Wax hearts: seeking the antiquity of cardiac pathology.

Wax models of normal and diseased organs were formerly essential medical teaching tools. The ceroplastic heart models from two 19th century pathology museums at the Universities of Florence (n = 8) and Coimbra (n = 10) were analysed. The Florentine collection comprised congenital malformations as well as infectious and inflammatory disorders. The Coimbra waxworks included congenital defects, cardiac hypertrophy and dilation, valvular pathology and cardiac adiposity. This study focuses on heart diseases and teaching resources in European university hospitals during the 19th century. It also highlights the importance of wax models in medical education both then and today, in an era of informatics and digital photography.

From the wax cast of brain ventricles (1508-9) by Leonardo da Vinci to air cast ventriculography (1918) by Walter E. Dandy.

The mold of the human cerebral ventricles produced in 1918 by Walter E. Dandy had an experimental precedent, a wax cast of ox ventricles made four hundred years earlier (1508-9) by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). This paper is an homage to the epitome of Renaissance and polymath Leonard da Vinci, as well as to Walter Edward Dandy (1886-1946) who developed the ventriculography (1918) and pneumoencephalography (1919) techniques. Pneumoencephalography was applied broadly up to the late 1970s, when it was replaced by less invasive and more accurate neuroimaging techniques.

[Modelling science. The ceroplastics of Ignacio Lacaba in the Colegio de Cirugía de San Carlos, Madrid]. / Modelando ciencia. La ceroplástica de Ignacio Lacaba en el Colegio de Cirugía de San Carlos de Madrid.

Models made of wax had enormous diffusion in the anatomical teaching of the 18th century. It transcended the borders of a science that impregnated with scientific knowledge the artistic expression of beauty. Based on this premise, the San Carlos Royal College of Surgery created in Madrid a large collection of anatomical models, which is currently maintained by the Javier Puerta Anatomy Museum in the School of Medicine at Madrid Complutense University. The collection began in 1786 with Ignacio Lacaba, the first dissector of the Surgery College of Madrid, whose artistic sensibility and deep knowledge of anatomy contributed and facilitated harmonization between the work of the wax sculptors and language and anatomical expression.

The spatial rhetoric of Gustav Zeiller's popular anatomical museum.

This article focuses on the public experience of science by studying the exhibition practice of a small popular anatomy museum. The owner, Gustav Zeiller, a little-known German model maker and entrepreneur, opened his private collection in Dresden in 1888 with the aim of providing experts and laymen alike with a scientific education on bodily matters and health care. The spatial configuration of his museum environment turned the wax models into didactic instruments. Relying on the possible connexion between material culture studies and history of the emotions, this article highlights how Zeiller choreographed the encounter between the museum objects and its visitors. I argue that the spatial set up of his museum objects entailed rhetorical choices that did not simply address the social utility of his museum. Moreover, it fulfilled the aim of modifying the emotional disposition of his intended spectatorship. I hope to show that studying the emotional responses toward artefacts can offer a fruitful approach to examine the public experience of medicine.

Colecciones anatómicas y regímenes de exhibición. Una introducción / Anatomical collections and exhibition regimes. An introduction

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Modelando ciencia. La ceroplástica de Ignacio Lacaba en el Colegio de Cirugía de San Carlos de Madrid / Modelling science. The ceroplastics of Ignacio Lacaba in the Colegio de Cirugía de San Carlos, Madrid

El uso de la ceroplástica como medio de divulgación científica tuvo en la didáctica anatómica del siglo XVIII una enorme difusión. Llegó a trascender las fronteras de una ciencia que impregnaba de conocimiento científico la expresión artística de la belleza a través de la que se manifestaba. Bajo estas premisas se creó en el Real Colegio de Cirugía de San Carlos de Madrid la colección de modelos anatómicos, de la que es custodio el actual Museo de Anatomía Javier Puerta de la Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid. La colección se inició en 1786 con Ignacio Lacaba, primer disector del colegio de cirugía madrileño, cuya sensibilidad artística y profundo conocimiento de la anatomía contribuyó y facilitó la armonización entre la labor de los ceroescultores y el lenguaje y expresión anatómica (AU)

Models made of wax had enormous diffusion in the anatomical teaching of the 18th century. It transcended the borders of a science that impregnated with scientific knowledge the artistic expression of beauty. Based on this premise, the San Carlos Royal College of Surgery created in Madrid a large collection of anatomical models, which is currently maintained by the Javier Puerta Anatomy Museum in the School of Medicine at Madrid Complutense University. The collection began in 1786 with Ignacio Lacaba, the first dissector of the Surgery College of Madrid, whose artistic sensibility and deep knowledge of anatomy contributed and facilitated harmonization between the work of the wax sculptors and language and anatomical expression (AU)

