Friday, April 2, 2010

A systeme of anatomy, 1685


It's Easter! Bunnies and Candy time! I think Jesus may be involved in some fashion, too.

A systeme of anatomy, treating of the body of man, beasts, birds, fish, insects, and plants
was written by Samuel Collins (1619-1670). This guy was apparently hot stuff in the medical field, and famously served as the personal physician to Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich. Modern doctors still write about his contributions to neurology! Anyway, when he busted up this rabbit's skull, he wrote some really flattering things about it, like this:

"The Hemispheres of the Brain of this Animal are beautified with many Prominencies, adorned with various shapes and sizes."

Beautified? Adorned? Seems like pretty flowery language to describe a brain. The only satisfactory explanation is that Dr. Collins was a zombie. Seriously, dude was way in to cracking open skulls and looking at brains...braaains...braaaaaains! And yet I think the worst part about the pictures is that he drew in the little bunny whiskers--it's like 10 times creepier because of that. Well, that and the fact that they look like the Donnie Darko nightmare rabbit. Happy Zombie Easter, I guess.

Now, as a bonus Easter present to you, I offer up this holiday-themed Long S from 1 Henry IV:






Whoa. Easter just got real.