FLAYING
Live flaying and the use of skins of whites as shoe leather I consider key to understanding whites, and how they perceive Blacks. Yet these wrongs by the brown and black complexioned European elite of nobles and bourgeoisie, since the Greek and Roman times: was set right in 1848. Whites were emancipated and men were given general suffrage. They then had all portraits of the Ancien Regime altered, claiming the paint had darkened. Whites want to believe themselves superior to Blacks, and need to hide the fact that Europe was civilized by brown and black Europeans.
Public execution of a corrupt judge
St.Bartholomey
Book bound in human leather
St. Bartholomey: his face and skin are whitened
[img]http://www.stepbystep.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Top-10-Most-Harsh-Brutal-Punishments-in-the-World1.jpg
[img]http://uploads2.wikipaintings.org/images/gerard-david/the-flaying-of-the-corrupt-judge-sisamnes-1498.jpg[/img]
Tanned Human Skin
By LAWRENCE S. THOMPSON, U. S. Department
of Agriculture Library
THE NOTION of flaying the human body and
tanning the hide is an
jold one. According to Herodotus the Scythians
cultivated the art.
In Saxon Britain it was customary for certain
types of offenders to
pay a hyd-geld to save their skins, and
marauding Danes who committed
sacrilege in the churches were flayed and
their skins nailed to the church
doors.1 Other legends such as that of Zisca's
drum made of his own
skin and the thirteenth century Bible in the
Bibliotheque Nationale
made on parchment from peau de femme are not
so easy to prove.
Similar folklore is the medieval Bavarian
belief that anthropodermic
girdles were effective aids to childbirth.2
In modern times the growth of interest in the
possibility of tanning
the human exuviae has risen slowly. The first
authentic notice on the
subject in recent centuries is the information
that William Harvey presented
the College of Physicians with a tanned human
skin.3 Among the
first to put tanned human skin to practical
use was Anthony Askew
(1722-1773), physician, bibliophile, and
classicist, who had a TraitS
d'anatomie bound in the human integument.4
Another English physician,
John Hunter (1728-1794) had an Abbandlung fiber
die Hautkrankbeiten
put up in a healthy cured human skin.5
On the other side of the Channel French
physicians were also taking
'Albert Way, "Some Notes on the Tradition
of Flaying Inflicted in Punishment
of Sacrilege; the Skin of the Offender Being
Affixed to the Church-Doors," Archaeological
Journal, V (1848), 189-90; see also Walter
George Bell, More about Unknown
London (London, John Lane, 1921), pp. 168-72.
'Max Hofler, Volksmedizin und Aberglaude in
Oberbayerns Gegenwart und Vergangenheit
(Munich, 1888), 172.
'Holbrook Jackson, The Anatomy of Bibliomania
(New York, Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1932), p. 511. Similar specimens are in
the Naturwissenschaftliches Museum of
the University of Basel and the Lycee of
Versailles.
4Albert Gm, Le livre historique-fabrication-achat-classement-usage-et
entre'ien
(Paris, E. Flammarion, 1905-8; five volumes),
III, 293.
"Einbande aus Menschenhaut,"
Allgemeiner Anzeiger fir Buchbindereien, XLIV
(no. 42, Oct. 18, 1929), 1010; "Reliures en
peau humaine," La bibliofilia, raccolta di
scritti sull'arte antica in libri,
manoscritti, autografi e legature, IV (1902-3), 333.
93
LAWRENCE S. THOMPSON
some note of the possibilities of human
leather. Valmont de Bomarel
reports that a celebrated Parisian surgeon, M.
Sue,7 gave to the Cabinet
du Roi a pair of slippers made of human skin.
Valmont reports further
that this same museum owned a belt of human
skin on which the vestiges
of a nipple were clearly distinguishable, and
another piece consisted of
the last two fingers of a right hand, including
the nails. Further up the
coast in the Low Countries Hermann Boerhaave
(1668-1738) had formed
a collection of medical curiosities including
a .pair of lady's high heeled
shoes made of leather from the skin of an
executed criminal. Again here
the nipple was used as an ornament, adorning
the front of the instep.8
However, no systematic interest was taken by
the medical profession
in the practical uses of human leather until
the nineteenth century.
Possibly it resulted from the impetus given to
anthropodermic bibliopegy
and related arts by the French Revolution. Few
histories of the Revolution
omit references to the infamous Royalist
propaganda to the effect
that a gigantic human skin tannery at Meudon
filled all the requisitions
for the leather goods needed by the
revolutionary army quartermasters.
Likewise, most of us who have made the grand
tour or read guide books
on Paris are familiar with the Carnavalet
Museum's copy of the French
Constitution of 1793 which is contained in a
piece of human skin dyed
a light green.
At all events, we find in early nineteenth
century England a remarkable
tendency on the part of the courts to include
in the sentences of condemned
criminals a provision that their bodies be
delivered to local
surgeons for dissection, and on several
occasions the hides of these
scoundrels were immortalized. Possibly this
type of sentence was intended
as an antidote for the notorious practice of
"Burking," so-called
from the profession of William Burke, who
earned his bread by murdering
the good citizens of Edinburgh and selling the
cadavers to a local
physician for dissection. When Burke himself
was finally apprehended
and executed in 1829, a portion of his skin
was tanned. Part went to
Jacques Christophe Valmont de Bomare,
Dictionnaire raisonne universel d'histoire
naturelle contenant l'histoire des animaux, des
vegetaux et des mine'raux, et celle des
corps celestes, des m'tetores, & des autres
principaux phe'nomenes de la nature; avec
l'histoire des trois retgnes et la detail des
usages de leurs productions dans la medecine,
dans Economie domestique et champêtre, et dans
les arts et metiers (Lyon, Bruyset
Freres, 1791; fifteen volumes; 4th revised
edition), X, 204.
'Possibly Pierre Sue (1739-1816), "le
jeune," but there were at least three other
famous Sues, all related to Pierre, in
pre-Revolutionary French medical history. Another
member of the Sue family, Eugene, is rumored
to have bound his famous Mysteres de
Paris in the skin of a woman who loved him.
See A.H.W. Fynmore, "Books Bound in
Human Skin," Notes and Queries, CLXXXVII
(Dec. 2, 1944), 259; Walter Hart
Blumenthal, "Books Bound in Human
Skin," The American Book Collector, II (1932),
123-4; and "Curl Up on a Good Book,"
The Dolphin, Fall, 1940, Pt. 1 (no. 4), p. 92.
' Henry Stephens, "Human Skin Tanned,
etc.," Notes and Queries, 2nd series, II
(Sept. 27, 1856), 252.
94
TANNED HUMAN SKIN
make a wallet for the doorkeeper of the
anatomical classroom in Edinburgh.
