About two years ago I was studying for a practical in human anatomy. However, the material I had to read consisted of a really large illustrated pdf. Now, I generally appreciate when you don't have to buy some really expensive textbook for a course (which I often don't really look into again after having done the exam), but I don't particularly like to read from a computer screen, especially if it's something that takes several hours, and printing out this massive file didn't seem like such a good idea since my university had just started making us pay 5 cents per printed sheet. So I decided to visit my grandfather to see whether he had a good textbook; he used to be a medical doctor, and I assumed that our anatomy hadn't really changed in the last 60-something years.
Having arrived, my grandfather lent me a really nice copy of Henry Gray's anatomy of the human body, but he also had something far cooler; a set of 19th century French anatomic lithographs by Jules Germain Cloquet, with the fancy title:
"Anatomie de l'homme
ou
descriptions et figures lithographiées de toutes les parties du corps humain"
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| The front page |
On the frontpage there is a typical 19th century French show-offy list of Doctor Cloquet's scientific activities:
"Docteur en médicine, chirugien en second de l'hôpital Saint-Louis, prospecteur te la faculté de médecine de Paris, professeur d'anatomie, de physiologie et de chirurgie; membre de l'académie royale de médecine, de la sociéte philomatique, membre correspondant de l'académie des sciences naturelles de Philadelphie, du lycée d'histoire naturelle et de l'académie de médicine de New-York"
That's some list, eh?
The lithographs are of superb quality, and with some really sweet 19th century touches; such as the sideburns of this fine gentleman with a split-open skull:
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| Love them sideburns |
My grandfather talked me through the different drawings explaining nearly half of toutes les parties du corps humain. As a result, the practical went really well.
I'll post some more of the lithographs later on, but I want to close with a picture of a young man with a really nice coiffure, despite his neck being in a rather deplorable condition:
Very nice lithos! I also admire the attention to detail. Note for example how a pin is used to fold the sideburned gentleman's left ear down, so as to have an unobstructed view of the interior of his cranium. Plus I also think I really prefer the lithographs to actual photographs—too much detail is not always a good thing. :P
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