Over at Street Anatomy, you can find some utterly stunning anatomical images from a series of books called Pernkopf Anatomy; really, it’s beautiful stuff, with artfully posed models and exquisite detail. If you get on Amazon and look up the books, you’ll see that you might be able to find used copies for $500 and up — far out of my price range, but for the quality, they might well be worth that.
Except, unfortunately, for this little detail…
Like Pernkopf, the artists for his atlas were also active Nazi party members. Erich Lepier even signed his paintings with a Swastika, which up until 15 years ago remained in editions of the atlas, but have been airbrushed out since then.
In 1995, an article in the Annals of Internal Medicine, summarized the history of the University of Vienna in 1938. They found that the Anatomy Institute of the University of Vienna, where Pernkopf worked, received the cadavers of prisoners executed during the Holocaust. The University of Vienna conducted their own investigation and found that in fact 1377 bodies of murdered victims, including children, were taken into the Anatomy Institute. It is also known that Pernkopf willingly accepted the bodies of murdered adults and children to the Institute. Therefore, it is almost without a doubt that Pernkopf used these bodies for the dissections from which the anatomical illustrations were drawn.
I’ve often said that I’m not a spiritual person, and that I don’t believe in any kind of spirituality at all. I do believe, however, that objects can be imbued with meaning beyond their simple physical parameters; they can carry a burden of history and intent that, when you know it, can trigger deeper feelings than mere matter would warrant. If I were to own such an item, I know that I could not touch it without feeling revulsion for its authors, and reverence for its victims, and that I would set it aside from my ordinary library as something more than just a book.
Don’t mistake that for a belief in the supernatural, or that there is some greater metaphysic that surrounds our material existence. Ghosts and gods do not sanctify portions of our world. The resonance of a book like Pernkopf Anatomy comes from the fact that it is anchored in purely human evil, and purely human sacrifice—it is a morbid reminder of what we can do.
I think that’s a concrete belief. History is real. Self-proclaimed “rationalists” often dismiss “sentimental” value when in fact history is more concrete than, for example, monetary value. There was an article cited here awhile ago that used attaching value to a particular wedding ring or keepsake, when it could be easily replaced by one of the same monetary value, as an example of commonplace “irrationality.” Yet the fact that an object was used in a specific event is a matter of basic self-identity, the most concrete physical “attribute” available, whereas monetary value is prime example of an abstraction.
A bit off topic, but I remember seeing something on TV ages ago about our hard-wired sense of contamination (they went down to the youngest practical age in testing it) from “dirty” things onto “healthy” things, resulting in disgust, as a measure to stop us poisoning ourselves. I guess that’s at work here.
Thanks for the post! Makes me want to kick in my two cents ;-):
The atlas itsself is stunningly beautiful, and accurate (I am a trained medical artist myself). Especially Lepier’s work (one of the artists) is unsurpassed (after WWII his colleagues fell out with him, Lepier’s bad health kept him from putting in the same ‘war efforts’ as the others). I guess the only way to have this work removed from the shelves, is drawing a better atlas, which would be possible, but which would eat up much time & money..
jewish groups in (I think) Canada have tried to get this atlas banned, which makes you wonder: is it morally just to use, or build upon, work that is tainted by such a history?
In the social sciences, it has become impossible to do work similar to Milgram’s (authority experiments), or Zimbardo’s (Stanford prison experiment), due to ethical concerns raised by this research. And if concerns for animal rights become mainstream thinking, in retropsect decades of bio-neuro research will become tainted, too!
I guess the way out, as a scientist, student, or medical artist, is to treat scientific (and anatomical) information as essentially non-moral, but as a human acknowledge the context in which science was done, and also to do your own research within the boundaries of your own moral values.