9 A larger piece which was tanned and dyed a
dark blue fell into
the hands of the publisher of Burke's trial,
who had it cut into small
pieces and distributed to various friends. One
portion of it was included
in the remarkable collection of papers
relative to Burke and Hare which
was formed for Sir Walter Scott and retained
in the library of the bard
at Abbotsford after his death.10
The early issues of Notes and Queries are full
of accounts of criminals
whose integuments were removed subsequent to
dissection and delivered
to the tanner. The earliest known instance of
a criminal whose
body was ordered by the court to be dissected
is found in the sentence of
one James Johnson, condemned to the gallows on
March 19, 1818, by
Mr. Justice Dallas of the Norfolk Assizes, who
also ordered that the
culprit's body "be delivered to the
surgeons to be anatomized." Following
the execution, which took place on the Castle
Hill, Norwich, in the
presence of 5,000 spectators, the dissection
was performed by Mr.
Wilson, "a gentleman from London,"
and Mr. Austen, "a pupil of Mr.
Dalrymple's," who prepared the body for a
series of daily lectures delivered
by a Mr. Crosse.1"
Another early case on record is that of a
youth of eighteen named
John Horwood, who was hanged on April 13,
1821, at Bristol New
Drop for the aggravated murder of Eliza
Balsum. Richard Smith, senior
surgeon of the Bristol Infirmary, was given
authority by the court to
dissect the body; and after a course of
lectures ad populum on respiration
and circulation which he based on the corpse,
he flayed the body and
tanned the skin. The skeleton he preserved in
a cabinet of curiosities,
principally relics of executed criminals; and
near this museum piece he
placed a bound collection of Horwoodiana with
a label on the back
(some 6" x 3") of tanned human
cuticle. It resembles light russia, has
tooled borderlines in gold with a skull and
crossbones stamped in each
corner, and a gilt inscription in blackletter:
"Cutis Vera Johannis
Horwood.''12 The book is still in the Bristol
Royal Infirmary.'3
About five or six years after the execution of
John Horwood, William
Waite went to the gallows at Worcester for the
murder of his wife's
daughter (by a former husband), a little girl
named Sarah Chance, by
throwing her into an exhausted coalpit.
Dissection was a part of his
9"G.," "Human Skin
Tanned," Notes and Queries, 3rd series, VIII (Dec. 2,
1865), 463.
se"T. G. S.," "Human Skin
Tanned, etc.," 2nd series, II (Sept. 27, 1856), 252.
Information supplied by Mr. George Hayward,
city librarian of the Norwich
Public Libraries, from Charles Mackie's
Norfolk Annals, 1, 151.
12 "F. S." of Churchdown,
"Human Skin Tanned, etc.," Notes and Queries, 2nd
series, II (Sept. 27, 1856), 250-1.
13 C. Roy Hudleston, "Books Bound in
Human Skin," Notes and Queries,
CLXXXVII (Nov. 18, 1944), 241.
95
LAWRENCE S. THOMPSON
sentence, and after dissection his entire skin
was flayed by a Stourbridge
surgeon named Downing. It was not tanned but
rather preserved in a
sumach preparation.14
One of the most celebrated dissections which
resulted in ultimate
tanning of the hide was that of ratcatcher
George Cudmore, executed in
the Devon County Jail in 1830 for the murder
of his wife, Grace, with
the assistance of a woman named Sarah Dunn.
The Dunn woman, incidentally,
was forced to witness the execution of her
accomplice, and
she is said to have fallen into hysterics and
fainted when the drop fell.
Cudmore was dissected at the Devon and Exeter
Hospital. Subsequently
his tanned skin fell into the hands of W.
Clifford, a bookseller
of Exeter, who used it for binding a copy of
Teggs's 1852 edition of
Milton. This book was at one time in the
library of Ralph Sanders of
Exeter, but it is now in the Albert Memorial
Library of that city. The
skin is dressed white and looks something like
pigskin in grain and
texture.'5
Towards the middle of the nineteenth century
English physicians
developed a somewhat more objective interest
in human skin. Especially
adept in the art of recognizing the true
provenance of human leather
was one John Quekett, assistant curator of the
museum of the Royal
College of Surgeons. Quekett was approached by
Sir Benjamin Brodie,:'
Albert Way,17 and others with specimens of
human skin, in some instances
nearly a thousand years old, and requested to
give an identification
of the nature of the cuticles. Through a now
familiar technique of
microscopic examination of vestigial remnants
of hairs still clinging to
the skin, Quekett identified three pieces for
Way as the skin of fair
haired persons-sacrilegious Danes who had
pillaged the churches in
Worcester, Hadstock, and Copford many years before
the Conquest;'8
The naturalist Frank Buckland repeated a story
probably told by his
father, who was dean of Westminster, that a
piece of hard, dry human
skin had been found beneath the bossed head of
a huge iron nail on the
door of the Abbey's Chapter House. Quekett
again identified this
specimen as human and pointed out that it
probably came from a fair
haired person.19
14 F. A. Carrington, "Human Skin Tanned,
etc.," Notes and Queries, 2nd series, II
(Oct. 11, 1856), 299. Carrington was one of
the counsel on the trial.
' Alfred Wallis, "Book Bound in Human
Skin," Notes and Queries, 7th series,
VIII (March 30, 1889), 246; H. Tapley-Soper
(librarian of the Exeter City Library),
"Books Bound in Human Skin," Notes
and Queries, CLI (July 24, 1926), 68-9, and
CLXXXVII (Dec. 30, 1944), 306; Fynmore, loc.
cit.; Blumenthal, op. cit., p. 119.
14John Pavin Philips, "Human Skin Tanned,
etc.," Notes and Queries, 2nd series,
II (Sept. 27, 1856), 251-2.
'7 Op. cit.
Deposited in the Anatomical Museum of the
College of Surgeons in Lincoln's
Inn Fields; see Bell, op. cit., p. 170.
" Ibid.
96
TANNED HUMAN SKIN
Another British physician who displayed an
interest in human skin
about the middle of the last century was one
James Wise. In 1919 the
Newberry Library of Chicago received as a part
of the bequest of Mr.
John M. Wing a volume with the following note
on the front fly leaf:
"Found in the Palace of the King of Delhi
September 21, 1857 eleven
days after the assault. James Wise, M.D. Bound
in human skin."
Authorities at the Newberry Library advise
that examination of the pore
structure by a Chicago anatomist has confirmed
the second statement.
The leather is smooth and thin and has been
dyed a maroon color. The
covers have gold stamped corner and center
pieces of oriental floral
design. A letter to Wise attached to one of
the back fly leaves identifies
the text of the manuscript as "a
narrative of events connected with the
history of the Dekkan, comprising biographies,
deeds, genealogies, etc.
of sundry notables by a Nawab Wuzeer of
Hyderabad." It was copied by
Mir Baki 'Ali who completed it in the year of
the Hegira 1226 (i.e.,
1848 A.D.).20
Toward the latter part of the nineteenth
century several prominent
American physicians began to show a pronounced
interest in anthropodermic
bibliopegy. At least three such volumes are in
the library of the
Philadelphia College of Physicians. The
earliest such volume is Joseph
Leidy's own copy of his Elementary Treatise on
Human Anatomy (Philadelphia,
Lippincott, 1861), with the inscription:
"The leather with
which this book is bound is human skin, from a
soldier who died during
the great Southern rebellion."
