A curator's Paris journal : Librairie Alain Brieux

International networking with medical museums has been important to the Dittrick since Howard Dittrick first visited Henry Wellcome’s curator, C. J. S. Thompson, in London in 1928. I’ve been active in the European Association of Museums of the History of Medical Sciences (EAMHMS) since 1984, and that’s been a key venue for learning what’s happening in our field. I now serve on the Association’s governing council and that took me to Paris last fall. I set aside time to seek out some museums of medicine and science that I hadn’t yet seen. I thought I’d offer a series of postings on these off-the-beaten-track places, which you won’t find in Fodor’s, Frommer’s, or Rick Steves’ Europe through the back door. So here goes…

Librairie Alain Brieux 48, rue Jacob - 75006 Paris

Any visit to Paris today by collectors or curators would be incomplete without a visit to the Librairie Alain Brieux, the premier rare book shop that features medical antiques as well. Located in Saint Germain-des-Prés, just a stone’s throw from the Sorbonne’s medical school, Brieux’s shop resembles a museum with its collection on sale. While there Dara Asken Teste showed us a c.1750 anatomical atlas featuring color plates by Gautier d’Agoty (price only $85,000).


Not too long ago, the Dittrick bought from Alain Brieux a 1902 lithograph of a striking dissection scene, Une Fin À l’École Pratique [An End At the Practical School] by Camille Félix Bellanger (1853-1923). I first saw this work in the Brieux window after hours on a Saturday night, and it really surprised me. I thought that I had just about seen most images depicting dissection over the years, but Bellanger’s work was totally unknown and fresh. A phone call once back in the States secured this beautiful lithograph for the Dittrick, happily. Read more about it in the Spring 2008 Newsletter of the Cleveland Medical Library Association.

Tout à l'heure

Jim Edmonson

Dissection images on Facebook?

John Warner forwarded an intriguing article by Jill Laster in the Chronicle of Higher Education discussing the use of Facebook to share images from the dissection lab. As with photos created by medical students a century ago, some are not so flattering to the judgment of students, or to the dignity of the cadaver. The article explores many of the issues that John Warner and I addressed in Dissection: Photographs of a Rite of Passage in American Medicine, 1880-1930 (Blast Books, 2009). Ms. Laster references the book directly and quotes John, and features an image from the Dittrick’s collection of dissection images. Nice to see the book finding relevance in this discussion, even as anatomy and dissection wane in the medical school curriculum...

Jim Edmonson

Medical illustration collection comes to the Dittrick

In December the H. F. Aitken collection of biomedical art came to the Dittrick and we are in the midst of cataloging and researching this notable body of medical art. The Aitken collection comprises some 2000+ sketches, drawings, paintings, prints, and books from the estate of Hamlet Frederick Aitken (1872 - 1939), an artist and medical illustrator from Massachusetts.

Aitken’s artwork had been packed away in two steamer trunks after his death and consigned to the attic at the family home in Lexington, Massachusetts. John Gilman, now retired from the publishing field, unearthed his grandfather’s material in 2004 and at once appreciated its importance. Aitken collaborated with distinguished surgeons, including Harvey Cushing, and taught medical illustration at Harvard. When John called in Spring 2008 to inquire if the Dittrick might be interested in the Aitken collection, we responded with an enthusiastic Yes!

Needless to say, we are thrilled with this acquisition and look forward to sharing the Aitken collection in exhibitions, web-based presentations, and research projects that will bring the Dittrick and the CIA Biomedical art program into closer collaboration. Maggie Pierce, a CIA student intern, is seen here working with H. F. Aitken drawings. Maggie will be with us through the summer as an intern helping to put the collection in good order.

More later...

Jim Edmonson