Last weekend I bought a copy of the Taschen reproduction of Jean Baptiste Marc Bourger’s Atlas of Human Anatomy and Surgery, the seminal text finally published in 1854. This is a gigantic, heavy tome — 15.5 lbs and 19.2″ x 12.6″ x 3.5″ — and it’s the kind of thing that you want to lay open on a table in front of you and dive into.
The plates are gorgeous. The detail is exquisite. The subjects — filleted and splayed — are nevertheless treated with the greatest dignity. They have faces, 19th-century faces with mutton-chop sideburns alongside their laid-open skulls, and expressions of tranquility. They are unremarkable people, but their innards are gorgeous, more lovely than the handsomest landscape. There are long fold-outs showing the spine, the chest, other parts, and full-page color plates with every bit of the body in vibrant color, cross-sectioned and labelled.
It sounds macabre, but it isn’t. These plates are an unabashed, romantic celebration of the sheer glory of our inner workings. We are magnificent machines. Perusing this book all week has made me feel humble, and a little strange inside my skin. When a joint pops, I see it laid out in the Atlas; when my sinuses are blocked, I picture them as they appear in the cross-sectioned skull; when my muscles strain or my back twists, I can see it there, drawn in a sure hand, clearer than a photo, expressive strokes of a hand itself long dead.
At $200, this isn’t a cheap book, but I don’t regret shelling out for it. It is something else.
Update: Canada’s Chapters/Indigo has this book as a remainder for only $30 CDN, a stellar bargoon! Thanks to Amy, who works there!