Harvard removes human skin from bound book
Explores ways to lay the remains to rest
Harvard University library officials say they have removed human skin from the binding of a 19th-century book in the university’s collection and are exploring “respectful” ways to lay the remains to rest.
The book’s original owner, French physician Dr. Ludovic Bouland, who died in 1933, took the skin from a deceased female psychiatric patient at a hospital where he worked and used it to bind a copy of Arsène Houssaye’s book “Des destinées de l’âme,” which dates to the 1880s, Harvard officials said in a statement on Wednesday.
Officials said the decision to remove the skin from the volume was prompted by recommendations in a 2022 report by a Harvard committee charged with considering the ethics of having human remains in its museums and libraries.
“The core problem with the volume’s creation was a doctor who didn’t see a whole person in front of him and carried out an odious act of removing a piece of skin from a deceased patient, almost certainly without consent, and used it in a book binding that has been handled by many for more than a century,” Tom Hyry, associate university librarian for archives and special collections said in a Q&A the university published with its statement. “We believe it’s time the remains be put to rest.”
Harvard has faced controversy since last summer when authorities charged the morgue manager at Harvard Medical School with stealing and selling body parts taken from cadavers.
The book has been in Harvard’s collection since 1934, but the university didn’t confirm it was bound in human skin until 80 years later. The university announced the discovery in 2014 in a pair of blog posts, which received wide media coverage. On Wednesday, library officials
said those posts made light of the discovery and were written in a “sensationalistic, morbid, and humorous tone.”
“Harvard Library acknowledges past failures in its stewardship of the book that further objectified and compromised the dignity of the human being whose remains were used for its binding,” the university said in a statement. “We apologize to those adversely affected by these actions.”
The Harvard committee’s 2022 report focused on books that used the skin of enslaved people and Native Americans held in the university’s collection, but it also noted the volume of “Des destinées de l’âme.”
The library created a task force to study the book’s history and analyze “the extant literature regarding the practice of binding books in human skin,” said Hyry, who chaired the task force.
“The review confirmed that we can have reasonable certainty that bouland removed and utilized the skin without con
sent,” he said.
John stetson, an American diplomat and Harvard graduate, deposited the book at Harvard in 1934, and his widow, Ruby stetson, donated it to the university 20 years later, officials said. In a memo accompanying the book, stetson wrote that bouland took the skin from an unknown woman who had been a patient at a french psychiatric hospital.
Houssaye’s book is a “meditation on the soul and life after death,” Hyry said. A note written by bouland inserted in the book says, “A book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering.”
Officials said library users can read the book online through the Harvard Library, but it is currently unavailable in person.
Anne-Marie Eze, associate librarian of Houghton Library, said in a statement that the remains are being held in “secure storage” at Harvard Library as officials determine what to do next.
“The library is consulting with appropriate authorities at the University and in france to determine an appropriate and respectful way of laying the remains to rest,” Eze said.