Background: Anatomical subjects depicted in Eduard Pernkopf's richly illustrated may be victims of the Nazi regime. Special collections librarians in the history of medicine can use this primary resource to initiate dialogs about ethics with medical students.
Case Presentation: Reported here is the authors' use of Pernkopf's in an interactive medical humanities seminar designed for third-year medical students. Topical articles, illustrations, and interviews introduced students to Pernkopf, his , and the surrounding controversies. We aimed to illustrate how this controversial historical publication can successfully foster student discussion and ethical reflection.
Conclusions: Pernkopf's and our mix of contextual resources facilitated thoughtful discussions about history and ethics amongst the group. Anonymous course evaluations showed student interest in the subject matter, relevance to their studies, and appreciation of our special collection's space and contents.
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| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5370610 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2017.223 | DOI Listing |
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The History of Eduard Pernkopf's Topographische Anatomie des Menschen.
J Biocommun
August 2021
School of Veterinary Medicine, Purdue University.
Frequently misunderstood because of the history of the time in which it was produced, Eduard Pernkopf's Topographische Anatomie des Menschen nevertheless represents the pinnacle of color anatomic illustration. The more than 800 magnificent watercolor paintings of human anatomy found in Pernkopf's atlas occupied a number of Viennese artists for three decades. This article closely examines the work and its creators.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThanks to a recent donation by Elsevier, the Medical University of Vienna now holds in its collections the known existing original paintings for Eduard Pernkopf's Atlas of Topographical and Applied Human Anatomy. The work is widely considered a pinnacle of the art of anatomical illustration. However, it is severely tainted by its historical origins.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNerve Surgeons' Assessment of the Role of Eduard Pernkopf's Atlas of Topographic and Applied Human Anatomy in Surgical Practice.
J Biocommun
August 2021
Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Department of Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri.
(Reprinted with permission from NEUROSURGERY, Volume 84, Number 2, February 2019).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Medical University of Vienna and the legacy of Pernkopf's anatomical atlas: Elsevier's donation of the original drawings to the Josephinum.
Ann Anat
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Elsevier BV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Eduard Pernkopf (1888-1955) became head of the Second Anatomical Institute in 1933, dean of the medical faculty in 1938 with the Annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany, and rector of the University of Vienna in 1943. He gained worldwide recognition with his anatomical atlas, which many consider unequaled to this day. In the decades that followed, suspicion arose that the drawings were made using corpses of people who had been victims of Nazi persecution and, following international inquiries and critique, the University of Vienna appointed a historical commission to the matter.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNazi victims on the dissection table - The Anatomical Institute in Innsbruck.
Ann Anat
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Division of Clinical and Functional Anatomy (Director: Univ. Prof. Dr. Helga Fritsch), Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria.
Since Vienna University's 1997/98 inquiry into the background of Eduard Pernkopf's anatomical atlas, German and Austrian anatomical institutes have been forced to confront their past, particularly the widespread procurement of bodies of victims of National Socialism. This paper focuses on the Anatomical Institute in Innsbruck, which received bodies from an unusually broad array of sources: from prisoners executed at Stadelheim Prison in Munich, prisoners of war from three different camps, military personnel sentenced to death by martial courts, patients from a psychiatric hospital, and several bodies of Jewish Holocaust victims. As in other comparable cases, these bodies were used for scientific publications and medical teaching until long after the war.
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