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Mini: Books Bound in Human Skin · Why We Do What We Do

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You're listening to Why we do what we do. Welcome to Why we Do
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what we Do Mini. I'm your host Abraham and I'm your host Shane.
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Today we are talking in a brief short form format in one of our mini
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episodes where we just tackle something really quick and then we get out of there.
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That's the way to do it. And today we're talking about books bound
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in human skin. So trigger warning. We are going to talk about death
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and murder and using body parts to make books. If that's a problem for
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you, may want to set this one out. Somebody who would appreciate the
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show would be somebody like ed Geen. Yes, at least this episode tell
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me more about these books made in human skin. He's like, I didn't
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get to the books part. Yeah, the lamps I got that, but
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the books part I didn't get there yet. Now, why would someone want
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to bind a book in human skin? And what are books bound in human
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skin? These questions and more answered in this episode today. Yes, I
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would like to say it's kind of like how clinical like anthropy was, where
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there are enough conversations around this for us to warn a show like we have
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to talk about this, and it's there have been enough instances of this thing
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to warrant it as a human phenomenon. True, All right, let's get
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into this background here you want to start. Yeah, So, the act
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of binding books in human skin is called anthropodermic bibliopogy. Yep. Anthropodermic means
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or comes from anthropos, which means manner human, and bibliopogy is biblion,
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which means book and pagea which is to fasten. So to fasten books with
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human is essentially what that means. And we missed a part of the word
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that was dermic, which often refers to the dermis or the epidermis, the
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which is the skin. So yes, so that's probably the other part there,
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yep. So yes, this is the thing that happens. The earliest
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known anthropodermic book was a French Bible, of course, from the thirteenth century,
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although the most proven examples are from the late sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries,
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not a lot of mass production of these. There are a couple of
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reasons why this was practiced. One was punishment for criminals, I mean,
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to be fair. To be fair, as somebody who really enjoys books,
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that wouldn't be much of a punishment for me. Yeah, you're like,
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I got to die doing what I loved, becoming a book. Becoming a
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book. Yeah, just wrap me around some paper. Another reason might be
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something cool to show your friends. I guess if that's something your friends find
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cool and you sure. Another one would be to memorialize the dead, like
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I said, so you know, turn my bones into a coral reef and
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put my skin on a book. Yep. And then to say thank you
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to patients who helped doctors to learn to thank you patients. So the doctors
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are saying thank you to the patients. The doctors are saying thank you to
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the patients by bounding their books in their skin. I would be so bummed
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out if I were a doctor and somebody was like, thank you for saving
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my life. Here's a book that's made of my skin. So bummed out.
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Yeah it's possible. They were like, hey, you you did some
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really fun experiments on me that killed me, and so as a thank you
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for that, you can use my corpse when I'm gone to make a book
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out of your endeavors. I don't know what if a doctor was doing that
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and then somebody said, yeah, you can use my skin for a book.
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And then they've put out Twilight. How disrespectful, right, all right,
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so that's what they are. There are books that are literally so books
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have covers. In this case, the covers are wrapped in human skin.
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I think they still have like traditional like the cardboard underneath, but then you
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put the skin on top, because obviously skin's not gonna hold this position super
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well if it's there by itself, right, So I think you stretched across
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sort of like a book cover. You know, in middle school used to
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make those book covers out of like paper bags, and then you could draw
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all over them. Yeah, and all of that similar idea, but I
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guess with human skin. And we talked about the reasons why. Here's some
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famous examples of books bound in human skin. Right. So. William Burke
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and William Hare were infamous Irish Scottish serial killers accused of killing approximately sixteen people.
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Burke and Hare were body snatchers who sold the corpses of other victims to
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medical schools for dissection. When they found it increasingly difficult to obtain fresh corpses,
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though, they turned to murder, targeting vulnerable people such as the sick,
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elderly, and destitute. So people who were kind of on their way
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out, or people who would not be missed, and then you see that
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kind of like as a common mo for for zero killers, and so they
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would suffocate their victims and then sell their bodies to doctor Robert Knox. There
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was actually a whole thing that's probably worth doing either another mini or a full
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episode on the grave robbers, because there's a lot about this at the time
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where they were going through, and there's also some lore which seems to be
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incorrect about laws regulating how deep graves had to be to try and dissuade grave
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diggers. But as I said, topic for another anyway, the more expeditious
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thing is to not dig up the bodies, but to create your bodies,
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and so they'd suffocate them. Sure they sold them to doctor Robert Knox as
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a prominent anatomy lecturer in Edinburgh. Burke and Harroway arrested and Hair turned against
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Burke, testifying against him in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Burke, of
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course, then was found guilty of murder and was hanged in front of a
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large crowd in January eighteen twenty nine, which is apparently like a big public
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thing in general, like public hangings, Like people really dug that, yes,
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because I guess they couldn't watch the good place or they didn't have Netflix.