Somewhat better known are the two volumes now
owned by the
College of Physicians which came from the
library of Dr. John Stockton-
Hough, who died in 1900 in Ewingville near
Trenton, N.J. Stockton-
Hough flayed some patients he lost at the
Philadelphia General Hospital,
formerly known simply as the Philadelphia
Hospital (Blockley), and
he is said to have bound more than six books
in the leather obtained
thereby.21 However, only two can be located,
both in the College of
Physicians' Library:
[Couper, Robert]
Speculations on the mode and appearances of
impregnation in the human
female; with an examination of the present
theories of generation. By a physician.
149 pages. 80. Edinburgh, Elliott, 1789.
2' I am -indebted to Mr. Ernst F. Detterer,
custodian of the Wing Foundation of the
Newberry Library, for the description of this
volume.
' "Curl Up on a Good Book," loc.
cit.; G.A.E. Bogeng, "Kuriosa. I," Archiv fiir
Buchbinderei, IX (1909), 90; Paul McPharlin,
"Curious Book Bindings," Notes and
Queries, CLIII (1927), 6. I am indebted to Mr.
Elliott H. Morse, Reference Librarian
of the University of Pennsylvania, and to Dr.
W. Brook McDaniel, 2d, librarian of
the College of Physicians, for accurate
information concerning the anthropodermic
volumes of Leidy and Stockton-Hough.
97
LAWRENCE S. THOMPSON
Drelincurtius, Carolus
De conceptione adversaria. Disce, homo, de tenui
constructus pulvere, que
te edidit in lucem conditione Deus. Ed.
altera.
[8], 74 pages. 240. Lugd. Batv., Boutesteyn,
1686.
On the basis of his extensive experience
Stockton-Hough reported skin
from the human back to be coarse-grained; but
he also said that skin
from a woman's thigh could be almost
indistinguishable from pigskin.
Anthropodermic volumes from the library of Dr.
Matthew Wood of
Philadelphia have not been located as yet. The
most spectacular volume
in this collection was a tome bound in the
skin of one Ernst Kauffmann,
a young German who was studying law in 1813.
Kauffmann despaired of
fame and fortune as a writer, but in order to
be remembered to posterity,
he made a collection of some two hundred
woodcuts which he entitled
Zwei Hundert beriihmte Manner and had it bound
in his own skin after
his death.22 Other books from Wood's library
bound in Kauffmann's skin
were Lesage's Histoire de Gil Blas, two
volumes of A Book About
Doctors, and three volumes of Episodes de la
vie des insectes.
An unidentified medical student in
Massachussetts precipitated one
of the most bitter political scandals ever
known by that commonwealth
when he had a friend take a small quantity of
human skin to tanner
William Mueller of North Cambridge, Mass.
Somehow or another,
Governor Benjamin Butler got hold of this
leather and alleged that it
was the skin of inmates of the Tewksbury State
Almshouse sold by
administrative officers of that institution.
The Almshouse was subjected
to an extensive investigation, a law was
proposed to make the tanning
of human skin a criminal violation, and there
was a flood of newspaper
articles and pamphlets on the subject. The
Surgeon General's Library in
Washington has a broadsheet by William Mueller
explaining his position
and condemning Governor Butler.
France as well as England and America has
produced a number of
experts on human leather. The Goncourt
brothers gossiped about some
interns in the Clamart who had been dismissed
because they had delivered
the skin of the breasts of deceased female
patients to a binder of
obscene books in the Faubourg Saint-Germain.23
The publisher of
obscene books, Isidore Liseux, claimed to have
seen the one volume
octavo edition (1793) of Justine et Juliette
by the Marquis de Sade
bound in female breasts.
22 Cim, op. cit., pp. 295 and 300; Paul Kersten,
"Bucheinbaende in Menschenleder,"
Die Heftlade; Zeitschrift fur die FUrderer des
Jakob Krause-Bundes, I (1922-24), 55.
' Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, Memoires de la
vie litteraire (Paris 1888), III,
49, entry under date of April 17, 1866);
"Les reliures en peau humaine," La chronique
medicale, V (1898), 133; Cim, op. cit., p.
297; G. E. B. Saintsbury, A History of the
French Novel (to the Close of the 19th
Century) (London, Macmillan, 1917-19; two
volumes), II, 461-2.
98
TANNED HUMAN SKIN
The French were not quite as enthusiastic
about the dissection of
deceased criminals as were the British. An
anonymous letter to the editor
of the Mercure de France24 dated September 15,
1920, stated that the
corpse of the famous nineteenth century criminal
Pranzini was delivered
to the Faculty of Medicine in Paris inasmuch
as it was not claimed by his
family. An official of the Surete wanted to
make a cardcase of the skin,
but when the news of his project came to the
ears of the prefect, the
latter official immediately ordered that any
cutaneous relics of Pranzini
be buried with the body. Another account
advises that the official was
Inspector Rossignol, who wanted to give
cardcases to Messrs. Taylor
and Goron, chief and number one man of the
Surete, respectively, and
that he had a 40 cm. square piece tanned by
Destresse of Paris.25 Campi,
the notorious French criminal whose true name
was never revealed by the
police, was to be flayed after execution and
the tanned hide to be used to
bind a volume containing the complete story of
his life and exploits.26
M. Flandinette, a technician at the Vcole
d'Anthropologie, tanned the
right arm and side of this subject, but it is
not known whether the
leather was ever put to any bibliopegic
application.
A Dr. Legrain of Villejuif made a rather
interesting confession to the
editor of the Mercure de France27 in a letter
dated August 3, 1920, concerning
his experience with anthropodermic binding. He
stated that as a
medical student some forty years previously he
had despoiled a corpse
of its cutis and delivered it to a custom
tanner. Six months later it was
turned back over to him, shrunken to half its
original size and increased
in thickness by a full centimeter. Without
revealing his secret, Legrain
submitted the skin to a friend who was well
versed in such matters. The
latter stated positively that it was pigskin,
although he did express some
suspicion of its human origin. Due to its
excessive thickness, the skin
had to be split before it could be put to any
practical use. Legrain used
the leather to bind a copy of the Theophile
Gautier's Comedie de la mort
which he presented to the friend whom he had
so cruelly deceived.
About the same time a bookbinder reported that
he had bound
several volumes in human skin for an otherwise
unidentified Dr. V.28
Among other volumes he bound for him was an
edition of Mercier de
Compiegne's L'eloge des seins in the tanned
skin from female breasts,
and in the middle of the front cover appeared
the unmistakable form of
a human female's nipple. Incidentally, the
customer of this binder was
especially fond of tattooed human skins. He
managed to get hold of a
TMCXLII (1920), 831.
