Covering a sweep of history from the eighteenth to twenty-first centuries, Daston and Galison use scientific atlases and image production to chart the change from ‘truth to nature’ (extracting a universal truth through what could be seen by the naked eye) to ‘mechanical objectivity’ (objectivity unimpeded by personal perspective) to ‘trained judgment’ (the expert who is able to comprehend and interpret what he sees, and what the untrained observer or machine cannot), revealing changes in how scientific and medical professionals conceived of knowledge itself.ħ. The book everyone interested in the history of medicine wishes they’d written. Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity (Zone Books, 2007) While there were major surgical developments in the Victorian era, there was also a tendency to diagnose emotional, social or mental issues as physically located, leading experimental procedures like clitoridectomy and ‘spaying’ to be marketed as cures.Ħ. Ann Dally, Women under the Knife (Hutchinson Radiance, 1991)Ī book that makes reading about anal fistula surprisingly fun, but still won’t stop strangers trying to talk to you on the bus, Dally uncovers the history of women as the subjects of surgery. Interspersed with an overview of preoccupations and illustrative techniques from each time period, it’s a great introduction to the canon of anatomical illustrators and the contemporary beliefs and concerns their art reveals.ĥ. Akerman and Judith Folkenberg (Thames and Hudson, 2011)īeautifully illustrated, this text walks the reader through a history of anatomical atlases, as the title suggests, from the renaissance to today. Human Anatomy: Depicting the Body from the Renaissance to Today, eds. Richard Barnett is also the kind of person who will mention (in a public talk) that you tweeted him an illustration from Vesalius’s De humani corpis fabrica (1543) solely to point out that it features a skull ‘down there’ instead of a willy, but not make fun of you for it.Ĥ. The Sick Rose: Or, Disease and the Art of Medical Illustration by Richard Barnett (Thames and Hudson, 2014)īarnett’s book showcases representations of disease before the advent of colour photography, insightfully weaving a tale of history through image.
Plus everything in between, including postmortem photography and mouse taxidermy classes.ģ.
Asma on maternity and the monstrous imagination to Simon Chaplin’s brilliant breakdown of the anatomization and public display of dissected bodies. Joanna Ebenstein and Colin Dickey (Morbid Anatomy Press, 2014)Īn edited edition of some of the most memorable lectures hosted by Morbid Anatomy, the essays in this book range from Stephen T. Analysing how the collection and preservation of body parts transformed them into material culture, Alberti’s clear and concise work reveals that it wasn’t just anatomical illustration that reimagined the body as a roadmap of disease.Ģ. Alberti and Fay Bound Alberti have ever written, which ranges from taxidermy to the symbolism of the human heart, but this is a good starting point, tracing the afterlives of bodies in nineteenth-century medical museums. Ideally, I’d recommend everything both Samuel J.M.M.
Morbid Curiosities: Medical Museums in Nineteenth-Century Britain by Samuel J.M.M. Largely nineteenth century and anatomical, these texts have informed and inspired my own research and passion for the subject.ġ. Check out the following titles which I aim to feature over the coming weeks.īy no means meant to be an exhaustive list of ‘what to read’ or even ‘where to start’, my list is populated by the History of Medicine topics that form a personal fascination. I would like to thank Verity Burke who put together this great list of books on the History of Medicine for us.