Digg Story
Stumble It!Rare Book Librarian, Dawn McInnis quietly pulls the book out from a locked cabinet and places it on the table. To the naked eye this medical book on the pituitary gland appears to be a regular leather-bound text, but with closer examination and upon reading the inscription one learns the secret to this book. It is bound in human skin.
Every year about 600 visitors and several researchers visit the Clendening Library at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Most visitors come to view the library's collection of rare books and manuscripts, which includes a collection of letters by Florence Nightingale.
The book Exercitatio Anatomica de Glandula Pituitaria, can be seen at the Clendening Library.
Photo: Heather Brummitt and Sally HardmanRarely visitors request to see the 17th century skin-bound volume, Exercitatio Anatomica de Glandula Pituitaria. The book is one of four known copies, but the Clendening issue is the only copy known to be bound in human skin.
The library, located on the first floor of the Robinson Building, shows in its records that the book was originally written in Latin and published in 1688. Other details about the book are still a mystery.
"There really isn't a lot of information about the book," McInnis said.
McInnis said the book was translated by Dr. Charles Humberd, who she believes had the book bound.
The skin for the book came from a circus giant known as Perky. The book's inscriptions say Perky was eight feet six inches tall and toured with the Ringling Brothers Circus. Other information about Perky is unknown.
The reason for human skin binding
While the thought of human flesh covering a book may be disturbing to some, many of the books with anthropodermic binding, the term used for human skin binding, are medically related.
- Boston Athenaeum
- Brown University
- Harvard
- The Cleveland Public Library
- University of Memphis, Tennessee
- University of Pennsylvania
Having books bound in human skin, McInnis said, usually related to the content of the book. She said using human skin was not an unheard of practice.
Brown University Rare Book Cataloguer, Richard Noble, said in some cases physicians could have bound books with human skin to honor people who furthered medical research or the binding might have been done as a memorial.
McInnis said Dr. Humberd had studied gigantism and therefore had good reasons for using Perky's skin to bind his translation of the book.
Photo: Heather Brummitt and Sally HardmanThe outside of "Exercitatio Anatomica de Glandula Pituitaria" is bound in human skin.
"The reason a book about the pituitary gland was bound in a human skin is probably because the human skin was that of a giant who possibly had a pituitary abnormality," McInnis said.
The existence of such books is not as rare as one might think. Universities across the nation have similar books in their special collection libraries.
Noble said that people's interest in skin bound books had increased after a recent Harvard Law School article . The three human -skin bound books, including the 1568 anatomy text, De Humani Corporis Fabrica and the other two that are 19th century editions of The Dance of Death are on display at Brown's John Hay Library.
At the Clendening Library, McInnis said someone will rarely ask to see the book, but most people don't know it even exists. The book is not on public display in the library. It is only brought out upon request, she said.