2;Kersten, loc. cit., and A. M. Villon,
Practical Treatise on the Leather Industry
(London, Scott, Greenwood & Co., 1901), p.
28.
:"'Les reliures en peau humaine," loc.
cit., p. 137; Kersten, op. cit., p. 55.
etCXLI (1920), 831.
'Einbaende aus Menschenhaut," loc. cit.
99
LAWRENCE S. THOMPSON
human skin on which were tattooed two knights
from the age of Louis
XIII in single combat, and he ordered a copy
of The Three Musketeers
bound in it.29
A Dr. Cabanes, probably the editor of La
chronique m6dicale, figured
in one of the most widely discussed of all
recent tales about anthropodermic
bindings. The central characters are Camille
Flammarion,
French popularizer of astronomical research,
and an unidentified woman,
ordinarily described as a young countess.
According to the most widely
accepted version, the young woman suffered an
early death from tuberculosis,
and in order to express adequately her
unrequited love for
Flammarion, she had him sent a strip of skin
from her shoulders (passionately
admired by Flammarion, according to another
tale) with the
request that he use it to bind the first book
published by him after her
death. True to her wishes, Flammarion bound
his Terres du ciel in the
skin, probably hand tooled au fer froid, style
monastique. As late as 1925
the book was still in the library at Juvisy.
Dr. Cabanes, curious about the true facts of
this incident so badly
distorted by the sensational press, wrote
Flammarion and got the
following answer :30
My dear Doctor:
The story has been somewhat expanded. I don't
know the name of the
person whose dorsal skin was delivered to me
by a physician to use for binding.
It was a matter of carrying out a pious vow.
Some newspapers, expecially
in America, published the portrait, the name,
and even the photograph of the
chateau where "the countess" lived.
All of that is pure invention.
The binding was successfully executed by Engel,
and from then on the
skin was inalterable. I remember I had to
carry this relic to a tanner in the
Rue de la Reine-Blanche, and three months were
necessary for the job. Such an
idea is assuredly bizarre. However, in point
of fact, this fragment of a beautiful
body is all that survives of it today, and it
can endure for centuries in a
perfect state of respectful preservation.
The desire of the unknown woman was to have my
last book published
at the time of her death bound in this skin:
the octavo edition of the Terres
du ciel published by Didier enjoys this honor.
Your reader
and admirer,
Flammarion
A binder who was actively engaged in
anthropodermic bibliopegy on
the other side of the Rhine prior to the first
World War was Paul
.9A similar penchant for tanned skin with
tattoos was revealed in a short article
by R. W. Hackwood, "Human Skin
Tanned," Notes and Queries, 3rd series, X (Oct.
27, 1866),
341.
'E. Leclerc, "Reliures en peau
humaine," Papyrus, VIII (1927), 742; a picture
of this binding was printed by Blumenthal, op.
cit., p. 122.
100
TANNED
HUMAN SKIN
Kersten.31 On of the most famous of his
numerous anthropodermic
bindings is a volume of anatomical papers by
L'Admiral, fully equipped
with doublures of "graveyard" mole
and a panel stamp showing a skull
and the silhouette head (of the original owner
of the binding?). Once
in the private library of Hans Friedenthal, it
is now one of the most
unusual pieces in the collection of the Lane
Medical Library of Stanford
University.
Some attention has already been devoted to the
combination of
erotomania and bibliomania in the field of
anthropodermic bibliopegy.
Some perverted minds have let their
imaginations run riot on the subject.
The Mercure de France reported in September,
1920, that it was fortunate
that Goron of the Paris police needed a
cardcase instead of a tobacco
pouch, for otherwise a different portion of
Pranzini's corpse might have
been defiled. Nevertheless, it is reliably
known that a certain famous
American burlesque queen actually does carry a
coin purse made of a
male scrotum. But the ultimate in the
imagination of the erotomaniacs
was attained when Otto F. Babler32 smirked
over a possible appropriate
binding for the medieval tract De serto
virginum.
The breast fetishists such as Dr. V. and the
clients of the Clamart
interns have been especially active in the
pursuit of their hobby. That
paragon of pornographers, Iwan Bloch,
gleefully reported the use of the
female breast as the covering for books.33
Some bibliomaniacs have books
bound with women's breasts so that the nipples
form characteristic
protuberances on the outer part of the back
and front covers.34
Even the most famous anthropodermic tale of
the middle ages has
been given an erotic turn. According to Robert
Burton, the famous
Hussite general John Zisca "would have a
drum made out of his skin
when he was dead, because he thought the very
noise of it would put
his enemies to flight, I doubt not but these
following lines, when they
shall be recited, or hereafter read, will
drive away melancholy (though I
be gone) as much as Zisca's drum could terrify
his foes."35 G.-J.
Witkowski's grossly vulgar Tetoniana: anecdotes
historiques et religieuses
sur les seins et l'allaitement, comprenant
l'histoire du decolletage
'3 In addition to his article in Die Heftlade,
see also his "Bucheinbaende in
Menschenhaut," Zeitschrift fur
Buicherfreunde, II (Teil 2, 1910-11), 263-4, and G. A. E.
Bogeng in the Zeitschrift fir Bucherfreunde, Neue
Folge, V (Teil 1, Beiblatt, 1913-14),
79-80.
' "Anekdoten iuber Biicher und deren
Liebhaber," Die Buichersiube, V (1926-27),
228.
Bogeng, "Kuriosa. I.," loc. cit.
34Jackson, op. cit., p. 509.
The Anatomy of Melancholy, edited by Floyd
Dell and Paul Jordan-Smith (New
York, Farrar & Rinehart, c. 1927), p. 30.
Blumenthal, op. cit., claims that it was a
"Janizary drum" now in the Bavarian
Armee-Museum.
101
LAWRENCE S. THOMPSON
et du corset36 claims that the skin of Zisca's
breast was used to make this
drum. An alleged picture of the instrument
drawn to such specifications
is reproduced. However, for all the notoriety
attained by Zisca's drum,
it seems more than likely that the whole story
is an enormous propagandistic
fabrication of the Counter-Reformation.
As the result of investigations in German
concentration camps by
Allied officers, it has been fairly well
established that the Nazis were
also attached to human skin not belonging to
themselves. Sir Bernard
Spilsbury, the British pathologist, identified
as human leather pieces of
hide obtained by the eight M.P.s and the two
peers who inspected
Buchenwald.37 One of these pieces clearly had
formed part of a lampshade
at one time; and it was said that Frau Koch,
wife of the German
commanding officer, collected other articles
made of human skin.
Kenneth L. Dixon, an Associated Press staff
writer, reported that one
Karl Voelkner, another Buchenwald official,
confessed to American CIC
agents that lampshades had been made of human
skin at that infamous
institution.38
The literature of anthropodermic biblopegy is
far more extensive
than the few notes of medical interest in the
present article. Such refinements
of the subject as autoanthropodermic bindings
such as Kauffmann's
work or the legal aspects of flaying as
punishment belong to
another story.
