ABSTRACT
Among the many treasures at the Boerhaave Museum in Leiden, from Antonie van Leeuwenhoek’s microscopes to the heliumliquefactor of Nobel Prize winner Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, there is a room dedicated to a spectacular display of artificial human and animal bodies: the anatomical models of Dr Auzoux (see Plate 2). 2 These models, developed in France in the nineteenth century, were made in papier-mâché. They are dissectible into parts, labelled, and brightly painted. At the Boerhaave Museum, the display of the life-sized male model shows how they come apart. Elsewhere other museums celebrate the papier-mâché anatomies. At the Science Museum in London and at the Musée Fragonard in Alfort, Auzoux models of the horse take pride of place. 3 The Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC and the Whipple Museum in Cambridge have created online exhibitions to make the artificial anatomies accessible in virtual form. 4
