Anatomical fugitive sheets are illustrations of the human body specially created to display internal organs and structures. Hinged flaps enable the viewer to see a body as if in various stages of dissection. They appeared for the first time in the 16th century and became popular as instructional aids. The parts were labelled, making it easier for lay students to understand the workings of the human body. [1] [2]
Dissection is the dismembering of the body of a deceased animal or plant to study its anatomical structure. Autopsy is used in pathology and forensic medicine to determine the cause of death in humans. Less extensive dissection of plants and smaller animals preserved in a formaldehyde solution is typically carried out or demonstrated in biology and natural science classes in middle school and high school, while extensive dissections of cadavers of adults and children, both fresh and preserved are carried out by medical students in medical schools as a part of the teaching in subjects such as anatomy, pathology and forensic medicine. Consequently, dissection is typically conducted in a morgue or in an anatomy lab.
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The earliest known examples of these sheets were published in Strasbourg by the engraver and printer Heinrich Vogtherr in 1538, and probably existed in great numbers although very few have survived. Jean Ruel, a French botanist and physician, published his own anatomical sheets in 1539. Andreas Vesalius published his anatomical work on the human body, "De humani corporis fabrica", four years later in 1543. His "Tabulae anatomicae sex" had appeared in 1538 showing skeletons and viscera, and differ substantially from the Ruel plates.
Strasbourg is the capital and largest city of the Grand Est region of France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located at the border with Germany in the historic region of Alsace, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin department. In 2016, the city proper had 279,284 inhabitants and both the Eurométropole de Strasbourg and the Arrondissement of Strasbourg had 491,409 inhabitants. Strasbourg's metropolitan area had a population of 785,839 in 2015, making it the ninth largest metro area in France and home to 13% of the Grand Est region's inhabitants. The transnational Eurodistrict Strasbourg-Ortenau had a population of 915,000 inhabitants in 2014.
Heinrich Vogtherr was an artist, printer, poet and medical author of the Reformation period.
Jean Ruel, also known as Jean Ruelle or Ioannes Ruellius in its Latinised form, was a French physician and botanist noted for the 1536 publication in Paris of De Natura Stirpium, a Renaissance treatise on botany.
Thomas Geminus, a pseudonym for Thomas Lambrit, was another engraver and printer, who freely copied the anatomical drawings of Vesalius, a practice which infuriated him into denouncing 'extremely inept imitators'. Geminus did however redraw and rearrange Vesalius' woodcut illustrations, choosing to use engraved copperplates, with which he was more familiar. Gyles Godet, a French printer/publisher, worked in London from the end of the 1540s until his death in the 1570s. He also made use of Vesalius' diagrams, though crediting the Flemish anatomist. [3]
Thomas Geminus, was a pseudonym for the Flemish refugee Thomas Lambrit/Thomas Lambert, an engraver and printer, active from the 1540s in London, and noted for his 1545 Latin work, Compendiosa totius anatomie delineatio, aere exarata printed by John Herford. Geminus started work in England by working with Thomas Raynalde and producing "The byrth of Mankinde" aka "The Woman's booke" in 1545.
Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that the artist cuts away carry no ink, while characters or images at surface level carry the ink to produce the print. The block is cut along the wood grain. The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller (brayer), leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas.
Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing images on paper as prints or illustrations; these images are also called "engravings". Engraving is one of the oldest and most important techniques in printmaking. Wood engraving is a form of relief printing and is not covered in this article.
A letter in the British National Archives is from Edmund Bonner, the English ambassador at the court of Francis I in Paris and future bishop of London. He wrote to Arthur Plantagenet, deputy of Calais, in 1539 sending him a gift of Ruel's woodcuts of a man and women.
Edmund Bonner was Bishop of London from 1539–49 and again from 1553-59.
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death in 1547. He was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. He succeeded his cousin and father-in-law Louis XII, who died without a son. Francis was the ninth king from the House of Valois, the second from the Valois-Orléans branch, and the first from the Valois-Orléans-Angoulême branch.
The fugitive sheet practice is one that was used at various times in the 1800s: such as Edward William Tuson's "A supplement to myology", (London 1828), Gustave Joseph Witkowski's "Anatomie iconoclastique" (Paris 1874-1876) and Étienne Rabaud's "Anatomie élémentaire du corps humain" (Paris 1900). More recently Jonathan Miller's pop-up book "The human body" (London 1983), employed the same principle. [3]
Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller, CBE is an English theatre and opera director, actor, author, television presenter, humourist, and medical doctor. After training in medicine, and specialising in neurology, in the late 1950s, he came to prominence in the early 1960s in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett.