3 Paris, A. Maloine, 1898; p. 56.
The Daily Mail, April 28, 1945.
-"Puerto Rico World-Journal, May 27,
1945.
102
=======================================
THE MACABRE: Human skin
[WARNING: Lest the
title above not be enough, be aware that what follows is often graphic,
sometimes even horrifying, and very much NOT the kind of thing everyone wants
to read.
Now that I've got the
interest of our teen readers....]
The item this week
about a 300 year old volume wrapped in human skin coincided nicely with my
visit to Los Angeles' Natural History Museum to see some of the "Bog
People": (though I was sorry not to see the other-worldly Tolland Man.) A
little research on the Web uncovered the Wikipedia's article on
"Anthropodermic bibliopegy":
Surviving historical
examples of this technique include anatomy texts bound with the skin of
dissected cadavers, volumes created as a bequest and bound with the skin of the
testator, and copies of judicial proceedings bound in the skin of the murderer
convicted in those proceedings. The libraries of many Ivy League universities
include one or more samples of anthropodermic bibliopegy. The rare book
collection at the Langdell Law Library at Harvard University holds a book,
Practicarum quaestionum circa leges regias Hispaniae, a treaty of Spanish law.
A faint inscription on the last page of the books states: * 'The bynding of
this booke is all that remains of my deare friende Jonas Wright, who was flayed
alive by the Wavuma on the Fourth Day of August, 1632. King btesa did give me
the book, it being one of poore Jonas chiefe possessions, together with ample
of his skin to bynd it. Requiescat in pace." (The Wavuma are believed to
be an African tribe from the region currently known as Zimbabwe.)'
It turns out too that
Harvard Law School's the Record has an extensive article on the subject:
"Books Bound in Human Skin; Lampshade Myth? - Deviant Behavior" by
Dan Alban. A book held by the Boston Atheneum is described here: "The
human-skin book" and shown (with a link to its contents) on the Atheneum's
own site: Narrative of the life of James Allen, alias George Walton, alias
Jonas Pierce, alias James H. York, alias Burley Grove, the highwayman. Being
his death-bed confession, to the warden of the Massachusetts state prison.)
There's even a poem on the subject: "This Book in Human Skin".)
Otherwise it turns out the Intermediare des Chercheurs discussed this subject
for decades, from its second issue on. The initial subject quickly divides into
several others, as follows:
BOOKS (IN AND ON)
WEARABLES
THE TANNERY OF MEUDON
ENTIRE HUMAN SKINS
ZISKA'S DRUM
And that's without
addressing the practice of collecting tatoos on human skin (a large subject in
itself.) One BIG warning in reading the following: much of this material is
from the nineteenth century, when wounds from the Revolution were still fresh
(or carefully nourished) on each side. While truly hideous acts have been
fairly documented under the Revolution, even some serious historians of this
period were probably tempted to darken the balance sheet of the Revolutionaries
wherever they could. Some of what follows - barring further confirmation - may
be as much a record of ideas of the time as it is of any historical reality.
- BOOKS (IN AND ON)
An article in the
Magasin Pittoreseque entitled "Singular Bindings" discusses not only
bindings in human skin, but in that of numerous exotic animals, not to mention
novelties such as musical bindings (a kind of abbreviated music box) (No 69 -
1901 (71-72). (The article itself is largely drawn from items in the
Intermediaire.): "Who has not heard of bindings in human skin? Numerous
examples of these bindings exist and human skin provides... [says a specialized
leather review] 'an excellent leather, a leather that is quite solid, thick and
grained' ". (Another item in the Intermediaire quotes a contrary opinion:
"the skin is not attractive as a binding, it is very difficult, if not
impossible, to completely degrease it." The writer adds "these
differences in opinion surely arise from the condition of those who have provided
the skin. Only the skin of bodies without illness, healthy and robust, gives
good results." (1910-2 (270))) The article then cites an English anatomy
text bound in human skin by Doctor Antoine Askew (d. 1773) "so that the
outside of the work matched the interior" and, also in England, two
volumes covered with the skin of Mary Ratman, "a Yorkshire witch, executed
for murder in the first years of the 19th century". A Cincinnati
businessman owned two works by Sterne, one, the "Sentimental
Journey", bound in a black woman's skin and the other, "Tristram
Shandy", in that of "a young Chinese woman" (meaning only that
the skin appeared Asian?). In France, a 13th century bible owned by the
Sorbonne was said to be bound in human skin.
The most frequently
cited volume from the Revolutionary period was sold at auction in 1864 :
"No. 409. Constitution of the French Republic, Dijon. Causse, year II
(1793), 1 vol in-18, pap. vel., bound in human skin."(IC 1869 (181)) With
it were a handwritten note and a poster printed on blue paper, both affirming
that it was bound in human skin. The poster was produced by Galetti, a
journalist who'd been accused by the Committee of Public Safety of revealing
[sic] the existence of tanneries of human skin. A subscriber to his paper found
this volume, which was said to prove Galetti's claim. The volume then went for
226 francs (IC 1869 (323)). The volume was later determined to be that of a
woman. When it was sold again in 1872, the Figaro wrote of how people
complained about inflation, then went on: "There is something,
nonetheless, whose value has not increased, that is human skin." The paper
then says that, the second time around, this volume brought in no more than 185
francs. "Such is our worth!" ("Ce que c'est de nous!") (1913
(264)). A contributor who had seen a 1793 copy of the Constitution in Lyons at
the Palais des Arts said "this binding does not show any difference with
the ordinary dark tint of the faun color." (1882 (446)). For those who
want to judge for themselves, there is apparently a copy at the Carnavalet
Museum: "Just why the "Constitution de la Republique Fran?aise"
should have been so covered is a mystery, yet several copies are known, one of
which is at present in the Museum Carnavalet at Paris." The Courier of the
Somme is cited (without a date) as saying that a 1765 edition of the
Encyclopedia was bound this way in 1793: "This kind of binding was widely
used: there were factories where human skin was tanned absolutely like the
leather of cattle or horses, and handsome volumes were made from it which sold
at insane prices." The library of Macon possessed a copy of L'Essai sur
l'electricite des corps by Abbe Nollet (1746) which, according to an old note,
was bound with human skin. This skin was said to be "without grain,...
extraordinarily fine and lightly soapy to the touch." (1910-2 (771)) A
version of Decretales, then (1869) held by the Imperial Library (now the BNF),
was said by a librarian of the Revolutionary period to be written on human skin
(1869 (396)).
A Paris volume of Hans
Holblein's Danse Macabre is also said to have "once" been bound this
way (1886 (202)). The Magasin article also cites a copy of Suard's Opuscules
Philosophiques from the library of a Monsieur de Musset (possibly the poet's
father) said to be bound in human skin, which bore a note that it had been
bound in 1796 for 20 france by "Derrome". (In 1881, says the
Intermediaire, the Arrigoni bookstore (Milan?) offered this work for 200 francs
(1882 (394)))).