I feel a bit the same way about a book I picked up in a second-hand bookstore here for three hundred yen. (About three dollars.) It is a manual about how to kill people. I thought it was a curiosity, an odd thing to find, and bought it because it was cheap. Now I don’t know what to do with it. I discovered it is worth quite a lot more than I paid for it, but don’t want to sell it to anyone who wants to buy it. And whenever I look at it I feel a bit contaminated, even though parts of it are quite (blackly) funny. Other parts are not funny at all – diagrams and photographs that make me feel a bit sick.
It is a problem, this book.
I hear the “morally just to use” question quite a bit, and it always astounds me. From my perspective, it is morally unjust not to use it: nothing will bring the victims back, and discarding a tool that can help prevent future suffering because it was built on the foundation of past suffering is to use the memory of the victims as an excuse to do harm. It hinders any attempt to salvage some good out of all the evil that was done. It is, to me, quite a repugnant action.
The only situation in which it is a good idea to go that route is when doing so has a deterrent effect upon others that may wish to repeat the original evil; this is, for instance, the foundation of the U.S. exclusionary rules for evidence. I don’t think anyone is arguing that allowing this book to continue to exist is going to encourage anyone to go on a mass murder spree to publish another.
PZ, thank you for a great post. -BCH
Ah, PZ, in rhetoric we’ve already got that distinction nailed down, and it has nothing to do whatsoever with metaphysics. The denotational meaning of the book, as in the absolute literal interpretation of it, is that it’s an anatomy manual. The connotational meaning, that is, its symbolic, cultural, or interpretive meaning, is that it’s a gruesome product of horrific mass murder.
Almost all words carry noth types of meanings (it’s pretty hard to assign a connotation to “the,” “and,” and “a,” for example), so it’s not hard, and certainly not inappropriate, to extend the comparison to physical objects.
Welcome to the wild and woolly world of semiotics. :)
“I do believe, however, that objects can be imbued with meaning beyond their simple physical parameters;…”
I think I see what you mean.
It is like (quarters in) certain European cities where between 1941 and 1945 a considerable proportion of the Jewish population had been deported. I heard people speak in terms of ‘a guilty neighborhood’- and they clearly did not refer to the other inhabitants, but actually to houses ‘who had seen too much’. In extreme cases it becomes difficult to separate objects from events.
It would not surprise me if certain types of religious sentiments stem from such emotions, in particular if combined with an irrational propensity.
The Bell Curve is an evil book!!
Here is a little bit of spirituality explained: Jesus Meets Terminator.
Be quick, it is Mad TV and Viacom tries to erase these clips as fast as possible. They are such dumbasses that they don’t realize that it creates in their products.
Jan-Maarten wrote:
What is your opinion of Frank Netter’s anatomy illustrations as compared to Pernkopf’s? Netter’s work seems to be of high enough quality that no one would need Pernkopf’s atlas….
In a similar vein (no pun intended) there’s a post up at the Athanasius Kircher Society blog about a book bound in human skin. I’m fascinated and revolted in equal parts, just like the book you mentioned.
Seize the vocabulary! If your feelings about this book use the same part of the brain that other people use when they believe in ghosts, then the thing you are believing in is a “ghost”, even though it has no supernatural component. To paraphrase Douglas Adams, spirituality is the difference between what you perceive and how you feel about it–physical-law violations are not required. Defeat the religious nuts by redefining their terms!
I really dont like how the swastikas were edited out. I mean, many people would have their decision over whether or not to buy the book greatly influenced by the Nazi persuation of the author. I see it as rather like handing someone a copy of Mein Kampf, and failing to mention it was written by Adolf Hitler. Things like that should never be hidden or denied.
The Youtube video is still up. ROTFL!!!
The Youtube video is still up. ROTFL!!!
It could be argued that banning the atlas may provide a disincentive to the use of unethical research sources/techniques by future researchers.
Although i would probably use the atlas.
