Harvard University has decided to remove the binding from the book of the XIX century, which was made of human leather and which was stored in its library.
This book called "Destinées de l'em" ("About the fate of the soul"), published in the 1930s, was located at the Harvard University Harutian Library. In 2014, scientists confirmed that the cover of this book was made of human leather.
However, the University recently announced that they decided to remove this cover from the book "In connection with ethical issues related to the origin of the book and its subsequent history".
Destinées de l'me is a work that reflects on the fate of soul and life after death, written by Arsen Ustus in the mid-1880s.
It is noted that it was he who handed the book to his friend, Dr. Louis Buland, a doctor who made a book cover from a patient's skin. The body of a woman who died naturally remained unused.
Harvard University explained its decision to delete the cover of the book as follows: “After a detailed study and discussion with the interested parties of the library and the Committee of Returning Harvard Collections, it was decided that human remains used for the cover of the book should no longer be part of the collections of the Harvard Library.
The statement also states that the ways "respectfully solve the fate of human remains to restore dignity to the woman whose skin were used."
The library also “conducts additional studies on the biography and origin of anonymous patient”, the university reported.
Destinées de l'em was added to Harvard's collection in 1934. The book contains an annotation written by Dr. Buland, in which he explained that he did not decorate the cover with an ornament to "preserve its elegance."
"I kept this piece of human skin removed from the back of a woman," he wrote. - "The book about the human soul must have a human cover."
Ten years ago, Bill Lane, Director of the Laboratory of Mass Spectrometry and Harvard Proteomics, said in the article on the Houghton Library blog that "it is very unlikely that the material material has a different origin than the human body."
In his statement, Harvard stated that the processing of the book did not meet the "ethical standards", and the disclosure of such details about the book was sometimes accompanied by a "sensational, unhealthy and humorous tone", which was inappropriate.
The university apologized, noting that such actions "had further humbled and reduced the dignity of the person whose remains were used for the cover."
The practice of manufacturing covers for human leather books, known as anthropodermic bibliopege, appeared in the sixteenth century.
In the nineteenth century, there were numerous reports that the bodies of stratified criminals were transmitted to science, and their skin was later used by binding.
Simon Chaplin, who headed the Wellcome Library in 2014, which stores books on the history of medicine, said BBC: "There is no such books of this kind, it is a random practice, mainly used for shocking, not for practical reasons."
"In general, this was done in the nineteenth century by doctors who had access to human bodies for anatomical research."
