Burns SB, Burns EA. Stiffs, Skulls & Skeletons: Medical Photography and Symbolism. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Co.; 2014; 327 pp; $75 ($53.37 at Amazon)
Format: Large coffee table book*
This is not a fun book. Indeed, an inclination towards the macabre and a strong stomach is required to peruse it. The contents of Stiffs, Skulls & Skeletons: Medical Photography and Symbolism come from the famous Burns Collection (over 1 million items), which is dedicated to medical photography. Dr. Burns has used many of the photographs found here previously in other books (the author’s landing page in Amazon.com lists 21 of his books). For the book here reviewed, Dr. Burns collaborated with his daughter, Elizabeth A. Burns, once more (by this occasion, the third time he’d done so). I found that, rather than in looking at all of the dead bodies in several stages of dissection, the importance of the book lies in the environments that surround the autopsies and related activities.
Chapter 1, “Posing with Skull & Bones”, harks back to the time when a skull decorated most physician offices, giving them something in common and announcing the status of their occupants. Not only did physicians keep skulls in their offices, they commonly and proudly posed with them for portraits and photographs. This a fairly mild chapter as far as the dead go, but in the next one, ”Teaching Anatomy & Osteology”, cadavers and their parts take center stage. Most of this teaching took place with large groups of students, generally in amphitheater-like settings. “Dissection Photography” shows groups of intensely interested students in the process of dissecting humans; others joke or are clearly not enjoying this rite of passage. It is curious to note that, indoors, many physicians are shown smoking cigars and pipes, while others are holding their classes outside — both settings were probably geared towards ameliorating the stench of decomposing bodies. “Special Bone Studies” shows skulls (and other bones) affected by different diseases and injuries. The next chapter emphasizes the anthropological and the archeological (pictures of happy and beaming explorers amid ossuaries abound).
Things get more interesting for neuroradiologists in Chapter 6, “Special Dissections — Anatomical Studies”, which contains pictures of brain and head neck specimens. A picture of a brain abscess shows a swollen temporal lobe, while one labeled “hemispheric sclerosis” shows a shrunken insula (impossible to tell if it is the result of an old infarction or even a cortical dysplasia). Stereoscopic views of the brain are shown well. No comments are needed for the chapter on “Autopsy and Forensic Pathology”; as it is exactly what it sounds like.
Chapter 8, “X-rays — The Skeleton Becomes Visible in the Living”, is aptly subtitled “Removing the Mystery of Anatomy, Disease, and Wounds”. Cranial gunshot wounds, craniocervical spina bifida, bicephalic monstrosity (now known as thoraco-omphalopagus conjoined twins), and a bismuth sinogram coursing through the spine are all depicted.
Chapter 9 would get anyone expulsed from the medical profession today. Subtitled “Doctors and Nurses at Play and Organizational Props”, this chapter shows individuals in various (undignified and, by today’s standards, inappropriate) poses with skeletons and cadavers and contains many pictures that could have come straight out of a horror movie. The fact that collecting anatomic parts has always been a human activity is clearly illustrated in the last chapter. Remember that in medieval times Italian Catholic churches were extensively decorated with “human votives”. This books shows that human scalps were used in Sioux shirts, human fingers in a Cheyenne necklace (belonging to the “foremost medicine-men of a brave tribe”), and mummified corpses in robes in Mexico. The horrors of the Nazi extermination camps are also shown.
Obviously, although this book is not meant for anyone in particular, it could be said that it is meant for all of us. It documents our relationship with death and that of the dead with us. Anyone with an interest in the history of medicine will find it fascinating.
* Clearly not a book meant for your coffee table!
