Scholarly Article Quote of the Day

"a customer at Seba’s sale purchased a lot that contained a “piece of a penis, artfully prepared” by Ruysch, a preparation of intestines, a book, and amole skeleton for the sum of 23 guilders. In 1713, Bidloo’s “most charming mole skeleton” was sold for 4 guilders 10 stuivers. Human intestines “decorated with wax and mercury and a corium humanum” were also available for 1 guilder 10stuivers. A “penis siccatus” fetched 1 guilder and 2 stuivers together with “two testicles injected with mercury.” As part of a separate lot, several “penes viriles etcanini” were purchased for 14 stuivers, even though a dog’s baculum was also added. Adding together Bidloo’s mole skeleton, intestines and penis, the totalamount is 7 guilders 2 stuivers, and it also includes an extra corium humanum and the two testicles. Discounting the additional book on Seba’s sale, Ruysch’sspecimens were still worth three times as much as Bidloo’s."

From A Museum of Wonders or a Cemetery of Corpses? The Commercial Exchange of Anatomical Collections in the Early Modern Netherlands by Daniel Margocsy in Silent Messengers, 2011