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Now. His body was subsequently dissected and his skeleton preserved, where it
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remains on display at the Anatomical Museum of the University of Edinburgh. In a
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twist of fate, burke skin was used to bound a book dubbed Burke's Skin
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pocket Book that now resides at Surgeon's Hall Museum in Edinburgh, Scotland. The
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book is a small, pocket sized edition of the History of a Woman Patient.
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Yeah, so that's one famous example of a book bound in human skin.
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We do have more examples for you, but first the canker Sore of
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the of the Entertainment World advertisements. So we've been talking about the famous books
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bound in human skin. This next one is narrative of the life of James
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Allen alias George Walton alias Jonas Pearce alias James H. York alias Burdley Grove,
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the Highwayman, being his deathbed confession to the warden of the Massachusetts State
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Prison. That title is a mouthful, that is, I've read books that
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have very long titles where it's like you know, you've got the brief and
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frightening reign of Phil But that's where it stops. It's not additional you know
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things. So this is colon. This book is a first hand account of
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James Allen alias George Walton and all others who is a highway thief in the
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early eighteen hundreds who were deuels his crimes in a deathbed style confession. Very
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exciting. That's a fun way to go out, I guess sure. In
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this book he shows remorse for his crimes and asks for his skin to be
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saved in tanned so two copies of books could be bound in his skin and
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given to John Fenno, a man who he tried to rob and fought back.
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It is told that he was impressed by his bravery to fight back.
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And so there's actually an excerpt from this that we probably got to share,
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yes, taken from the Boston Athenaeum Library catalog where the book currently resides,
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and it goes as such quote before his death, Alan asked that enough of
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his skin be tanned to provide bindings for two copies of these memoirs, one
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for John Fenno Junior and the other for his attending physician, doctor Harry I
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Bautitch. A sufficient piece of skin was removed from Alan's back and taken to
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a local tannery where it was treated to look like gray deer skin, and
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finally delivered into the hands of Peter Lowe end quote. Hear low sounds like
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somebody who would know how to work with human skin to bind books, does,
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is all I'm saying. Yeah, But also, this is the second
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doctor that's getting a book bound in human skin, So I no wonder people
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don't trust doctors. Yeah. As a doctor, not a medical doctor,
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but as a doctor, I would like to say, please don't give me
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books bound in human skin. I would also like to second that as a
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doctor, not a medical doctor, but as a doctor, please do not
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send me any books. Honestly, try not to send me any books bound
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in any skin. I'd be find to good the point no skin bound books.
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I'll take the skin of a tree as acceptable skin for a book.
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I guess, yeah, that works just fine. Yeah. Now, one
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of the few surviving examples in the UK is owned by the Bristol Record Office
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and made from the skin of the first man to be hanged at Bristol gal
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On Friday the thirteenth, eighteen twenty one, scary day. Now. It's
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embossed dark brown cover was made with the skin of eighteen year old John Horwood,
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who was hanged for the murder of Eliza Balsam. He was seventeen at
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the time of the murder, and the book chronicles his crime that took place.
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That's a wild turn for that. I got a comment on this.
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It's like you've got a memoir of somebody on their deathbed with a book that
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is made of their own skin. You've got somebody who is like, it's
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a true crime book that is bound in the skin of the person that committed
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the crime. I feel like, I feel like it makes sense thematically,
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but it's also just a wild thought. Also, just as a fun aside,
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I'm looking at Friday the thirteenth, eighteen twenty one. If it had
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been eighteen twenty two, those numbers would have added up to thirteen and we
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would have had a real numerology coincidence. It's opportunity there. One year later.
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I know that he should have waited, yeah, or one century later,
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but one year later would have been fine. Yeah. There is a
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book at Harvard University called Destinay de laum, which is Destinies of the soul.
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Apparently that was covered with the skin of an unclaimed female mental patient who
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died of quote unquote natural causes, if you will. And the book was
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first published in eighteen seventy nine by a French poet and essayist, Are Sane
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Hose. And so that's a thing that apparently happened. Okay, As somebody
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who has published books, I don't know that I would ever feel comfortable requesting,
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like, hey, listen, you getting skin laying around for this,
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Yeah, particularly of like a body of someone who was institutionalized. Yeah,
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probably not treated very well while they're there, and probably arguably there for the
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wrong reasons. We're talking eighteen seventy nine, and they are a female mental
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patient. They probably just like had a mental cycle and got put there for
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the rest of their lives. Yeah, like a bad day. Yeah,
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they had a bad day. They spoke out a turn because they said I
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don't like this meal. Yeah, and they were gone. Now, Father
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Henry Garnett heard the confessions of many that were involved in the Gunpowder Plot,
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a plan to blow up the Parliament in sixteen oh five. Now, although
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he was not directly involved in the crimes. He was hung, drawn,
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quartered, and his skin removed for the binding of the book, a true
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and perfect relation. The book has the impression of Garnet's face on the front
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cover, and there's some controversy about this one. I don't know why though.
