The Body

Just before my senior year of college I had to have an emergency appendectomy. All told it was a horrible experience. I had to have a drain, a small length of the stitches got infected, I dropped weight like crazy, the surgeon didn't believe in anything beyond minimal pain management. I was never one of those people who felt like my body was infallible, that I had boundless energy, but that whole year (August to August) was just punishing.

I developed (and still have, though to a lesser degree) an obsession with surgical photography and anatomical art/studies. I had a copy of Max Aguilera-Hellweg's The Sacred Heart for about a month during grad school (tucked out of the way lest friends got too skeeved out.)

A few weeks ago, Peter posted about the Medical Venus and I was entranced by that confluence of religious iconography, the fine arts and anatomical study.

Sometime after that (it's been such a blur the last couple of weeks, I can't remember where or when), I found a link to The Kaibo Zonshinzu anatomy scrolls, painted by Yasukazu Minagaki. They're gruesome but more fascinating to me because of how they incorporate Eastern aesthetics with anatomy. Trust me...they're not really for the squeamish. But I've meant to blog about them for a while so I thought I'd toss this out.