This lovely lady is the star of our latest exhibition, Generations: Reproduction, Heredity and Epigenetics, now on display in Ellis Library through the end of March.  This object is an ivory anatomical manikin that belongs to the collection of the J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library here at the University of Missouri.  It is probably German, dates from the eighteenth century, and is about 11 inches long.

This manikin is the centerpiece of a section of the exhibit that focuses on the pregnant body and the power of the maternal imagination.  From antiquity through the eighteenth century, people thought whatever a pregnant woman feared, imagined, or saw could literally be imprinted on her fetus.  The French philosopher Rene Descartes explained that ideas and sights physically existed in the mind and could pass into the bloodstream, referring to birthmarks as “marks that are impressed on children by the imagination of the mother.”  Although we no longer think that disturbing thoughts cause birth defects, epigenetics researchers are still interested in the links between parents’ mental health and the health of their children.

Ivory manikins such as this one may have been used as educational tools by male doctors.  It’s not clear who was the intended audience for the objects.  Were they used to demonstrate basic anatomy to medical students?  Or laypeople? Or were they simply luxury objects, curiosities to be kept in a doctor’s study?

Most of the ivory anatomical manikins still extant today are pregnant females.  The artist of this figure even connected the fetus to the womb with a small piece of thread to represent the umbilical cord.  Whether or not the imagination was something the original owner of this figure considered, we do not know.