A scene from the Totentanz - Dance of Death - in Bleibach, Germany, which dates to 1723, and still has all 34 scenes - made up of 33 couples and a skeletal band - along with the accompanying text, making it one of the most complete in Europe. This scene shows Death with the Burgher.

I said that I would post more about my visit to the Chiesa dei Morti. The church contains 18 preserved remains which have been displayed in cases since 1833. The majority were preserved by natural processes which occurred in the burial ground, and were discovered when the bodies were being relocated

A bisected skeleton in the University of Siena. This is very useful to help understand some anatomical features - here you can see clearly see the arterial grooves for the middle meningeal artery insid the skull. These grooves come from pulsation of the blood putting pressure on the bone

Our house.

A wax model showing the anatomy of the eye. The sclera - the white of the eye - is peeled back to reveal the nerves going to the iris. Doesn’t it look like a flower?

Next EdFortSoc: 12th Nov 2025, 7.30pm @anatomicalcat.bsky.social will be speaking on: Will You Join The Dance? A brief history of the Danse Macabre Plus! Grand auction of books, etc.! The Royal Oak 1 Infirmary Street Edinburgh 7.30pm, £1

Skulls of Santa Croce…

@drlindseyfitz.bsky.social @bschillace.brandyschillace.com @anatomicalcat.bsky.social @moviessilently.bsky.social @gnofhorror.com I covet this poster as I have never coveted anything The IMAX poster for Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, by artist James Jean. I am ENTHRALLED

Dissected torso produced in wax by the famed Florentine modeller Clemente Susini

This is the Capella dos Ossos in Faro, Portugal, with autumnal light slanting beautifully over the bones. I could hear small children laughing in the playground behind the chapel, emphasising the fragility of the boundary between life and death, reminding me to appreciate the small beauties in life

Went shopping. Came home with a skeleton.

Excellent evening yesterday attending the online 'meet the author' event, hosted by @surgeonshall.bsky.social and the brill @anatomicalcat.bsky.social, chatting to the wonderful and inspiring @mollyconisbee.bsky.social about her beautiful book, and all things death studies. Thanks all!

One of the places I visited whilst on holiday in Italy last week was the wonderful anatomy museum at the University of Siena. This is a preparation showing eye anatomy made from human bone and wax dating to 1887.

Very much looking forward to chatting to @mollyconisbee.bsky.social about this extraordinary - and beautiful! - book tomorrow for Dissecting the Author at @surgeonshall.bsky.social .This is an online event, and you can join us by getting a ticket here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dissecting...

In 2017, Jessica was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. During a chance visit to the museum she encountered a thyroid with a nodular Goitre. Recently she sat down with our Human Remains Conservator, Cat Irving, to discuss how this visit helped her come to terms with her cancer diagnosis. [1/2]

I ended up spending longer in Bologna than expected this week, and this was one of the unexpected delights of that extra time. It’s an early sixteenth century tondelli - round stained glass window - showing the Triumph of Death, made in the German regions, and based on an engraving by Albrecht Dürer

Revisiting the wonderful models of La Specola today.

My husband’s book cover as a t-shirt! Direct from the British Library!

Today I visited the Chiesa dei Morte - the Church of the Dead - in Urbania. I’ll post more about this soon…

Another one of Dr Louis Auzoux’s ‘anatomie clastique’ mannequins - life-sized anatomical statues made from his own special papier-mâché, which can be taken apart to explore the anatomy. I’ve seen many of these, but they always make me happy. This particular one is in the Medical Museum in Brussels

A wax model showing the heart, viewed from behind. It was made in the eighteenth century by Clemente Susini in Florence, and was part of a collection of more than a thousand models shipped to Vienna to be used for teaching at Joseph II’s new academy of military medicine.

‘Exquisite Pain’ - Damien Hirst’s take on the flayed figure of St Bartholomew, brandishing a scalpel in homage to those people whose skin had been removed for anatomical study in neighbouring St Bart’s hospital. In the gloriously beautiful Romanesque church of St Bartholomew the Great

Cat's talks ARE FUCKING AMAZING. She's the most knowledgeable person on death I know. Get tickets and watch her!!

Who wants to hear me talk about the Dance of Death? That’s what I’m going to be doing on Thursday - it’s online, and you can get tickets here: thelasttuesdaysociety.org/event/will-y...

