Elegant Anatomy: The Eighteenth-Century Leiden Anatomical Collections

261 Pages·2014·4.7 MB·English

by  Marieke M. A. Hendriksen

Elegant Anatomy
History of Science
and Medicine Library
VOLUME 47
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hsml
Elegant Anatomy
The Eighteenth-Century Leiden
Anatomical Collections
By
Marieke M. A. Hendriksen
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustration: LUMC Al0007. Heart injected with red wax and mercury. Probably from the collection of
Eduard Sandifort (1742–1814). © Anatomisch Museum LUMC 2012. Photographer: Arno Massee.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hendriksen, Marieke M. A.
 Elegant anatomy : the eighteenth-century Leiden anatomical collections / by Marieke M.A. Hendriksen.
  pages cm. — (History of science and medicine library, ISSN 1872-0684 ; volume 47)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
 ISBN 978-90-04-26278-2 (hardback : acid-free paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-26277-5 (e-book) 1. Anatomical
museums—Netherlands—Leiden—History—18th century. 2. Human anatomy—Netherlands—Leiden—
History—18th century. 3. Human anatomy—Netherlands—Leiden—Methodology—History—18th
century. 4. Human body—Social aspects—Netherlands—Leiden—History—18th century. 5. Material
culture—Netherlands—Leiden—History—18th century. 6. Senses and sensation—Social aspects—
Netherlands—Leiden—History—18th century. 7. Aesthetics—Social aspects—Netherlands—Leiden—
History—18th century. 8. Art and science—Netherlands—Leiden—History—18th century. 9. Leiden
(Netherlands)—Intellectual life—18th century. I. Title.
 QM51.N42L34 2015
 611.0074’49238—dc23
2014033549
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issn 1872-0684
isbn 978-90-04-26278-2 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-26277-5 (e-book)
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Contents
Acknowledgements  vii
List of Illustrations  ix
1 Introduction: Understanding Eighteenth-Century Leiden Anatomy  1
2 Elegant Anatomy: Aesthesis  10
3 Quicksilver Anatomy: Exploring the Lymphatic System
with Mercury  35
4 Hands, Lace and Plants: Meaningful Embellishments  75
5 Beautiful Monsters: How Deformity Can Be Elegant  108
6 Colonial Bodies: Collecting the Exotic Other  144
7 Back to the Bone: The End of Aesthesis  178
8 Conclusion: Aesthesis and the Future of Historical
Anatomical Collections  205
Bibliography  215
Index  243

