The Bristol Record Office made such a book from the skin of the first man hanged at Bristol Gaol. Books Crafted from the Corpses of Criminals Many of these books showcase the date of the criminal’s execution stamped on their covers. There are also a handful of cases of criminals whose corpses lent material for books. But unfortunate patients weren’t the only individuals to be immortalized in this horrific way. Pinaeus de Virginitatis notis which is also bound in human skin but tanned with sumac.īouland used the hide of an unclaimed female mental patient who died of a stroke. Compare for example with the small volume I have in my library, Sever.
It is interesting to see the different aspects that change this skin according to the method of preparation to which it is subjected. A book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering: I had kept this piece of human skin taken from the back of a woman. By looking carefully you easily distinguish the pores of the skin. This book is bound in human skin parchment on which no ornament has been stamped to preserve its elegance. Bouland confirmed as much with a handwritten note describing his binding choice: Ludovic Bouland, who handled the grisly and bizarre binding process.
What do we know about the history of the book? Houssaye gave a copy to his friend, Dr. (That’s the scientific term for books bound in human leather.) At Harvard University, researchers recently confirmed that a book in their collection, Des Destin ées de l’ Âme ( Destinies of the Soul) by Arsène Houssaye, is another example of anthropodermic bibliopegy. Other books with human dermis for binding have also turned up over the years. The medical books, once owned by Hough, are not an anomaly, however. Today, the books remain housed at the Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, a strange homage to this young woman’s premature demise. (Because of its high pH, urine proves ideal for tanning and softening skins.) He later used the resultant “leather” to bind three anatomical texts on human reproduction.
Removing a section of skin from Lynch’s thigh, he tanned it in the hospital’s basement using a bedpan filled with human urine. John Stockton Hough, the physician who carried out her autopsy, devised a grotesque way for Lynch to prove “useful” in death. She weighed just 60 pounds, and her name was Mary Lynch. “Old Blockley”), the result of tuberculosis and trichinosis. In 1869, an impoverished woman in her late 20s died in Ward 27 of the Philadelphia Almshouse and Hospital (a.k.a. Here’s what we know about the macabre practice. Yet, it’s just as grisly in a “civilized” sort of way. While you may have heard about some of these grisly tidbits in a history class or documentary, you’re likely less familiar with the more recent history of binding books with human skin. Believed to appease the god Xipe Totec, priests would treat the POWs’ removed dermis with yellow dye and wear it for special occasions. In the New World, the Aztecs of the 15 th century AD practiced highly ritualized skinning ceremonies reserved for prisoners of war. For the Assyrians who inhabited Mesopotamia around 2500 BC, it proved a common fate for dissidents and defeated enemies. Displaying the flayed skin of defeated enemies dates back to ancient times.
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