Human skin used to bind a 19th-century book, removed by Harvard Library

New York:

The prestigious Harvard University on Wednesday said it has removed human skin from the cover of a book kept in one of its libraries for more than 90 years.

A copy of the 19th-century book “Des destinies de l’Aime” – or Destinies of the Soul, a meditation on life after death – was found wrapped in a woman’s skin in 2014.

Harvard said it had removed the binding and that “past failures in the management of the book have further offended and compromised the dignity of the human being whose remains were used for its binding.”

The university said it was consulting with French authorities “to determine the final dignified disposition of these human remains.”

Harvard – widely considered to be the oldest college in the United States – had expressed interest in the book’s morbid story, and called the 2014 discovery “good news for fans of anthropodermic bibliophagies, bibliomaniacs, and cannibals.”

Harvard said in a 2014 blog post that anthropodermic bibliography – the practice of binding books in human skin – was once a relatively common practice.

The university said at the time that Dr. Ludovic Bouland, the first owner of the book, written by French author Arsene Houssay, had taken the skin from the body of a mentally ill woman who had died of a heart attack at the hospital where He used to work. ,

Bowland is said to have told Houssay in a note: “A book about the human soul is worthy of a human cover.”

In a Wednesday media release, Harvard said its management practices related to the book “failed to meet the level of ethical standards to which it subscribes.”

It said that, after scientific analysis confirmed it was bound to human skin, the library created blog posts that “used a sensationalist, morbid and humorous tone, which fueled similar international media coverage. “

In 2022, Harvard released a report identifying more than 20,000 human remains in its various collections, ranging from skeletons to teeth, hair, and bone fragments.

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