This is an early painted plaster anatomical model torso with a wooden base and a privacy wrap around the genital area. Many of the organs are removable. In their book, "Spectacular Bodies", Martin Kemp and Martina Wallace write, "The purpose of anatomical images during the period of the Renaissance to the 19th century had as much to do with what we would call aesthetic and theological understanding as with the narrower interests of medical illustrators as now understood... They were not simply instructional diagrams for the doctor technician, but statements about the nature of human beings as made by God in the context of the created world as a whole…" As Western medicine entered the 19th century, it began to have more of a basis in science; Paris, in particular, was a center of medical innnovation during this time. This was the period of Louis Pasteur and the development of germ theory, as sanitation and statistical methods revolutionized thinking about health. As a result, this anatomical model is much more realistic than ones made even a few decades before. Size: 31" H x 16" W x 7" L.

Provenance: Ex-James Caswell, Historia Antiques, Santa Monica, CA.

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