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Physicians' Anatomical Aid. A Manikin of Superimposed Diagramatic Plates. Chicago: Western Publishing House, c. 1888; with, Practitioner's Hand Book. Prepared by D.W. Graham and J. Suydam Knox. Chicago: Western Publishing House, c. 1888.
(purchased with funds from the Audrey and William H. Helfand Acquisition Endowment, which supports purchases in nineteenth-century popular medicine)
A book's physical characteristics often reveal much about its intended readers and use. The Physicians' Anatomical Aid is no exception. Bound with a flexible reinforced hinge, the covers of this large folio were meant to be folded back on themselves at an oblique angle to create a tabletop easel. The resulting vertical orientation transformed the book into a prop which better displayed its contents, a series of anatomical studies of the human body. Providing a physical and educational interface between doctor and patient, this late nineteenth-century anatomical manikin helped the practitioner point out body parts otherwise hidden to the patient, through a series of illustrative flaps printed in full color. The flaps could be lifted up sequentially to reveal ever-increasing anatomical detail and more obscure depths of the human body. (see images)
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So as to not overwhelm the patient, the manikin was divided into sections isolating various body parts and internal systems. For example, one set of flaps begins with the muscles of the arm, uncovers the circulatory system, and finally reveals the skeleton. Another serially opens up details of the ear, the brain, and the eye. Provocatively, diagrams of the male and female genitalia lie hidden behind a secret compartment accessible only by lock and key. The outer layers obfuscating these body parts, while reinforcing their taboo status, also enabled the doctor to literally compartmentalize his subject: a central flap easily hinged back and forth and was held in place with a metal clasp, effectively concealing the specifically male body parts (and their very presence) from a female patient, and vice-versa.
The companion volume to the folio, the Practitioner's Hand Book, guided an unsure doctor by providing rote terminology and brief descriptions for the body parts depicted by the manikin's flaps. It was organized textually as the folio was visually, including a wholly segregated section on the genitals, complete with its own title page.
"Movable" books such as this have a long history, and began as mechanical tools meant to convey information and invite (or require, as the case with the Anatomical Aid) viewer interaction. Now considered mostly whimsical, books with moving parts have served as important learning tools. The earliest documented book with moving parts is a 1306 manuscript in the British Library containing a "volvelle" (a revolving wheel). The first recorded example of a "flap book," (like the Anatomical Aid) is a London edition of Euclid's Elements of Geometry (1570), which contains fold-out flaps to help readers envision solid objects. The field of medicine made wide use of the flapped diagram, also known as the "dissected plate," from at least 1573, and a specialized flap book on the eye was published in Dresden in 1583.
There are many other types of movable books, including those containing pop-ups, fold-outs, and cut-outs. The Library Company has many examples of these various types, such as Hannah Murray's flap book, The American Toilet (New York, c. 1827), Benjamin Sands' folding book, Metamorphosis (Philadelphia, 1793), and Kaspar Peucer's Elementa Doctrinae de Circulis Coelestibus (Vuiteberg, 1551), containing volvelles.