Announcements

Announcements
Author: University of California, San Francisco. School of Medicine
Publisher:
Total Pages: 986
Release: 1875
Genre:
ISBN:

Dissection Photography

Dissection Photography
Author: Brandon Zimmerman
Publisher: Policy Press
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2024-02-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1529222192

Contemporary audiences are often shocked to learn that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, medical students around the world posed for photographic portraits with their cadavers; a genre known as dissection photography. Featuring previously unseen images, stories, and anecdotes, this book explores the visual culture of death within the gross anatomy lab through the tradition of dissection photography, examining its historical aspects from both photographic and medical perspectives. The author pays particular attention to the use of dissection photographs as an expression of student identity, and as an evolving transgressive ritual intricately connected to, and eventually superseding, the act of dissection itself.