I had this discussion with one of my college classes last week when I gave my eugenics lecture. My position was that the information gathered shouldn’t be used, because sometimes the ends don’t justify the means and we should draw a line. Many of my students disagreed, using the “but they can’t come back so might as well make it useful” argument. I tried pablo’s argument back about a disincentive, but it didn’t seem like enough. Now I think I may have stumbled upon something that I can get behind: for a scientist, the highest accolades one can get is for one’s work to be admired and honored and used. Ignoring the work obtained in such a morally corrupt fashion is really the only way to properly rebuke it and “punish” the person who did it, the only way to get them where it hurts (if only posthumously).
I am pretty sure that if you told Pernkopf that in 60 years his atlas would be banned, he would still make it. I think that if someone is willing to pose murdered children or do any other unethical act, the idea of their work eventually being banned would not cause them that much grief.
Dark Matter,
Opininions differ as to Frank Netter’s work, physicians usually being more impressed than illustrators.. his work does cover an incredible range of topics, but when it comes to finding out about this one specific detail you need, he is often lacking. Also, his comprehension of form is not too great. I remember studying one of his illustrations of the heart, only to find the pulmonary vessels to be dislocated about 30 degrees counterclockwise (from a projected central axis). His clinical illustrations of typical patients for a given disease were very innnovative though..
I agree with Carlie; the real issue with building on such work isn’t that it harms people who are already dead, but that it makes it more likely that such things will happen again.
It’s like jailing people for murder, even if you know they have no reason to reoffend; it’s not that it will bring the victim back to life, but because it discourages other potential murderers.
I’m not sure I agree that we shouldn’t use the illustrations. As far as I can tell, the victims were not killed for the purpose of cutting them up, they were using “pre-killed” persons. It’s not so much that they would’ve died anyway, they’d already been killed.
If Pernkopf had people killed for the purpose of dissecting and making drawings, that would be an entirely different matter.
I think it’s OK to use the illustrations, but it would be proper to give some context as to where the bodies came from, and under what circumstances they died.
Since native Americans were driven off of their own land and slaughtered, modern Americans have no right to use land procured by such methods and should leave at once.
This is a common thread of thought. Much of our early knowledge of Hypothermia and Electric shock comes from terminal experiments conducted by Nazi doctors.
Does that taint the knowledge? Should we erase the records?
No.
Were I one of the victims whose bodies were used to make these drawings. Well, I’d be dead so I wouldn’t have an opinion. But were I ever murdered and my remains used in some way to advance the cause of medicine, I’d be pissed about the murder but I would not want people to throw away the good that could be done. Remember the victims, honor their (unwilling) sacrifice, and condemn the killers.
NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) mandated the return of skeletal materials and associated artifacts from museums to the tribes from which they came. The bones of the ‘last Tasmanian’ Truganini were repatriated and her remains cremated in 1976. The remains of the so-called ‘Hottentot Venus,’ Saartjie Baartman, was repatriated to South Africa in 2002.
The Pernkopf anatomy book does not contain the actual remains of the victims, but it does reproduce their visages and/or other features. Many data and artifacts are tainted, but Pernkopf’s book is one of those special cases of a particularly direct connection, involving the reproduction of the images of victims as science and art – and should never be used for its intended purposes or republished.
Just clarifying. Did he willingly and knowingly receive the bodies of murdered people, or willingly and knowingly receive the bodies of those who were murdered as part of Nazi genocide? There is a difference.
I think the book should be used, but future editions should have a warning in the front as to the source of the bodies; prospective buyers can then decide for themselves.
Bearing in mind just how many things the swastika went on in Nazi Germany, I’m of two minds whether to airbrush them out is right or wrong – on the one hand, keeping them is the authentic thing to do, and if I were to acquire a copy as a collector, I would prefer it uncensored; on the other hand, those using the book for its practical anatomical value would not wish to be confronted with it.
If there would be no way to gather the evidence today, if the evidence was gathered in a scientifically reliable way (i.e. not simply torture with slipshod methods to justify it as ‘science’), and the consequences of that evidence are important, I am of the belief that the evidence should be used.