Acknowledgements
This book was originally conceived as a PhD thesis between 2008 and 2012
within the research programme Cultures of Collecting: The Leiden Anatomical
Collections in Context at Leiden University and funded by nwo (the Dutch
Research Council). Rina Knoeff, Robert Zwijnenberg, and Hieke Huistra were
the other researchers on the project, and their ongoing support has been
invaluable. In 2011, Simon Chaplin, director of the London Wellcome Library,
gave Hieke and myself the opportunity to do research in London for three
months. This period, with access to the marvellous collections at the Wellcome
Library, the Hunterian Museum and the British Library, has been essential for
the development of the book. My then home institution, the Leiden University
Centre for the Arts in Society (lucas, formerly luicd), Stichting Historia
Medicinae, the Leids Universiteits Fonds and the Scottish Society for Art
History generously funded this research trip.
Feedback from participants at international workshops and conferences
in London, Lyon, Leiden, Zeist, Durham, Edinburgh, Zürich, Paris, Warwick,
Amsterdam and Manchester on parts of the research underlying the current
book have helped me greatly in testing and developing my ideas. In Leiden,
there was also the ongoing support of our informal reading group—Frans van
Lunteren, Martin Weiss and Eric Jorink regularly joined our small research
group to discuss work in progress. Also very important for the development
of my work were the international project workshop and conference we orga-
nized in Leiden in 2009 and 2012 respectively. The latter has formed an inter-
national network of scholars, curators, and artists working with anatomical
collections, and has resulted in the Leiden Declaration on Human Anatomy.
The feedback of the organizers, my fellow PhD candidates and Dick Willems
(professor of Medical Ethics at the Amsterdam Medical Centre/University of
Amsterdam) during the meetings of the national wtmc research school has
helped me to see my work in a broader perspective. Numerous people at uni-
versities, museums, libraries, archives, and research institutions have helped
me find sources and access collections over the years. It is impossible to name
everyone here, but special thanks are due to Andries van Dam, curator at
Leiden University Anatomical Museum, for putting up with my endless inqui-
ries, helping me access remote storage spaces, explaining the technicalities of
preserving anatomical preparations, tolerating my presence in his not-so-big
office and his sense of humour. Evan Ragland provided valuable feedback on
the finished thesis when I was in the process of rewriting it as a book.
viii Acknowledgements
Others who have helped me are Ernst Otto Onnasch and Paul Ziche (Utrecht
University), Bas Wielaard (lumc), the staff at the Leiden University Library
Special Collections, the people at Museum Boerhaave, especially Mieneke
te Hennepe, Bart Grob, Tim Huisman and the library staff, Margot Barteling
(lumc), Dave Mazierski (University of Toronto), Marcel van der Beek and Ans
ter Woerds at Geldmuseum Utrecht, Huib Zuidervaart (Huygens ing), Laurens
de Rooy (Museum Vrolik), Annette Schmidt (Museum Volkenkunde, Leiden),
Ingeborg Eggink, Wayne Modest (kit/Royal Institute for the Tropics), Ricky Tax
(Museum Meermanno-Westerianum, The Hague), Stephen Snelders (umcu),
and Reina de Raat, Jan Willem Pette and Paul Lambers at Universiteitsmuseum
Utrecht. Without the technical knowledge and skills of Tiemen Cocquyt, cura-
tor at Museum Boerhaave, experimenting with making a preparation would
not have been possible.
Then there is all the helpful staff at the Utrecht and Amsterdam University
Libraries, the Royal Library and National Archive in The Hague, the City
Archives in Leiden and Middelburg, the London Linnean Society and the cura-
tors that showed their collections and answered questions: Samuel Alberti at the
London Hunterian Museum, Andrew Cornell at the Royal College of Surgeons
of Edinburgh, Martha Fleming at the London Natural History Museum, and
Maggie Reilly, curator of zoology at the University of Glasgow. In addition, I
thank Teunis van Heiningen for helping me access some of Brugman’s letters,
and professor Marco de Ruiter for letting Hieke and me attend anatomy classes
at the lumc. The Museum Committee at the Leiden University Anatomical
Museum should be credited for their overall critical support of this project.
Leanne Jansen and Eva van Weenen have checked and helped me improve my
somewhat dodgy translations and interpretations of sources in Latin.
Most recently, my colleagues at the University of Groningen have supported
me in the complicated process of turning a thesis into a book. The help, sugges-
tions, and critique of all mentioned here have been invaluable, yet all mistakes
are obviously my own.
Utrecht, November 2013
List of Illustrations
illustration Caption
1.0 Sheep heart, cut trough horizontally, a week after coloured
wax had been injected in early 2012. Although red and blue
wax is clearly visible in the heart chambers, the wax has not
entered any of the smaller vessels and was not visible from
the outside. 6
3.0 L UMC Al0007. Heart injected with red wax and mercury.
Probably from the collection of Eduard Sandifort
(1742–1814). 36
3.1 L UMC Ak0006. Mercury-injected lymph vessels. Probably
from the collection of Antony Nuck (1650–1692). This
preparation on a slate of glass was originally mounted on a
dark wooden board. In the 1990s it was removed from the
board and put in a jar because of health and safety
regulations. 39
3.2 Syringe, from Reinier de Graaf, Korte beschryving van ’t gebruyk
der spuyt (1668). Reproduced from the 1989 facsimile. 40
3.3 L UMC Ag0022. Part of a liver, injected with mercury. Probably
from the collection of Eduard Sandifort (1742–1814). 67
3.4 L UMC Ag0021. Lymph vessels from the belly, injected with
mercury. Probably from the collection of Eduard Sandifort
(1742–1814). 68
4.0 L UMC Ab0015. B.S. Albinus (1692–1770). Child’s arm with
lace-rimmed sleeve, holding a choroid membrane. Injected
with red wax. 77
4.1 L UMC Al0009. Frederik Ruysch (1638–1731). Child’s hand
holding a vulva. Injected with red wax. 78
4.2 Portrait of Vesalius in his 1543 anatomical atlas, De humani
corporis fabrica. 85
4.3 L UMC Ab0001. B.S. Albinus (1692–1770). Entire epidermis of a
child’s hand, removed from the hand like a glove. Tied and
hung from a sprig of Aster Africanus. (Epidermis now on
bottom of phial.) 96
4.4 L UMC Pa0186. A. Bonn (1738–1817). Preparation of the arm and
hand of a child, covered in smallpox marks, injected with red
x List Of Illustrations
wax, decorated with a lace-rimmed sleeve and accompanied
by two sprigs of a plant. 104
5.0 L UMC Ad0022. Wouter van Doeveren (1730–1783). Dog with
cleft palate. 111
5.1 Child with cleft palate, from Eduard Sandifort, Observationes,
vol. II, liber IV, caput III, 30–2, 36–8, Tab. VI. 121
5.2 Skull of a child with cleft palate, from Eduard Sandifor, Obser-
vationes, vol. II, liber IV, caput III, 30–2, 36–8, Tab. VII. 122
5.3 Drawing of a double-headed lamb, from Van Doeveren’s 1765
Specimen Observationum. 125
5.4 L UMC Ab0100. B.S. Albinus (1692–1770). Ear with smallpox
scar. 128
5.5 Illustrations of skin specimens, including ear with pox mark.
From B.S. Albinus, Annot. Acad. Lib., Liber VI, Caput IX, 57–62,
158–9 & Tab. III, Fig. IIa. 130
6.0 L UMC Af0044. Sebald Justinus Brugmans (1763–1819). Male
foetus of about five months old, wearing strings of black-blue
and white beads around its neck, waist, wrists and ankles. On
display at Museum Boerhaave. 145
6.1 Human foetus decorated with trading beads, from the
collection of Gerardus Vrolik (1775–1859). 146
6.2 H uman foetus decorated with trading beads, from the
collection of Jan Bleuland (1756–1838). 147
6.3 A pair of Female ere ibeji twin figures in the permanent
collection of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. 159
6.4 L UMC Al0040. Female foetus of approximately seven months
old, white, yellow and black beads around wrists, loins, knees,
ankles, twig with berry (probably nutmeg) in right hand, held
like a rattle. Probably from the collection of Sebald Justinus
Brugmans (1763–1819). 163
6.5 L UMC Al0045. Female foetus, circa five months old. Wearing
multicoloured beads and a yellow beaded necklace with a
coin marked ‘Hollandia 1778’. Probably from the collection of
Sebald Justinus Brugmans (1763–1819). 164
6.6 Detail of Al0045 (Illustration 6.5): coin marked ‘Hollandia
1778’ on necklace. Probably from the collection of Sebald
Justinus Brugmans (1763–1819). 165
7.0 T he anatomical theatre of Leiden University, early 17th
century. Contemporary engraving by Willem Swanenburgh;
drawing by Jan van ’t Woud. Around the theater, allegorical