Advertising cadavers in the republic of letters: anatomical publications in the early modern Netherlands

Abstract

This paper sketches how late seventeenth-century Dutch anatomists used printed publications to advertise their anatomical preparations, inventions and instructional technologies to an international clientele. It focuses on anatomists Frederik Ruysch (1638-1732) and Lodewijk de Bils (1624-69), inventors of two separate anatomical preparation methods for preserving cadavers and body parts in a lifelike state for decades or centuries. Ruysch's and de Bils's publications functioned as an 'advertisement' for their preparations. These printed volumes informed potential customers that anatomical preparations were aesthetically pleasing and scientifically important but did not divulge the trade secrets of the method of production. Thanks to this strategy of non-disclosure and advertisement, de Bils and Ruysch could create a well-working monopoly market of anatomical preparations. The 'advertising' rhetorics of anatomical publications highlight the potential dangers of equating the growth of print culture with the development of an open system of knowledge exchange.

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