Among the 19th century
examples in that article it is hard to resist mentioning the gift supposedly
made to Camille Flammarion by a countess whose shoulders he had admired - the
skin from the shoulders, which he used to bind a copy of Terre et Ciel.
A 1793 copy of
L'Almanach des Prisons was apparently bound later in the skin of a childhood
friend of a Reverdin, a Geneva surgeon. This friend left him both his fortune
and his skin. Reverdin took a hand's width of skin from the chest and tired
unsuccessfully to get it tanned in Geneva. Finally he got it done in Annecy
"where he was made to pay for this simple task an exorbitant price, on the
rather bizarre pretext that the workers were disgusted." As was Reverdin,
when he received the piece of leather, "dyed black, dulled, oily and,
surprisingly for a piece of skin from the chest, very thick..." He gave it
to Marcellin Pellet, a French diplomat and scholar of the Revolution, who used
it to bind the volume in question. (IC 1912-2 (125-126))
It would not be
surprising to find Sade's works bound this way and one writer in the
Intermediare had seen such a volume in a bookstore on the rue de Seine, with a
note by the binder Lortic that it was bound in human skin. The binder claimed
not only that it was the "untinted" skin of a woman, but that he knew
the woman's name. However, the skin, says the writer, looked a great deal like
pigskin. (1910-2 (96-97)
- WEARABLES
The rather grisly
question of human skin being made into wearable items arose before the
Revolution; the Encyclopedia's article on "Human Skin" (Vol. XII) not
only explains in detail how to tan it, but goes on to say: "M. Sue, a
Paris surgeon, gave the king's Cabinet a pair of slippers made of human
skin." Such mentions become less neutral with writing on the Revolution.
An eyewitness from
Angers, 13 or 14 and a shepherd at the time of these events, is quoted in the
Intermediaire on the treatment of some who were shot by the republican army in
the Vendee: "They were skinned at the midpoint of the body, because the
skin was cut below the belt, then along the thighs until the ankle... so that,
after its removal, the pants were partly formed; all that remained to do was to
tan and to sew." Cretineau-Joly (Histoire de la Vendee Militaire) is
quoted as saying that the republican general Beysier was the first to wear this
"awful trophy", but that the fashion caught on there and in Nantes
(1881 (745-746)). Another item cites three different official accounts from
Anjou telling how Pequel, an army surgeon, flayed several Vendeeans who had
been shot at Ponts-de-Ce and then tried to force a local tanner to prepare
them. He and others refused but someone - apparently under constraint - finally
did so. The report of the Popular Society of Angers to the Convention makes it
clear that this was done unofficially: "These cannibals have pushed
barbarity to the point of choosing, among these poor people, a hundred of the
best looking, who were skinned and their skins tanned! Men who called
themselves patriots dressed themselves in this awful garment!" (1910-2
(156))
More severe official
sanctions were delivered elsewhere, as witnessed by this List of Citizens
arrested by the Commission of Haut-Rhin: "Morel, surgeon, for having
skinned a guillotined person to make himself pants, the tanner who tanned the
skin and the tailor who kept it in his shop, showing it to all comers."
(1913 (722)) In some cases, erotic or even romantic motivations are cited.
One of the more
colorful (and so dubious) stories, from J. B. Harmand de la Meuse's Anecdotes
relatives a quelques personnes et a plusieurs evenements remarquables de la
Revolution concerns Saint-Just: "A young woman, tall and shapely, refused
Saint-Just's advances; he had her taken to the guillotine. After the execution
he wanted to be shown the cadaver and to have the skin removed... [which] he
had prepared by an oil tanner and wore it as breeches. I have this revolting
fact from the very person who was charged with these preparations and who
'satisfied the Monster'. " He goes to say that the man told him the story
in his cabinet in the presence of two other people. Harmand says that others
followed Saint-Just's example and even sold the resulting products. He adds
that one man used the same means to preserve a departed lover. He also speaks
of oil from cadavers that had been sold more recently (1818?) for use in
enamellers' lamps. (76, cited in IC 1875 (720)) The Baron de Saint-Frusquin
later adds: 'Saint-Just belonged to this cate gory of false philosophers out of
which came the Marquis de Sade and other novelists... Saint-Just's order (if
this order was carried out) constitutes a manner, as rare as it is superficial,
of entering into possession of the desired person."(1875 (426)) (all of
which sounds quite Freudian for 1875).
- THE TANNERY OF MEUDON
The question of whether
a human tannery existed at Meudon or elsewhere has been debated over decades in
the pages of the Intermediaire. The Goncourt's Histoire de la Societe Francaise
pendant le Directoire is cited as quoting the first mention of the tannery of
Meudon (1880 (580)). A revolutionary report dated August 14, 1793 is quoted as
saying "Human skin is tanned at Meudon" and as discussing the
relative merits of male and female skin. (1910-2 (156)) R. L. Jacob (the
"Bibliophile Jacob", a frequent contributor) says: "these
tanneries were active, it is an established fact, and the large poster,
displayed in Paris in 1794 to denounce the fact, declares that the principal
establishment of this type was in Meudon." He cites two different people
who told him they had worn breeches of human skin themselves, one who stated
that they were "very well tanned, very supple and very comfortable,"
and offers a long quote from Dusaulchoy de Bergemont's Mosaique histoirque,
litteraire et politique, 1818 (I-146):
What people in Europe
does not take as a fable the establishment of the tannery of human skin at
Meudon? Nonetheless one remembers that a man came to the bar of the Convention
to announce a new and simple procedure for procuring an abondance of leather;
that the Committee of Public Saftey granted him the locale of the Chateau de
Meudon, whose doors were carefully closed, and that finally several members of
this committee were the first to wear boots made of human leather.
Jacob adds that
Dusaulchoy's credibility is helped by the fact that he might have seen such
boots himself.(IC 1873 (460-461)) However, an F. Bruand, responding in IC 1874
(37-38), says "this picturesque and ridiculous legend has been exploded
[by] Louis Combes [in the] 'Amateur d'Autographes' of March 1, 1864" and says
that the same poster offered as proof is reproduced and refuted in this work. A
second writer adds "M. Combes' discussion is closely reasoned, and under
his vigorous effort, the human skin supposedly tanned in the old parish of the
joyous Rabelais cracks and rips."
A later writer (1881
(747)) also questions the account but says that the idea was in the spirit of
Carrier's order to make lard from human bodies which was then sold at Nantes,
and of Roland's suggestion to the Academy of Lyons that oil and phosphoric acid
be extracted from the dead, as per an unadmiring note in Taine's "The
French Revolution" (II, Ch. 4):
Roland is an
administrative puppet and would-be orator, whose wife pulls the strings. There
is an odd, dull streak in him, peculiarly his own. For example, in 1787
(Guillon de Montléon, "Histoire de la ville de Lyon, pendant la
Révolution," 1.58), he proposes to utilize the dead, by converting them
into oil and phosphoric acid.
