Harvard library removes human skin from book binding

BetteDavisEyes

Fasten your seatbelts...
Joined
Mar 4, 2010
Messages
35,380
Reaction score
79,194
Harvard University removed human skin from the binding of "Des destinées de l'âme" in Houghton Library Wednesday after a review found ethical concerns with the book's origin and history.

French physician Dr. Ludovic Bouland “bound the book with skin he took without consent from the body of a deceased female patient in a hospital where he worked,” according to Harvard Library.

Bouland included a handwritten note inside stating "a book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering,” said associate university librarian Thomas Hyry. The note also detailed the process behind preparing the skin for binding...
 
Presumably Dr. Bouland won't be facing any kind of sanctions, as he died over 90 years ago.
Houghton Library is the steward of a copy of Arsène Houssaye’s Des destinées de l'âme, a meditation on the soul and life after death first published in 1879. The volume’s first owner, French physician and bibliophile Dr. Ludovic Bouland (1839–1933), bound the book with skin he took without consent from the body of a deceased female patient in a hospital where he worked as a medical student in the 1860s.

Edited to de-italicize the book's title
 
Last edited:

Staff online

Members online

Online statistics

Members online
98
Guests online
4,061
Total visitors
4,159

Forum statistics

Threads
592,547
Messages
17,970,769
Members
228,805
Latest member
Val in PA
Back
Top