Buddha said spiritual enlightenment is achieved by developing two things, that work together like the two wings of a bird: compassion and a clear veiw of reality (wisdom).
Adding my $Au0.02, Justin Moretti’s
seems a little creepy on both counts; (1) ‘collectors’ of Nazi paraphernalia of course prefer the authentic items without alteration or erasure, though I gather they are unlikely actually to use them for the original purpose (only for solemn rituals in the privacy of their own homes or the nearby woods…);
(2) the point that the Street Anatomy blogger, PZ and other sound minds have expressed is that, in this case, use of the book AS an anatomical atlas (as opposed to a ‘collectible’) SHOULD be accompanied by an awareness of its origin and the known or presumed nature of its author, artists and models. Use without that ‘confrontation’ is something we should, I think, try to avoid or prevent.
We had a discussion on this topic several years ago on the HAPS (Human Anatomy and Physiology Society)listserv. We reached no concensus.
My take is we use the information AND we tell the students where it comes from. This is the human condition: there are no easy answers, there is evil mixed with good, and it is our moral behavior which determines. (There’s a reason I use that verse in my sig.)
fusilier
James 2:24
“I’ve often said that I’m not a spiritual person, and that I don’t believe in any kind of spirituality at all. I do believe, however, that objects can be imbued with meaning …… as something more than just a book.”
Well, Paul, you may have said things like this at other times and I have not seen them. I no longer feel any quarrel at all between us. Nothing but the inevitable quibbles over style and tactics. What you have said here locates you as a close neighbor in your thinking about what “spirit” should mean to us.
Thanks.
What is evil? Why do we recoil from it, even if we are not its target? Is it necessarily without redemptive value? Is its existence unavoidable?
How to answer these questions is not, for me, a full time job. But, when pondering such, self-examination seems to be an unavoidable part of the process. For evil appears as that from which I recoil, horrified of any potential complicity. When confronted with evil, redemption becomes my responsibility, inaction being complicity by default. The trick is in answering the question, “Who am I?”
May I suggest book burning?
It is as fashionable as ever!
There are no evil books, or even evil people. There are only evil acts. It is only our knowledge of the evil acts associated with this book that color our experience of it.
‘gotaku’ hits the nail on the head. Everywhere you tread on US soil, there once lived a people. They were displaced with disease, with guns, with indifference. Yet our ignorance of their experience allows us to live our lives without the same sense of unease that this book provokes.
To hold the unwilling models for these illustrations as important and conveniently forgetting other suffering is simply the prejudice of memory.
I think I’m almost always of the opinion that full disclosure is the way to go here and that people should decide for themselves. If a student doesn’t wish to use this in his anatomy class because of its origins, he should be free to do so. If someone wants to own a copy for whatever reason, she should do so, but in full awareness of what it is and where it came from. This is analogous to the Millian argument for free speech – to help us identify who the nasties (and worse) are by letting them speak openly.
This reminds me of the excellent German thriller movie, “Anatomy”. It revolves around a secret society called the “Anti-Hippocratics” : those are top class doctors who do not wish to be bound by the famous oath, “do not harm” etc. They think that some lives are “worthless” and can be sacrified in order to save “worthwile” lives. And of course, the film gives them a historical background during the 1940s. At that time, they were not Nazis. They had nothing against Jews, leftists or homosexuals, provided they were intellectuals. But the criminals or the street beggars, they felt allowed to use for their work…
Great movie, I tell you. And it makes you think.
(One immediate conclusion being that not being a Nazi doesnt’t always mean being a good guy…)
What a silly post.
Evil books…wuh?. Sounds like a televangelist. Who the hell knows what evil is….anybody? Any armchair philosophers around?
I am not just an armchair philosopher, but what’s evil? What promotes or profits from human suffering and misery, at the very least. (Perhaps this has to be extended to other organisms, and what characterizes suffering and misery is not easy, but this is a starting point.)
Yeah well….teaching biology 101 students make me suffer and miserable. So they must be evil.