The illustrations from this 18th century school text are both beautiful and intensely disturbing . They add up from a time when science was dissever superstition from medical practice with the development of teratology , the field of deformities — but retained the unfortunate Logos “ monster ” as a aesculapian terminal figure .
The prospectus of Les Ecarts de la nature ou recueil des principales monstruosités ( The Deviations of Nature or a Collection of the Main Monstrosities ) opens with the provocative quote from the Gallic poet Boileau : “ No monster be that can not be made pleasing through artistic creation . ” Artists Nicolas - François and Geneviève Regnault put out their Good Book of beautiful “ monsters ” as a blending of monstrosity show and mellow artwork . And then this dubious catalogue was reworked and republish , as a legitimate medical schoolbook .
There is a tenacious and sometimes grotesque history of books catalogue “ monsters ” . From ancient time to the around the 17th C , people with congenital fault and deformations were lumped in with fantastical beasts and considered less than human . Around the eighteenth one C , science begin to forestall superstition and the portrayal of “ colossus ” began to soften . Though the trope from the original textual matter are endearing and really conjure fellow feeling , this volume was in the first place calculate at exploiting an stake in the strange and unusual .
far-famed French anatomist and philosopher Jacques - Louis Moreau de la Sarthe republished the al-Qur’an in in 1808 as Description des principales monstruosités dans l’homme et dans les animaux précédée d’un discours sur la physiologie et la classification des monstres … avec figures coloriées par N.F. Regnault . This time , the book was aimed at a scientific audience . Moreau bestow 15 page of introductory text and lay out scientific classifications and reason for “ monstrosities . ” He even went as far to counter the popular idea that a charwoman ’s imagination during gestation mould a babe and was creditworthy for any deformation . The beautiful monsters were turned into exemplification for a logical ( for the clip ) scientific textbook .
Below is a pick of print from the 1808 version of the textbook . The entire aggregation can be viewed atGallica bibliothèque numérique . To learn more about the chronicle of teratology through portrayals in text , see the online exhibitTelling Wondersat the New York Academy of Medicine .
Daily Newsletter
Get the good tech , science , and culture news in your inbox daily .
News from the futurity , deliver to your nowadays .
