Harvard Removes Binding of Human Skin From Book in Its Library
Harvard Removes Binding of Human Skin From Book in Its Library
The decision to find a “respectful final disposition” for human remains used for a 19th-century book comes amid growing scrutiny of their presence in museum collections.
The decision to find a “respectful final disposition” for human remains used for a 19th-century book comes amid growing scrutiny of their presence in museum collections.
Of the roughly 20 million books in Harvard University’s libraries, one has long exerted a unique dark fascination, not for its contents, but for the material it was reputedly bound in: human skin.
For years, the volume — a 19th-century French treatise on the human soul — was brought out for show and tell, and sometimes, according to library lore, used to haze new employees. In 2014, the university drew jokey news coverage around the world with the announcement that it had used new technology to confirm that the binding was in fact human skin.
But on Wednesday, after years of criticism and debate, the university announced that it had removed the binding and would be exploring options for “a final respectful disposition of these human remains.”
It's two centuries old. Who gives a fuck?
Also, Havard has a museum of anatomy. It has things like the skull of Phineas Gage, the man who survived a railroad spike going through his brain. Did Gage volunteer to have his head there? No. His physician donated it.
Why doesn't Harvard care about those human remains getting a "final respectful disposition?" I'm guessing they'll argue they have educational value and it's okay to put human remains on display all the time rather than occasionally, even if the person whose remains they are did not volunteer their body parts to be displayed in a museum.
You don't need technology to determine if that's Phineas Gage's skull. We know it is.
Maybe the difference is that one is a one-of-a-kind medical oddity that was used for research and education and is a fixture in the fields of neurology and psychology, and the other is used for shock value and hazing rituals?
They put together an entire report on human remains in their collection back in 2022 if you want to read their thoughts on the matter:
Oh boy. If they did not speak the three words correctly, shit's about to hit the fan
Look, maybe I didn't say every tiny syllable.