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 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1872-0684 isbn 978-90-04-26278-2 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-26277-5 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. 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This book is printed on acid-free paper. 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