The Harvard Library announced this week it had removed human skin from the binding of a 19th century French philosophy book after a review uncovered multiple ethical concerns about the skin’s origin.
French physician Dr. Ludovic Bouland “bound the book with skin he took without consent from the body of a deceased female patient in a hospital where he worked,” the library said in a statement Wednesday.
The book, Arsène Houssaye’s “Des destinées de l’âme” — described as “a meditation on the soul and life after death” — was first published in 1879, according to the school. Bouldand thought “a book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering” and so he put the skin, which he’d had since the 1860s, over the book.
The school discovered the peculiar binding while reviewing all of its collections for human remains.
“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,” the library said.
“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. We apologize to those adversely affected by these actions,” the statement concluded.
The book originally came to Houghton Library, which houses the Ivy League school’s collection of rare books and archival material, in 1934. It was deposited by alumnus, diplomat, philanthropist and businessman John B. Stetson Jr. His widow, Ruby F. Stetson, donated it permanently to the school in 1954.
Harvard said it would do additional research into the book, Bouland, and the patient whose skin was used while working with the French government on a “final respectful disposition.”
