A brainy day

Today I spent a few hours photographing model brains including this one which is that of a common seal. The photographs are for our on-line Zoology museum at:
www.abdn.ac.uk/mymuseum
The model brain is signed, in black ink, Auzoux fecit, and dated 1875. Dr Louis Auzoux (1797-1880) was a French medical school graduate and was one of the pre-eminent makers of models of humans and other animals during the 19th century. As a young medical student, Auzoux had great difficulty in studying human anatomy since cadavers were difficult to come by and decayed rapidly. Auzoux devised an elegant solution; inspired by the toy puppets sold on the streets of Paris, he started to make papier-mâché models of human dissections, and later of other animals and plants.
The genius of Auzoux?s models lay in the fact that, not only were they realistic and anatomically accurate, but also they could be taken apart and reassembled by the student. This was the reason that Auzoux called his paper mâché models anatomy clastique, from the Greek word klastos, which means broken in pieces.
The models were made in Dr Auzoux's factory in his home village of Saint-Aubin-D'Ecrosville in Normandy, a few kilometers from Le Neubourg, providing much needed employment and prosperity for many families.
If your appetite has been wetted then you can read more about Dr Auzoux at: www.abdn.ac.uk/zoologymuseum/treasures/auzoux.php