Juno comes to the Dittrick

Just this past week the Dittrick became the new home to Juno, a transparent woman figure and exhibit mainstay of health museums worldwide. Our Juno lay entombed in her original packing crate, having been shipped to Cleveland from the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden in the early 1950s. Its destination was the Cleveland Health Education Museum (CHEM), which opened in 1940 under the direction of Bruno Gebhardt (formerly of the German Hygiene Museum, 1927-35) and featured state-of-the-art health exhibitry, including Juno.

Jim Edmonson and Linda Spurlock
take stock of the situation.

Franz Tschaikart of Cologne, Germany, crafted Juno upon commission by the German Hygiene Museum. In 1950, a friend of the Health Museum paid $15,000 to bring Juno to Cleveland. "She" first appeared in public on November 13, 1950.

In all, the CHEM housed three Juno-like figures. Over the years they became a Cleveland icon, greeting generations of school kids on field trips to the museum. Sadly, CHEM (later known as HealthSpace Cleveland) closed in 2006 and a vestige of its exhibits and staff came over to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in 2007. There, as the Department of Human Health headed by Linda Spurlock, they now now offer programming and exhibits to help understand the physiology and frailty of the human body, the sources of disease and the grounding of wellness. Another Juno welcomes museum visitors there.

Our Juno was a backup, but now will greet visitors to the Dittrick as they exit the elevator on the third floor of our home, the Allen Memorial Medical Library. We'll use our Juno to discuss Cleveland's museological heritage, and announce our continuing commitment to showcase issues surrounding women's health.


Jim Edmonson


p.s. - I refer those intrigued by Juno and her male counterparts to Klaus Vogel’s article, “The Transparent Man – Some comments on the history of a symbol,” in Robert Bud, et al, Manifesting Medicine: Bodies and Machines [Artefacts, Studies in the History of Science and Technology , Vol 1], Amsterdam, the Netherlands : Harwood Academic, 1999.

Le Livre Sans Titre, 1830

At the recent 2011 meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine in Philadelphia I picked up a curious tract on the perils of self-abuse, or onanism. Merely speaking the word in polite company invited rebuke in the nineteenth century, so the author simply entitled his work "The Book without a Title," or Le Livre Sans Titre. It's dated 1830 and is distinguished by the charming (may I use that word in this context?) hand-colored depictions of the progressive physical (and moral) decline of the young man in question. A cautionary morality tale indeed! I've translated the captions from French to English, but words are hardly necessary to capture the flavor and tenor of this work...

He was young, handsome; his mother's fond hope

He corrupted himself!... soon he bore the grief of
his error, old before his time... his back hunches...

A devouring fire sears his gut;
he suffers horrible stomach pains...

See his eyes once so pure, so brilliant;
they are extinguished! a fiery band envelops them.

He can't walk any more... his legs give way

Hideous dreams disturb his slumber...
he cannot sleep...

His teeth rot and fall out...

His chest burns... he spits up blood...

His hair, once so lovely, falls as if from old age;
his scalp grows bald before his age....

He hungers; he wants to satiate his appetite;
food won't stay down in his stomach...

His chest collapses... he vomits blood...

Pustules cover his entire body... He is terrible to behold!

A slow fever consumes him, he declines;
all of his body burns up...

His entire body stiffens!... his limbs stop moving...

He is delirious; he stiffens against death;
death gains strength...

At the age of 17, he expires, and in horrible torment

The only library listing for this book in WorldCat is the British Museum. But then again, if you can't give a book a title, it might prove pretty hard to find! We're happy to have it as part of the library for the Percy Skuy Collection at the Dittrick.

Jim Edmonson