vo) 7½x4¾, contemporary full vellum, yapp edges, lacking closure ties. First Edition.Page 175, intended for Plate 20 of Book 1 curiously left unprinted, perhaps a prudish expurgation of a depiction of the male reproductive system. Bauhin (1560-1624) was born at Basel and studied medicine at Padua, Montpellier, and Tubingen (under the botanist Leonhard Fuchs). On his return to Basel in 1580, he was admitted to the degree of doctor, and gave private lectures in botany and anatomy. In 1582 he was appointed to the Greek professorship in that university, and in 1588 to the chair of anatomy and botany. He was later made city physician, professor of the practice of medicine, rector of the university, and dean of his faculty. His anatomical publications drew criticism from the followers of Galen, as did his work on human anatomical nomenclature, particularly of the muscles, but his system was adopted by subsequent anatomists. This work has fine dissection plates in greater number than his earlier books. GM-379
Place Published:
Date Published: Frankfurt

Click on images to see larger versions. Text and most images from Live Auctioneers; other image from Elettrogenica.

The Skeleton in Spanish Pulp Fiction Book Covers, 1935-1954

You can see a complete collection of book covers--well worth it!--and find out more at the El Desvan del Abuelito blog by clicking here. Click on images to see larger versions of each.

"Physica Sacra," Johannes Jacob Scheuchzer, 1735

The incredible images above are drawn from a book which has long intrigued me, Johannes Jacob Scheuchzer's 4-volume early 18th Century extravaganza of art, science and mysticism entitled Physica Sacra.

As described by Christie's Auction House:

'In Scheuchzer's gigantic work, Physica Sacra, the Baroque attains, philosophically as well as artistically, its high point and its conclusion' (Faber du Faur, German Baroque Literature, p. 472). Scheuchzer, a doctor and natural scientist from Zurich, planned the Physica sacra as an explanation of and a commentary on the Bible on natural-scientific grounds. He himself oversaw the illustrations which were largely based on his own natural history cabinet or on other famous European cabinets of rare specimens...

This book seems like a fitting final response to yesterday's very stimulating "Art and the Curiosity Cabinet" Conference at Seton Hall University, where a lot was said about these ways in which early cabinets (and pre-modern inquiry) resided at the borders of art and science, fact and mysticism. I don't think I have ever seen a more elegant expression of these ideas than the content and illustrations of this book, which blends bible commentary with natural history in a bombastic interest in all of the known world of its time, spanning Memento Mori to the Thesaurus of Snowflakes to biblical miracles, all given equal treatment and weight.

Click on images to see much larger and more detailed images; worth your while, I promise! You can see 737 of the images from the book (!!!) (from which the above 7 are drawn) in Greyherbert's amazing Flickr stream by clicking here.

Inspired by this recent post on the Ptak Science Books blog discussing the book; Text from Christie's Auction house description of the book when recently auctioning off a complete 4-volume set.

Images above, top to bottom:

1. Homo ex Humo ('man from the ground', or 'dust')
   
2. Memento Mori
3. Ventriculi
   
4. Heart
5. Columna Ignis
6. Solea cum Squamae
   
7. Thesarus of Snowflakes
   

Frontspiece to "Anatomische Tafeln...", Giulio Casserio Anatomist, Frankfurt, 1656

Anatomische Tafeln...

Frankfurt, 1656. Copperplate engraving. National Library of Medicine

Giulio Casserio (ca. 1552-1616) [anatomist]

This clumsy frontispiece features five notable anatomists posed around a cadaver. In the center of the picture, the image of the Earth, with the continent of "America" visible, signifies that the anatomized body is a "New World," and dissection a voyage of discovery.

Click image to see much finer, larger version. Via Mike Sappol's fantastic Dream Anatomy Online Exhibition (book here) via Darko is Dorko.

Fritz Kahn?, Early 20th Century

Attributed to Fritz Kahn.

Via Elettrogenica.

"The Manner of Dissecting the Pestilentiall Body," 1666

"The Manner of Dissecting the Pestilentiall Body," 1666.

Click on image to see larger, more detailed version.

Via The William Eamon blog.

"Representing the Last Stage of Mental & Bodily Exhaustion from Onanism or Self-pollution," 1845

Representing the last stage of mental & bodily exhaustion from Onanism or Self-pollution, coloured engraving from The Secret Companion, a medical work on onanism or self-pollution, with the best mode of treatment in all cases of nervous and sexual debility, impotency, etc by R. J. Brodie, 1845, Plate 2. From the Wellcome Library, London

Via darkoisdorko.tumblr.

33 Plates of Morbid Anatomy Elucidating Dr. Bright's Works, 1829, The British Museum

33 Plates of Morbid anatomy Ellucidating Dr. Bright's Works
Published in London, 1829
British XVIIIc Mounted Atlas
Paper; stipple ; mezzotint; hand-coloured
Published by Longman; Prints made by William Say

Inscriptions: Lettered within image with letters for identification, and: "Plate/ Drawn by F.R.Say/ Engraved by W.Say/ London Published July 1. 1829, by Longman, Rees, Orme & Brown." Stamped with Say's blind stamp.

Found on the British Museum website; to find out more--and see more images!--click here.