History

[Daril Atkins]

It seems that our official collaboration with the medical fraternity
began in the anatomy hall, and in an era when the Church in Europe had
a powerful voice. As a matter of fact it was with the blessings of a
Pope that the first official collaboration began within the clinical
environment in Bologna. The task was to create wax anatomies to
educate students and perhaps the layman too. Simultaneous to this was
the creation of Obstetric models to teach and train midwifes, nurses
and obstetricians. These models were made in terra cotta and ceramic.
By the mid 18th century, another collaboration took place in Florence
and resulted in what was called 'La Specola' a museum of wax anatomy.
The models surpassed anything done in the past and in my opinion
anything done later. The trend to use wax anatomy models to educate
both new aspirants to the medical sciences and the layman spread all
over Europe. It is said that in the 18th century, England had nearly
thirty nine such museums.

If you seem inclined, you may delve deeper into this very interesting
subject, if only to see for yourself that people like ourselves way
back three centuries, took direct body casts, did beautiful
illustrations, made intricate piece molds, did intrinsic coloration,
and produced startlingly life like replicas of human anatomy. The
final products were in formulated wax. As you already know wax has
always been the artists, crafts persons favored material since before
Pliny, and rightfully so. Should we be surprised that it comes from
nature.

Parallel to the history outlined above was the widespread use of
papier mache which was used to make a whole list of everyday things,
from toys to desks and chairs. That was until someone (very much like
some of us today) being in the thick of things, was unhappy that the
beautiful wax models were best only to see but not to touch. He was
Dr. Auzoux, a French doctor who wanted students learning anatomy to
touch the models, to dissemble them in order to view deeper
structures. So he began to create what he called 'Clastique' models,
which means they could be taken apart and put back together. And he
did this using papier mache. He set up a small factory in his home
town, where semi skilled workers used master molds to batch produce a
whole range of anatomical models. (if you had a time machine and could
go back to Greece in the days of the Asclepius temples, you could
visit similar factories where they used terra cotta to replicate and
batch produce votives)

Why is history important? It gives us a sense of perspective. It tells
us that others similar to us faced similar challenges. It sets
standards in the quality of the final product. It reminds us to bring
forth our natural creativity and innovative nature. It shows us the
tapestry of threads behind us and inspires us to search for threads
that can create the tapestry of the morrow. Let us all remind
ourselves always that we are not yet there. We are each one of us,
likened to pioneers who shared food, shelter and information.

Daril Atkins