Antique pre-Dada Ingredients of the Anatomy of the Senses

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 1362

Some of the strangest, occasionally least-of-their-time scientific illustration seems to come in the area of anatomical illustration--for me, anyway.  When taken out of context, some medical illustration looks positively modern, or post modern, as we can see with the following examples [all o fwhich are available from our blog bookstore].

The first image is a detail from a series of images by the Irish-born Quain brothers:  Jones Quain (1796-1865),  an anatomist and professor of Anatomy and Physiology at the University of London; and Richard Quain (1800-1887), professor of anatomy in 1832 at the University of London, then surgeon at North London Hospital, and president of the Royal College of Surgeons. The illustrations are from a later and smaller printing of their beautiful 1844 work The Anatomy of the Arteries of the Human Body, with its Applications to Pathology and Operative Surgery, in Lithographic Drawings with Practical Commentaries.  Taken out of context, removed 80 years or so, taken to Germany, and they might be bits and pieces (or entire works for that matter) of a Dadaist exhibition in Berlin in 1925. 

The full image of the image above is from:

TASTE

SIGHT

And this beautiful detail:

SOUND

 

TOUCH

This remarkable cross-section of the fingertip.

Which is a detail from:

SMELL

HEARING