Today I would like to share with you some amazing facts about the human body. You will be shocked to learn little-known facts about procedures for human dismemberment.
10. Dismemberments displayed
In a specially built theater of anatomy, on certain days of the Renaissance, hundreds of interested citizens joined the authorities, students and university teachers to observe the procedure for the dismemberment of the corpse.
Having bought tickets, someone sat on the benches, someone stood near the railing. Then, one anatomist read an anatomy textbook, another showed the corresponding organs visually, while a third assistant worked with a scalpel.
9. Dismemberment as part of capital punishment
In the 19th century, public dismemberment was a death sentence as punishment for particularly serious crimes. For example, a Scotsman named William Burke and his assistant, William Hare, committed at least 16 murders in order to earn extra money by selling corpses. They were arrested and put on trial.
Hare testified against Burke to avoid trial. As a result, Burke was sentenced to public dismemberment for his crimes. In 1829, 20,000 people gathered to watch this spectacle.
8. Unfolding Egyptian mummies as social entertainment
People who bought mummies invited friends to the closed "unfolding”That took place in the houses. Among them was the teacher Thomas “ Mummy"Pettigrew. An impressive audience gathered for this action.
They first listened attentively to a lecture on ancient culture, and then turned their noses after the smell of a 4000-year-old mummy filled the room in which everything was happening. Unfolding mummies often required the use of hammers and chisels, but sometimes the labor was rewarded by finding precious amulets. The clothes left over from the mummy were used as souvenirs.
7. Medical students posed with a corpse as a rite of passage
Dismembered photos were collectible... In the photograph, everyone gathered around the corpse. By the way, the latter was not always in a recumbent state. But the most interesting were the photographs in which the corpses were posing, propping up the section table and holding the tools.
6. Recent public autopsies
After a break of 100 years, the German anatomist Gunther von Hagens organized the so-called world exhibition of bodies and demonstrated anatomy to the uninitiated. He performed a public autopsy in front of an audience of 200, and it was broadcast on British television late at night. As a visual aid, he chose the embalmed body of a 72-year-old drinking and smoking man, whose organs were distributed to the crowd.
5. Dismemberment in famous paintings
The most famous scene of the dismemberment was captured by the Dutch artist Rembrandt Van Rijn in his famous painting “Anatomy lesson by Dr. Tulpa". The painting depicts the autopsy procedure performed on January 31, 1632 and performed by the surgeon Tulpa. In this scene, he explains the musculature of the arm. Some of the surgeons present paid a sum to be portrayed in the painting. By the way, the subject of the demonstration was the robber Andrianszun Adrian.
4. William Harvey, who dismembered his family
The English anatomist William Harvey, known for the discovery of blood circulation, dismembered his father, sister and his cousin's husband. These autopsies were carried out in secret. However, Harvey referred to them in his lectures to students, mentioning the enormous size of his father's colon and his sister's heavy spleen. Harvey's work did not escape public attention, which led to the opinion that anatomists are not entirely normal people with a disturbed psyche.
3. Herophilus dismembered living people
Greek physician Herophilus, considered the father of human anatomy, was accused of torturing 600 living prisoners. He dismembered them alive at a medical school in Alexandria. These autopsies were watched by a huge number of people. Many criticized his method, despite the fact that he deepened knowledge about the human body.
Herophilus' writings were lost when the famous Library of Alexandria burned down in 272 CE. But his teachings were spread by the Roman physician Galen in the 2nd century.
2. The genitals have been on display for nearly 200 years.
Saartier Baartmann, or "Hottentot Venus”From South Africa, put on display to an audience eager to see her buttocks. At the same time, the audience paid money for it. She was too modest to allow her legendary, highly elongated labia to be publicly displayed during her lifetime. But thanks to the doctors who worked on her body for 24 hours after her death in 1815, everything worked out. Baartman's body was dissected.
French naturalist Georges Cuvier preserved her brain and genitals in liquid, and boiled her bones together to reassemble her skeleton. Petitions to leave her remains in her homeland were ignored for decades, until Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould made it public in his 1987 book Flamingo's Smile. 8 years later, after the official request of the President of the Republic of South Africa Nelson Mandella in 1994, Baartman's body parts were buried in the valley where she was born. She is considered a national hero.
1. Books made of human skin available at the local library
The skin of hospital patients and executed prisoners was used for book covers. For more information, read the article 10 books wrapped in human skin. Many publications are still kept in libraries, museums and private collections.
We recommend watching:
Demonstration of the exposition of the Museum of the Dead by Gunther von Hagens