The spatial rhetoric of Gustav Zeiller’s popular anatomical museum

This article focuses on the public experience of science by studying the exhibition practice of a small popular anatomy museum. The owner, Gustav Zeiller, a little-known German model maker and entrepreneur, opened his private collection in Dresden in 1888 with the aim of providing experts and laymen alike with a scientific education on bodily matters and health care. The spatial configuration of his museum environment turned the wax models into didactic instruments. Relying on the possible connexion between material culture studies and the history of the emotions, this article highlights how Zeiller choreographed the encounter between the museum objects and its visitors. I argue that the spatial set up of his museum objects entailed rhetorical choices that did not simply address the social utility of his museum. Moreover, it fulfilled the aim of modifying the emotional disposition of his intended spectatorship. I hope to show that studying the emotional responses toward artefacts can offer a fruitful approach to examine the public experience of medicine (AU)

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Divinos cadáveres: género, discurso médico y colecciones anatómicas en la leyenda de Pedro González de Velasco / Divine cadavers: gender, medical discourse, and anatomical collections in the legend of Pedro González de Velasco

Este artículo examina la imbricación entre el personaje público del anatomista Pedro González de Velasco (1815-1882), célebre por su extensa colección anatómica y por fundar el Museo de Antropología de Madrid en 1875, y la leyenda popular que relata la muerte, embalsamado y posterior exhumación de su hija Concepción. La imagen del médico entregado a la patria se imbrica con otra como la del científico loco, y la biografía entra en el ámbito de la leyenda urbana. Más allá de la mera anécdota, este trabajo mostrará cómo las metáforas estéticas asociadas al cadáver femenino y la feminidad artificial penetran en el imaginario cultural, mostrando la cercanía entre el discurso médico y la esfera de la representación literaria y artística (AU)

This paper examines the relationship between the public image of Pedro González de Velasco (1815-1882), famous for his anatomical collections and his Anthropological Museum, founded in 1875 in Madrid, and the popular legend related to the death, embalming and exhumation of his daughter Concepción. The doctor who is committed to the nation becomes a mad scientist, and his official biography is transformed into an urban legend. Beyond the merely anecdotal, I show how the aesthetics associated with female corpses and artificial women organize cultural imaginaries, bringing together medical discourses and literary and artistic representations (AU)

Widespread exploitation of the honeybee by early Neolithic farmers.

The pressures on honeybee (Apis mellifera) populations, resulting from threats by modern pesticides, parasites, predators and diseases, have raised awareness of the economic importance and critical role this insect plays in agricultural societies across the globe. However, the association of humans with A. mellifera predates post-industrial-revolution agriculture, as evidenced by the widespread presence of ancient Egyptian bee iconography dating to the Old Kingdom (approximately 2400 BC). There are also indications of Stone Age people harvesting bee products; for example, honey hunting is interpreted from rock art in a prehistoric Holocene context and a beeswax find in a pre-agriculturalist site. However, when and where the regular association of A. mellifera with agriculturalists emerged is unknown. One of the major products of A. mellifera is beeswax, which is composed of a complex suite of lipids including n-alkanes, n-alkanoic acids and fatty acyl wax esters. The composition is highly constant as it is determined genetically through the insect's biochemistry. Thus, the chemical 'fingerprint' of beeswax provides a reliable basis for detecting this commodity in organic residues preserved at archaeological sites, which we now use to trace the exploitation by humans of A. mellifera temporally and spatially. Here we present secure identifications of beeswax in lipid residues preserved in pottery vessels of Neolithic Old World farmers. The geographical range of bee product exploitation is traced in Neolithic Europe, the Near East and North Africa, providing the palaeoecological range of honeybees during prehistory. Temporally, we demonstrate that bee products were exploited continuously, and probably extensively in some regions, at least from the seventh millennium cal BC, likely fulfilling a variety of technological and cultural functions. The close association of A. mellifera with Neolithic farming communities dates to the early onset of agriculture and may provide evidence for the beginnings of a domestication process.

JOSEPHINUM AND THE ANATOMICAL WAX MODEL COLLECTION, MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF WIEN.

The collection of anatomical wax models housed at Wien Medical University's Josephinum is one of the greatest achievements initiated by Emperor Joseph II and--reflecting the reformist and revolutionary zeal of the 18th century period in which it was crafted--a remarkable benchmark of Enlightenment in Austria, spanning the divide between art and science. Originally purchased principally for teaching purposes, these artificial yet astonishingly lifelike bodies and body parts have provoked mixed reactions through the centuries, but the value of the collection with its over thousand anatomical wax models remains untouched.

THE ANATOMICAL MUSEUM PEDRO ARA.

The contribute is aimed to shed light on the history of the Anatomical Museum Pedro Ara since his foundation in 1878. Particularly, it describes the activity of Pedro Ara in preparing the anatomical specimens, which constitute the original collection of the Museum.

