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Detail of a modern anatomical modelAnatomical models contain more than just information about human anatomy - they convey social meaning.

By examining the way in which anatomy models are fabricated and decorated, the values and attitudes of the societies that produced them can be further understood and analyzed. Three centuries of anatomical artifacts will be considered.

Click on any section or image to begin exploring the history of anatomy models...
Eighteenth Century
Nineteenth Century
Twentieth Century

In the eighteenth century, public displays of highly realistic wax anatomical models were intended to help strengthen and reify new medical and philosophical ideas about how the body and the mind function.

Detail of an eighteenth-century wax anatomical model

Nineteenth-century wax anatomical model of a syphilitic legion on an arm

In the later half of the nineteenth century, anatomical models were used as educational tools for dictating public morality, as part of reform efforts to control and restrain the negative social impacts of industrialization and urbanization.

After World War I, there were significant changes in the doctor-patient relationship and the medical encounter became less collaborative. Medical knowledge was mediated by physicians and anatomical models were used to convey information to patients.

Detail of a twentieth-century anatomical model

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