The Fate of Anatomical Collections

This volume explores the changing status of anatomical collections from the early modern period to date. It is argued that anatomical and pathological collections are medically relevant for future research, and are important in the history of medicine, the cultural history of the body, and the history of the institutions to which they belong. In considering the fate of anatomical collections - and the importance of keeper's decisions with respect to collections - this volume will make an important methodological contribution to the study of collections and to discussions on how to preserve universities' academic heritage.

Rina Knoeff is a University Lecturer at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Groningen. She is particularly interested in the cultural history of medicine and chemistry. Previous work has centred on the Boerhaave school and on early modern Dutch anatomy and anatomical collections. Robert Zwijnenberg is Professor of Art and Science Interactions at Leiden University. He has published on Renaissance culture and art theory, philosophy of art, and on the relation between the arts and the life sciences. Zwijnenberg is one of the founding directors of The Arts and Genomics Centre.

I: Introduction; 1: Setting the Stage; 2: Organ Music; II: Fated Collections; 3: Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? Or, What Richard Owen did to John Hunter's Collection; 4: Gender, Fate and McGill University's Medical Collections; 5: Resilient Collections; 6: Inside the Charnel House; III: Preparations, Models and Users; 7: Adieu Albinus; 8: User-Developers, Model Students and Ambassador Users; 9: Mapping Anatomical Collections in Nineteenth-Century Vienna; 10: Fall and Rise of the Roca Museum; IV: Provenance and Fate; 11: The Fate of the Beaded Babies; 12: 'Not Everything that Says Java is from Java'; 13: Cataloguing Collections; V: Museum and Collection Practices Today; 14: Anatomical Craft; 15: Restoration Reconsidered; 16: From Bottled Babies to Biobanks; 17: Ball Pool Anatomy