The 100-year old collection of wax moulages at the Department of Dermatology of the University of Bonn.

The tradition of wax models in Dermatology, also named moulages, is about 200 years old. Dermatology departments all over the world created wax moulages collections to teach students and doctors as well as to document research. In 1910 Erich Hoffmann, who discovered Spirochaeta pallida together with Fritz Schaudinn, became head of the department of dermatology in Bonn. He founded one of the largest moulage collections in Germany. This almost unknown collection consists of more than 1,000 delicate and well conserved wax models. Two excellent wax moulage makers, Auguste Kaltschmidt and Hermann Hessling, produced most of these masterpieces between 1913 and 1937. Until recently, A. Kaltschmidt has only been known to have worked as moulage maker in Rostock, while the biographic details of both her and H. Hessling remained obscure. This paper aims (i) to outline Erich Hoffmann's role for and his contribution to the moulage collection and (ii) to give the first biographic details about the two outstanding dermatologic moulage makers of the collection of Bonn.

[Urological moulages: forgotten three-dimensional documents between university collections and panopticum -- a dying presentation form even in urological museology]. / Urologische Moulagen : Vergessene dreidimensionale Dokumente zwischen Universitätssammlung und Panoptikum -- eine sterbende Präsentationsform auch der urologischen Museologie.

The use of wax models traces its roots back to antiquity and appears to have reached the peak of perfection in the eighteenth century especially in Italy. From the beginning of the nineteenth century wax models and moulages were used in the new medical specialties, such as dermatology or urology depending on a new model of visualization in natural sciences. The moulage passed from local use into international acceptance with the institutionalization of the medical specialties and increase in scientific communication in the second half of the nineteenth century. By the 1970s moulages had all but lost their pre-eminent position as teaching and visual aids to depict dermatological and venereal diseases Unfortunately urology was not mentioned in the field of history of medicine or ethnic studies.

[Florentine wax sculptures of the urogenital tract. A specialty of the eighteenth century]. / Die florentinischen Wachsplastiken zum Urogenitaltrakt. Eine Besonderheit des 18. Jahrhunderts.

Florentine wax sculptures of human anatomy in general and of the urogenital tract in particular constitute an iconographic specialty of the eighteenth century. In the Age of Enlightenment research and representation of the human organism also met with broad interest. To counteract the lack of preservation possibilities and the resulting time restrictions, wax was used to fabricate lifelike human models. Here, the cooperation between anatomist and wax sculptor was of essential importance. The art of anatomical wax sculpturing was cultivated especially in Bologna and Florence at the end of the seventeenth as well as in the eighteenth century. In Florence the Imperial and Royal Museum of Physics and Natural History ("La Specola") that still exists today including a ceroplastic workshop was founded in 1775. Its macroscopically exact models of the urogenital tract - real art treasures and definitely still usable as teaching material - make an enormously authentic impression on the viewer and captivate physicians and historians alike.

The evolution of anatomical illustration and wax modelling in Italy from the 16th to early 19th centuries.

Although the contribution to anatomical illustration by Vesalius and his followers has received much attention, less credit has been given to Veslingius and particularly Fabricius. By 1600, Fabricius had amassed more than 300 paintings that together made the Tabulae Pictae, a great atlas of anatomy that was highly admired by his contemporaries. Many of his new observations were incorporated into subsequent books, including those by Casserius, Spighelius, Harvey and Veslingius. Also of importance were the Tabulae by Eustachius (1552), which, although only published in 1714, greatly influenced anatomical wax modelling. In 1742, Pope Benedict XIV established a Museum of Anatomy in Bologna, entrusting to Ercole Lelli the creation of several anatomical preparations in wax. Felice Fontana realised that the production of a large number of models by the casting method would make cadaveric specimens superfluous for anatomical teaching and in 1771 he asked the Grand Duke to fund a wax-modelling workshop in Florence as part of the Natural History Museum, later known as La Specola. Fontana engaged Giuseppe Ferrini as his first modeller and then the 19-year-old Clemente Susini who, by his death in 1814, had superintended the production of, or personally made, more than 2000 models. In 1780, the Austrian Emperor Joseph II visited La Specola and ordered a great number of models for his Josephinum museum; these were made by Fontana with the help of Clemente Susini and supervised by the anatomist Paolo Mascagni. It is, however, in Cagliari that some of Susini's greatest waxes are to be found. These were made when he was free of Fontana's influence and were based on dissections made by Francesco Antonio Boi (University of Cagliari). Their distinctive anatomical features include the emphasis given to nerves and the absence of lymphatics in the brain, a mistake made on earlier waxes. The refined technical perfection of the anatomical details demonstrates the closeness of the cooperation between Susini and Boi, whereas the expressiveness of the faces and the harmony of colours make the models of Cagliari masterpieces of figurative art.