This tale of horrors begins in the early 1880s, when Dr. Ludovic Bouland bound a copy of Arsène Houssaye's book Des destinées de l'âme (Destinies of the Soul) with the skin of one of the crazy patients in his asylum.
According to Bouland, the female patient died of a stroke, but this is coming from a man who bound a book in human skin, so, …
'A book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering,' he wrote.
Anyway, to make a gruesome story shorter, the book ended up in Harvard's Houghton Library. The library had three books bound in human skin, which apparently is not as abnormal as you would hope.
'Termed anthropodermic bibliopegy, the binding of books in human skin has occurred at least since the 16th century,' the library said. 'The confessions of criminals were occasionally bound in the skin of the convicted, or an individual might request to be memorialized for family or lovers in the form of a book.'
But two of the books were found to be bound in lamb skin. Only Des destinées was found to be authentically human.
Apparently the book has quite a storied history at Harvard; as it was available in the general collection, and for years, anyone could check it out.
So, it was often ritualistically used in hazing of fraternity and sorority pledges.
Regarding the destruction of the book, the library released a statement saying,
Dr. Ludovic Bouland (1839 - 1933), bound the book with skin he took without consent.
And,
After careful study, stakeholder engagement, and consideration, Harvard Library and the Harvard Museum Collections Returns Committee concluded that the human remains used in the book's binding no longer belong in the Harvard Library collections, due to the ethically fraught nature of the book's origins and subsequent history.
Of course, the book could not just be removed from Harvard's Library, but from existence. So, they tore off the binding from the book and are currently researching the best way to dispose of it.
The human remains will be given a respectful disposition that seeks to restore dignity to the woman whose skin was used. The Library is now in the process of conducting additional biographical and provenance research into the anonymous female patient, the book, and Bouland, as well as consulting with proper authorities in France and at the University to help determine how best to carry this out. We expect this process to take months, and perhaps longer, to come to completion.
While I can certainly understand the desire to get rid of a creepy bit of history, considering Harvard's Marxist leanings, I honestly can't decide if this is a genuine respect for the dead or a burn down the West moment.
On the plus side,
None of the Marxists at Harvard will be able to control the dead anymore.
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