ABSTRACT
In the second half of the nineteenth century, many anatomical collections were moved to laboratories, where they were used in new research and teaching practices. In these new spaces, the collections became inaccessible to lay visitors. To explain how that happened, this chapter analyses the move and rearrangement of Leiden University’s main anatomical collections, which took place in the mid-nineteenth century. It first describes how the Leiden Anatomical Cabinet was a popular destination for travellers in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. It then discusses the transformation around 1860, when the Cabinet moved to a new location, a laboratory complex away from the city centre. The chapter shows how the move and accompanying rearrangement made the collections both less approachable and less interpretable, and thus, inaccessible to lay audiences.