Carlyle did not think
much of the tale either:
The Abbe Montgaillard
has shrewdness, decision, insight; abounds in anecdotes, strange facts and
reports of facts: his book, being written in the form of Annals, is convenient
for consulting. For the rest, he is acrid, exaggerated, occaionally altogether
perverse; and, with his hastes and his hatreds, falls into the strangest
hallucination; as, for example, when he coolly records that... D'Orleans
Egalité had "a pair of man-skin breeches,"- leather breeches, of
human skin, such as they did prepare in the tannery of Meudon, but too late for
D'Orleans.
Thomas Carlyle,
Critical and miscellaneous essays, Philadephia, 1852.(506)
Finally, here is a
firsthand account of, not the tannery itself, but of the idea of it:
It was whispered that
some [members of the Convention in a procession] had men's skins from the
tannery of human leather established at Meudon.... I neither affirm nor contest
this. But what I can state with confidence is that everybody then believed it.
Despite the terror which then ruled, this was said more or less out loud; in
Meudon above all no one doubted it and the inhabitants of this village pointed
out, with a mysterious terror, the windows of the low room of the chateau where
according to them this terrible operation took place... And why not? Do you
think it was a great slander on many leaders of the revolutionary government to
suppose them unscrupulous enough to make close-fitting pants with the skin of
their victims?... Cannibals could have taken lessons in ferocity from those
people.
George Duval, Souvenirs de
la Terreur de 1788 a 1793, (Paris, 1842) (355).
- ENTIRE HUMAN SKINS
Some tanned human skins
were displayed as-is. Pepys records this visit in his diary: "Then to
Rochester, and there saw the Cathedrall, which is now fitting for use, and the
organ then a-tuning. Then away thence, observing the great doors of the church,
which, they say, was covered with the skins of the Danes," Pepys, April
10, 1661. A note to the above says:
Dart, in his
"History of the Abbey Church of St. Peter's, Westminster," 1723 (vol.
i., book ii., p. 64), relates a like tradition then preserved in reference to a
door, one of three which closed off a chamber from the south transept--namely,
a certain building once known as the Chapel of Henry VIII., and used as a
"Revestry." This chamber, he states, "is inclosed with three
doors, the inner cancellated, the middle, which is very thick, lined with skins
like parchment, and driven full of nails. These skins, they by tradition tell
us, were some skins of the Danes, tann'd and given here as a memorial of our
delivery from them." Portions of this supposed human skin were examined
under the microscope by the late Mr. John Quekett of the Hunterian Museum, who
ascertained, beyond question, that in each of the cases the skin was human.
From a communication by the late Mr. Albert Way, F.S.A., to the late Lord
Braybrooke.
THE DIARY OF SAMUEL
PEPYS M.A. F.R.S. WITH LORD BRAYBROOKE'S NOTES EDITED WITH ADDITIONS BY HENRY
B. WHEATLEY F.S.A.
According to Le
Cicerone de Versailles, printed under the Revolution (floreal, year XII),
"The cabinet of natural history created in the palace of Versailles, year
IV of the Republic, held... 'a human skin, white, and tanned with the greatest
care, on which the hair and the nails were preserved' " (IC 1869 (395)).
L'Itineraire de la France is quoted as saying that the museum of Nantes had the
well-preserved skin "of a Republican soldier, killed in 1793 by the
Vendeens during the siege of Nantes." (IC 1874 (179)). "An old
Nantais" saw this in 1887 in the Museum of Natural HIstory and said that
it belonged to a drummer of the armies of the First Republic who had left it to
the Nation. (1910-2 (771)). An 1890 item entitled "A crucifix of human
skin" may or may not be about that exact subject. The writer saw this crucifix
- really a life-sized Christ, known as El Santisimo Cristo - four times at
Burgos. Though sometimes credited to Nicodemus himself, it appeared to be
either medieval or sixteenth century. He offers a long list of quotes on it by
other writers, variously saying that:
The hands and the feet
are really covered with slightly wrinkled human skin... The nails still stick
to the skin... The wooden head is fastened to the bust with a perfectly adapted
piece of skin.. Is it human? We think so...
or that it is an
entire, stuffed, human skin, or the skin of a seal put on a human skeleton, or
a wooden sculpture covered with a buffalo's skin. (18990 (537-538)). Anyone who
wants to do a search on "Burgos Christ skin" will find various modern
references like the following:
Christ, so revered at
Burgos that no one is allowed to see it unless the candles are lighted, is a
striking example of this strange taste: it is neither of stone, nor painted
wood, it is made of human skin (so the monks say), stuffed with much art and
care. The hair is real hair, the eyes have eye-lashes, the thorns of the crown
are real thorns, and no detail has been forgotten. Nothing can be more
lugubrious and disquieting than this attenuated, crucified phantom with its
human appearance and deathlike stillness; the faded and brownish-yellow skin is
streaked with long streams of blood, so well imitated that they seem to
trickle.
http://www.oldandsold.com/articles04/article1494.shtml
- ZISKA'S DRUM
The idea that the skin
of the Hussite commander Jan Ziska was turned into a drum, possibly at his own
request, was also debated in the Intermediaire. In 1843, the Magasin
Pittoresque published an article on Ziska which without confirming or refuting
this claim says (132): "It is sure that a drum made with human skin, said
to be that of Ziska, was, in the last century, transported from Bohemia to
Berlin." and cites a letter (November 15, 1743) from Voltaire to Frederick
which included this poem:
Is it true that, in
your court,
You have placed, this
autumn,
Among the furnishings
of the crown,
The skin of this famous
drum
That Ziska made of his
person?
The skin of a great
man, buried,
Is normally not much,
and, despite his apotheosis,
By worms is devoured.
Only Ziska was spared
The destiny of the
black tomb
Thanks to his preserved
drum
His skin lasts as much
as his glory!
It is a rather singular
fate.
Ah! Pitiful mortals
that we are
To save the skins of
great men,
It must be dressed.
Oh my King! Conserve
your own;
Because the good Lord
who made it for you
Would not know how to
make you another
In which he might put
as much wit.
Frederick's response,
starting in verse but ending in prose, basically says, "Yes, we took
it." The article includes an image of the (rather banal looking) drum,
itself copied from another work. A writer in the Intermediare says, based on
work by Palacky, a historian of Bohemia, that "The Magasin Pittoresque...
has repeated.. a purely fictive tradition, invented by Catholic historians to
give Ziska the fierce character of a bandit." (1869 (641-642). George
Sand, who wrote a book about Ziska, mentions this tale and its history with, at
best, ambivalence.
For more about Ziska,
search for his name in the Catholic Encyclopedia's article on
"Hussites".
