The fœtus in the museum: personhood, pregnancy, and anatomical preparations, 1880–1900

ABSTRACT

In the late 19^th century, the legal status of the anatomical specimen was only slowly evolving into its modern form. Not yet regulated by legislation, specimens were subject to rampant commodification and were exhibited, collected, bought, and sold, internationally as well as locally. This article considers the status of anatomical preparations at a moment when medical school curricula were fast becoming standardised, surgical techniques increasingly refined, and methods for preserving the body perfected. Focusing on fœtal remains, I explore how the use of anatomical specimens mediated between the well-established, if still controversial, practice of dissection and an increasing emphasis on the visual as a privileged mode of constructing the biomedical body. Through close analysis of specimens in British and American collections, I trace the shifting meanings, value, and significance attributed to anatomical preparations in this era. Linking fœtal specimens to the medicalisation of pregnancy, contemporary discoveries in embryology, and growing debate around abortion, I argue that the emerging concept of fœtal personhood challenged and inflected how specimens were understood, highlighting their hybrid nature as both potential human subjects and objects of knowledge. Through this encounter with death, I argue, viewers were invited to comprehend and articulate new notions of ‘life’ itself.

KEYWORDS:

• Anatomical museums
• art history
• midwifery
• obstetrics
• human reproduction
• anatomical specimens
• childbirth

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Jessica M. Dandona

Jessica M. Dandona earned her B.A. from Brown University in French Studies and the History of Art and Architecture and her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in Art History, with a specialization in 19th-century French art and visual culture. She is currently Professor of Art History in the Liberal Arts Department at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, where she teaches courses on art and empire, the body in art and visual culture, and modern art. Dr. Dandona has been the recipient of research grants from the Fulbright Association, the Boston Medical Library, the American Philosophical Society, the Huntington Library, and other institutions. Dr. Dandona’s book Nature and the Nation in Fin-de-Siècle France: The Art of Emile Gallé and the Ecole de Nancy was published by Routledge in 2017. Her current book project, The Transparent Woman: Medical Visualities in Fin-de-Siècle Europe and the United States, 1880–1900, examines the visual culture of medicine at the end of the 19th century.