Being back in Bavaria reminded me of this church I visited last time I was there in 2023. The Purgatory Chapel of St Michael’s Church in Untergriesbach has a small collection of skulls, some of which are painted

It was an absolute honour to give a talk with the fabulous @anatomicalcat.bsky.social in collaboration with the also fabulous @drtrishbiers.bsky.social in a session chaired by none other than the @hunterianmuseum.bsky.social ‘s Dawn Kemp, at #iammc2025!

I’ve had an amazing week in Ingolstadt for two inspiring conferences with wonderful people. And, of course, the Münster has this amazing transi tomb of Johannes Permetter, showing his corpse consumed by worms. Permetter died in 1505

This arm was amputated from Antonio Alessandrini in the mid-19thC. He was Professor of Comparative Anatomy in Bologna, and the amputation was a result of an injury during a dissection. The arm was then preserved and displayed in Alessandrini’s own museum. You can see it in the Palazzo Poggi

Part of a scene in the Spreuer Bridge, Lucerne, Switzerland, a medieval covered bridge which had 67 scenes from the Danse Macabre painted in its rafters between 1626 and 1635. This would show travellers that death comes for everyone.

Looking at this 18thC model of female pelvic anatomy, you see three foetuses. This isn’t showing pregnancy with triplets - it’s an intended to show different types of ectopic pregnancy. You can see ovarian, tubal, and peritoneal. It was produced by sculptor Francesc Citarelli to teach obstetrics

This is a pig with syncephaly, a condition where there is one head but two bodies - and four ears, though here the extra ears have fused together, and can’t be seen from this angle. It was prepared for the collection of anatomist and obstetrician William Hunter in the nineteenth century.

‘Pray for us’. - The ossuary of Marville in France.

When you can’t afford £7k for a life-sized Auzoux, there’s always the cheaper option of Dimensional Man, a six foot tall pop up anatomy, now living in my study…

The heart in papier-mâché, from the workshop of Dr Louis Auzoux. This one’s in the Flaubert Museum in Rouen

A model of the brain made in Vienna around 1925, showing the cytoarchitectonic areas according to Constantin Economo. Economo was a Romanian neurologist based in Vienna who looked at the different cell types in the human brain.

Four film scenes that made you the way that you are.

‘Wound Man’ is a type of illustration that started to appear in medical texts in the 15thC. The figure is covered in injuries but he’s still alive (not a good day). It showed the different injuries the human body could receive - and how to treat them. This one is from the 1495 Fasciculus Medicinae

A small anatomical figure produced in Paris in the second half of the 19thC. It was made by Jules Talrich, official model maker for the Faculty of Medicine of Paris as well as producing models for other medical institutions, side shows, and opening a museum of wax effigies akin to Madame Tussaud’s.

Just published! You can read it here: static1.squarespace.com/static/620cb...

The capela dos ossos in the beautiful town of Alcantarilha in Portugal. The photograph doesn’t convey how peaceful it felt here on a November day.

A twentieth century model showing the anatomy of the foot

In the Danse Macabre in the Beinhaus of Leuk, Switzerland, the figure representing Death lifts the mitre off the head of the bishop, showing him that his important position in life is of no importance now…

A model of the female reproductive organs made from wax by eighteenth century wax modeller Anna Morandi. Her anatomical models were based on her own dissections.

Angiogram showing a cerebral aneurysm carried out by Egas Moniz. Moniz pioneered this method in 1927 - the first way to visualise the brain without surgery. It is done by injecting radiopaque sodium iodide, and then taking an x-ray image. It is still an important diagnostic tool.

A very nice pair of skulls in the Church of St Michael’s and All Saints in Bishops Cleeve.

An écorché figure in the anatomical collection in Naples

Garlands of skulls and long bones in Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic. The bones were arranged by František Rint in 1870, who had been employed by the family who owned the chapel to do so.

A large anatomical ‘fugitive leaf’ from Cassell’s People’s Physician, Vol. 5, published in the 1930s. These kind of anatomical illustrations with fold out sections functioned as paper dissections, and were intended to help non-medical audiences learn about anatomy.

A large anatomical ‘fugitive leaf’ from Cassell’s People’s Physician, Vol. 5, published in the 1930s. These kind of anatomical illustrations with fold out sections functioned as paper dissections, and were intended to help non-medical audiences learn about anatomy.

The spirit of hornéd Pan manifests on the mantelpiece of Castle Pieterstein’s North Hall