==============================================================
A Brief History of the
Human Leather Trade, 1903
Added By: R. Brock On: July 14, 2010
Ogden Standard, Ogden
City, Utah25 April 1903
TANNING HUMAN SKIN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Happening to come
across the other day the catalogue of a book auction in 1864, when a book on
the Constitution of the French Republic, bound in human skin in the year 1793,
was offered for sale, a book lover was prompted to inquire whether the human
skin had ever been put to such a use before or since.
The inquiry led to a
number of surprising revelations. It was not merely during the excesses of the
French Revolution that such things were done, but as long ago as the thirteenth
century he found there were in existences several such books, including a Latin
Bible very handsomely engrossed upon a woman’s skin. In 1765 the “French
Encyclopedie” gave a recipe for tanning human skin, and stated that M. Sue, a
surgeon in Paris, had presented the King with a pair of slippers made of human
skin, according to this prescription.
During the reign of
Napoleon III, a copy of the Decretals, written on human skin, was found in the
library of the Sorbonne and transferred to the Tulleries. John Ziska, the
one-eyed chief of the Hussites, ordered in his will that his skin should be
tanned and made into a drum. “The noise which my skin will make,” said he,
“will frighten away all our enemies and put them to flight.”
It was, however, at the
time of the French Revolution that this art was developed to its greatest
extent. A man presente himself one day at the bar of the Convention and
announced that he had devised a simple and original scheme for procuring
leather in abundance. The Committee of Public Safety granted him a concession
of the Castle of Meudon, where he carried on his work with a certain amount of
secrecy. In return for the concession of the members of the committee were
privileged to be among the first to wear top boots made of human skin.
The tannery of Meudon
acquired considerable notoriety. A great number of books were bound with the
leather turned out there, and Phillipe Egalite, Duke of Orleans, encouraged the
tannery by wearing a pair of breeches made there with human skin at a ball in
Palais-Royal. The republican General Beysser, who made himself a name by his
ferocity in the wars of La Vundee, set the fashion of wearing similar trousers
in the army, always wearing a pair at battles and at reviews.
An old soldier who had
taken part in most of the campaigns of the French Revolution, told a writer of
memoirs in the middle of this century that he had owned a specially fine
garment of this kind, made entirely of one piece. An architect, who was one of
the leaders of the infamous Black Band of France in 1823, which for a long time
terrorized the country districts in the West of France, wore a jacket made of
human skin, comely and exceedingly comfortable.
The infamous
Saint-Just, when at the height of his power during the Reign of Terror, caused
a young and beautiful girl, who had refused his advances, to be arrested and
sent to the scaffold. After the execution he obtained possession of the body,
flayed himself and had the skin tanned and made into a waste coat, which he
wore till the day of his death. The tannery of Meudon and its imitators carried
on the process on an extensive scale, and must have made a good deal of money
by tanning the skins of the victims of the Revolution for every sort of
commercial purpose.
Oil extracted from
human bodies was also placed upon the market and sold.
Since those days the
process has naturally become much rarer, but Dibdin relates how at a
comparatively recent date a collector possessed a treatise on sport bound in
stag’s skin; a copy of Fox’s “History of James II.,” bound in fox’s skin and a
book on anatomy bound in human skin. In 1837 the narrative of the adventures of
a highwayman was bound in his own skin at Boston, Mass., with inscription in
Latin outside, “This book was bound in the skin of Walton.”
Shoes of Human Skin,
1879
Added By: R. Brock On: January 22, 2010
Titusville Herald,
Titusville Pennsylvania28 August 1879
THE SKIN OF A BELLE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Silly Freak of a
Medical Student Who Encases His Feet in Human Leather - Robbing a Beautiful
Corpse of its Covering
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A few days ago we
reproduced from the Lafayette Courier an article that seemed to us to be the
silly boasting of some fledgling sawbones. In order to ascertain whether or not
there was a substratum of truth in the story, we telegraphed our Lafayette
correspondent, and instructed him to furnish us with the facts in the case.
Last night we received the following letter from him:
Lafayette, Ind, August
5
Several days since the
Evening Courier, of this city, published a somewhat lengthy account of a young
doctor in this city having worn a pair of shoes from the skin of a Cincinnati Belle.
The story, as told by the Courier, your correspondent is assured, was
substantially as reported by well authenticated rumor to the city editor of
that paper. In the account it is stated that “the young student said he was one
night sought out by a resurrectionist famous among the medical men, who offered
to sell him a subject just snatched from a city cemetery. How the corpse, that
of a beautiful young girl, whose white flesh and the costly ring on her smooth,
soft hand, showed to be of no poor family, was bought by several of the
students, and now, when the body, slashed by the knife of the dissector, lay
upon the table, he crept in and cut the skin from the “round limbs.” This was
sent to a tanner, who in due time prepared the skin and sent it by express to
the young student in this city. The leather was then taken to a well-known
shoemaker, who fashioned it into a pair of shoes.
The representative of
the Enquirer sought the young man, Edward Carnahan, this morning and learned
from him the following, which is submitted as the result of the interview:
Carnahan attended the Miami Medical College of Cincinnati during the past
collegiate year. His attention had been called to a pair of boots of a dark
olive color on exhibition at the Centennial. They had been made from human
skin. A great many people who saw the boots naturally revolted at the idea.
There were various opinions upon the matter. How it affected Carnahan I know
not. Last winter, on one occasion having paid for the subject assigned him and
his fellow student, he felt privileged, in the callous license of the
dissecting room, to use it as he deemed proper. He cut from the body a portion
of the skin. He did not know who the corpse was. The personal identity of the
subject was never established, even to the demonstrator himself. Having secured
the skin from the body, it was given to a Cincinatti tanner, and about five or
six weeks ago was sent C.O.C. to young Carnahan. He made no secret of it. He
received it publicly. The shoemaker, Mr. Filt, made the shoes. The only part of
the shoes which is human skin in the upper. The leather is as soft as kid. It
has the texture of the best French calf, and is only distinguished from that
leather by the human pores distinctly visible in the olive color of the under
or untanned side. The story about the ring, as well as the identity of the
subject as a Cincinnati belle, was an embellishment for which the young student
is in no way responsible. He is a young gentleman of the highest social position
and personal worth. The whole matter resolves itself into this: Out of mere
curiosity he desired a pair of shoes made from human skin, and he got them”
Accompanying this
letter were a number of others from reputable parties in Lafayette, vouching
for young Carnahan’s respectability and social standing, and requesting us to
keep him name out of the paper. We have not desire to be hard on any young
person, and, had his offense been simply a student’s freak, these letters might
have had some weight with us, though our mission is to print, not suppress. In
this case, however, Carnahan has shown much heartlessness and contempt for the
dead that we loath to believe him a fit and proper person to minister to the
needs of the afflicted living. He had better turn his attention to some
business requiring little or none of the finer sensibilities of humanity.
Quarrying granite might afford him the proper field for the exercise of his
peculiar talents.–Cincinnati Enquirer
http://www.devilspenny.com/2010/01/shoes-of-human-skin-1879/
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