A Visit to the Anatomical Theatre.
May 2, 2008 by Liz Lewis
Filed under Death, Exposed!, Extreme, Health, Historic Health, Medical History, Misc., Oddities
Some people photograph landscapes. Others like cityscapes. And still others like to photograph wildlife. But New York based photographer Joanna Ebenstein likes to photograph medical artifacts. She took a month long pilgrimage to famed medical museums of the Western World, photographing everything from real human remains to wax, ivory, and paper mâché models.
According to Ebenstein, the “…artifacts were created to teach medical and surgical students in a time when cadavers were difficult or illegal to come by. These preserved objects—be they skeletal, actual human remains, or depictions of the body in various forms of media—were invaluable teaching aids—portable, durable and easy to understand.”
The result of Ebenstein’s pilgrimage is Anatomical Theatre, a photographic exhibition that has been housed at Birmingham’s Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences since September 2007.
Now there is a web version of the Anatomical Theatre featuring nearly 100 photographic images.
By the way, Joanna also maintains the amazing Morbid Anatomy blog. It’s the place definitely worth visiting.
Wow, very interesting. I was always fascinated by the (real) body slices between glass at the Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago) when I was a kid, and anything that has to do with mummys – Egyptian and peat moss bog mummys. Yeah, makes sense that I also like the original CSI.
These sites are very interesting too, thanks for sharing them!
Hi JoLynn,
I’m with you on this…I find it quite fascinating…and so many of anatomical models that are housed in these musuems are amazing accurate. I always thought that the physicians of old just used cadavers…but it seems that ivory, wax and paper machie models were quite a common occurrance.
The original CSI still the best — not so keen on the Miami and NYC spin offs…