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submitted 3 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

The decision to find a “respectful final disposition” for human remains used for a 19th-century book comes amid growing scrutiny of their presence in museum collections.

Of the roughly 20 million books in Harvard University’s libraries, one has long exerted a unique dark fascination, not for its contents, but for the material it was reputedly bound in: human skin.

For years, the volume — a 19th-century French treatise on the human soul — was brought out for show and tell, and sometimes, according to library lore, used to haze new employees. In 2014, the university drew jokey news coverage around the world with the announcement that it had used new technology to confirm that the binding was in fact human skin.

But on Wednesday, after years of criticism and debate, the university announced that it had removed the binding and would be exploring options for “a final respectful disposition of these human remains.”

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[-] betheydocrime@lemmy.world 15 points 3 months ago

Maybe the difference is that one is a one-of-a-kind medical oddity that was used for research and education and is a fixture in the fields of neurology and psychology, and the other is used for shock value and hazing rituals?

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago

Was Gage's skull uses for educational purposes that couldn't be gotten from the information when he was still alive? And was that worth keeping it for well over a century?

[-] betheydocrime@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

Was Gage's skull used for educational purposes that couldn't be gotten from the information when he was still alive?

Well, when he was alive, he was still using it. That does kinda put a damper on things, from an educational point of view.

And was that worth keeping it for well over a century?

Honestly, yes. At this point in time, Phineas Gage's skull and the knowledge gleaned from the study of it has been used to educate thousands upon thousands of people, and then each of those multitudes of educated people went on to improve the lives of thousands and thousands of people. That's pretty damn good for one single cadaver.

[-] pmmeyourtits@ani.social 7 points 3 months ago

I still remember a conversation I had with a psyche major who had no idea who Phineas Gage was and thought it was an unimportant minor footnote in psych. What a twat.

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this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2024
93 points (97.0% liked)

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