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Yeah, I'm not totally sure either, but it does sound like I'm
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thinking about the person who has to do the skinning of the body and how
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horrific that would feel to me. So yeah, and then the process of
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turning that skin in. I don't know, the whole thing. There's a
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lot of steps in here that are just a little make me queasy if you
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will. Yeah, I mean I think of like in that situation. I
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don't even think about like how that got to that point. What I think
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about is that person that goes, you know, what I know how to
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do really well is I know how to do leatherwork. And so what I'm
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going to do is I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to mold this
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cover to have this man's face on it. Like that to me is like
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a whole other level of like craftsmanship and weirdness. Yeah, that is okay.
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The Welcome Library in London has a book which was bound and signed by
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doctor Ludivik Bowland as a medical student. He decided to bind a book using
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the skin of a female patient again whose body went unclaimed again. And in
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addition to this, it had a guilt paneled spine, guilt borders and cover
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ornamentation and philaise or phill its depending on whether you want to read that with
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the next end or not. Yeah, so more doctors with leather bound books.
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Yeah again doctors? So ugh, I don't know. I guess maybe
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while you kind of process that information, it's probably worth listening to ads that
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are definitely not human skin books. Now, some of you might be wondering,
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how is it allowed and like why do we do this? Why do
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people how are they allowed to do this? Like, weren't there laws?
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Aren't there ethical codes about this? Yeah? Aren't those technically human remains?
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And shouldn't there be done about that? That is very stuit of you for
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catching that point. And if you didn't, that is okay, because I
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probably would not have thought about that beyond all of the queasiness I've been feeling
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the whole time. So I do understand if you did not have that question,
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but it's a good one. There isn't actually any sort of consensus on
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how to handle these books, but one person, Paul Needham, has suggested
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that they remove the skin and give the human remains a proper burial, which
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I think is reasonable and considerable. Paul worked at the Shyde Library for over
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twenty years, and the Shyde Library was once a private library and is now
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a permanent part of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections of the Princeton
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University Library. So this is somebody who like it sounds like they probably deeply
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care about books in general, and also has some respect for something like this,
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And even to that degree, he's like, we should probably get rid
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of these things, like what's the point of preserving them? Right? Yeah,
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you know, the fact that we don't do this very much anymore should
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also speak to the fact that maybe we don't think that this is a good
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idea. Yeah, yeah, kind of bad, kind of bad, some
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other fun things about this. So the Anthropodermic Book Project was formed to create
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a census, so sort of a an enumeration of the books and to verify
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their authenticity. And so one of the questions I had going into this is
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how many there are, and the current count record that was updated most recently
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of May and twenty nineteen is there are allegedly fifty anthropodermic books that have been
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identified and presumably verified, which is a shockingly small amount given how horrible humans
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have been throughout history and in like how many have survived all this time.
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I mean, like, yeah, we have like humans have a history of
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like just burning books whenever they are mad about something, like you know,
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doctor SEUs or whatever. But I do think it's interesting that there are only
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fifty in existence right now. Yeah, and to think about I think there's
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just probably many that are not known. Like there's no way that Ron DeSantis
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by himself doesn't have fifty books bound in human skin, oh, one hundred
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percent, Oh for for sure. Yeah, that he cultivated himself probably,
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oh easily. Now, when you start looking at this number fifty, these
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are identified books that are either in different phases, they're being tested, they're
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confirmed, or they were proven not to be human. So the books tested
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are in process were thirty one. The books confirmed as human were eighteen.
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So out of all those fifty, there were only eighteen that were confirmed human.
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Yeah, and there were thirteen books that were proven not to be human
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but originally were thought to be when when they went into this organization. Yeah,
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so if you're keeping tally, forty nine of them are thought to be
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and are you know most of those are currently in the process of being tested,
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and that's how I think we got to that fifty ish number, right.
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Yeah. To test this, they use something called peptide mass fingerprinting to
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verify that it is in fact human skin. And if you look at the
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website, you will see that peptide mass fingerprinting can identify mammalion sources of collagen
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based materials such as bookbindings, leather, and parchment, to determine whether that
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thing then contains the cells that would be found in human skin. And that's
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how they determine if that's what it is. Yep, wild stuff. Yeah,
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so that's it, Books bound in human skin. I don't think I
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have anything else on this topic. Do you have anything else? I don't
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want anything else on this topic. It's cool. I think that's about as
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much as we as we want to have happen, maybe even a little bit
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more so. Hopefully you were not trying to eat lunch during this we didn't
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ruin your day, yeah, and just gave you something to think about a
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little bit and maybe then forget to me. The key take home point from
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this of anything is that the term anthropodermic means covered in human skin. Yeah,
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which is like kind of fascinating in itself. Yeah, all right,
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but cool, anything else from you, No, I think that covers it
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all right? Perfect. This is Abraham and this is Shane Mini out cee
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uh. You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do. You can
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learn more about this and other episodes by going to WWD WWD podcast dot com.
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Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day.