Wax models at Leeds

Here is my first draft for the panel text – let me know what you think.  Also, if you have any ideas for a catchy title…

These wax models were formerly used in the study and teaching of medicine and zoology at Leeds.  In many cases they show small things magnified, making the invisible visible.  It has been suggested that historians of science have neglected wax models because of their limited use in scientific research.  However, as much of the research within this department clearly shows, research is only one part of the story of science.  Just as important is the role of teaching science and of commercial companies using science to create marketable products and it is in these narratives that wax models have something to say.  Here in this display are examples from various makers, using different materials and techniques to produce their models.  Each model is designed to teach or demonstrate something different.  These models also tell us what was going on here at Leeds.  The water beetle models for example, highlights a former specialism of the University’s prestigious but often neglected past.

Collections, Coffee and a weird Creamy Cake thing: Oxford Museum Conference

The Leeds History of Science Museum does not exist. This isn’t true, but it’s a good starting point when trying to explain to someone the status of the museum project. Our new museum Director, Dr. Claire Jones, has to try and get across to every interested party that we have museum displays, but no single museum to house them, that we have collections but no idea what’s in them, and that we have people who work on the museum, but no museum staff. Yesterday I was pleased to learn that this is by no means an unusual state of affairs nor a cause for concern. Claire, Jessica Henderson, Kiara White and myself went along to an Oxford meeting of the Science, Technology and Industry Subject Specialist Network. This is a body that brings together the people responsible for preserving and displaying scientific collections. We fuelled up on caffeine as we had to get up at an obscene time of day in order to make it. Our aim in attending was to gather useful information, contacts and of course potential sources of funding (and enjoy Oxford). The day was arranged around three panels, the majority of which described the work currently under way in different regions of the UK. For instance in the first session we were presented with the frankly remarkable work that has gone into the Glasgow based Riverside Museum for the history of transport and travel. The building looks incredible, and inside they appear to be leading the way in the use of digital displays. While the scope of the projects is far far greater than ours at Leeds, we were given a great deal to consider regarding the the extent to which we might be creative with our own displays. So too with the presentation given by Dr. Stephen Johnston on the Oxford Museum of the History of Science. This museum has garnered national attention of late for its innovative collaborative work, perhaps most notably its recent Steampunk exhibit, a video of which you can see here.

That morning we had already been discussing potentially using out magic lanterns in a display for the annual Leeds Light Night, and seeing the response to Oxford’s work in this direction was pretty inspiring.

Discussion throughout the day tended to focus on the lack of time available for the study of collections, lack of money for their proper care and display and finally the lack of coordination amongst curators when it came to collection rationalisation and the sharing of knowledge. Rather than moaning on about these things the majority of the conversation was dedicated to solutions, whether that be in the form of a collections management system developed at UCL or emerging networks for the sharing of expertise. In Lancashire for instance a curatorial register is currently being compiled in which each curator can put themselves forwards as an expert in particular fields, the aim being to call upon such people when an item in a collection baffles its home institution.  The success of this scheme will depend upon the flexibility of each institution, allowing their employees to dedicate time to outsider collections and so on. At Leeds we are already on the look out for precisely such people, and are currently working with the Wilderspin National School to evaluate some of our history of education items.

In the afternoon we were lucky enough to be given a guided tour of the Oxford Museum of the History of Science by Stephen Johnston. We were given a pretty comprehensive history of the museum and buildings, including the potential location for anatomy lectures, where the bodies of convicts hanged at the castle would be put to more creative use. At the same time we were given very clear descriptions of the sophisticated instruments on display in the museum, many of which would have been otherwise intimidating.

This tour was great fun, and definitely something for us to aim for once we have our multi-site museum up and running. After all, our HPS museum looks to emphasise the history of the university and its connections to our collections, a walking tour around the campus buildings and displays would clearly be ideal.

In sum, an enlightening day. Also the food was very good. Although dessert was this weird creamy cake thing in a glass.

p.s. The car journey on the way home turned into a sometimes heated discussion of methodological issues in HPS! We discussed the background to each of our different approaches to the subject, from social perspectives or the history of ideas and how our own HPS backgrounds continue to influence our work. I had never bothered to put myself to this kind of scrutiny and found it more than a little uncomfortable, after all, I am not a real person. When Claire and I were contrasting our approaches to HPS, our undergraduate dissertations quite strikingly demonstrated these differences. Claire had focussed upon child mortality in Birmingham in the nineteenth century, particularly the exceedingly high number of deaths from diarrhoea. I on the other hand had evaluated the Dawkins-Gould debate. (So from my perspective Claire rooted around in shit while bleating on about social injustice, while from Clarie’s perspective I spent my time fondling two highly successful and well educated white blokes). We then went on to discuss heritage; what it meant and what it meant to us. Jessica (well rested from her earlier sleep) put forward a strong defence of its value, and how she had always been brought up with a sense of where her family had come from and their culture. Jessica is American.

Microtomes and modelling; the His-Ziegler Chick Embryo Series

The models I have been researching belong to what would have been an 18-part series showing the chick embryo, and also specific parts of the embryo, e.g. the heart and the brain, during the first four days of development. Like the majority of embryological wax models to be found in current collections, they were produced by the Ziegler studio of Germany, founded by Friedrich and later taken over by his son Adolf.

This series was the result of collaboration between Friedrich Ziegler and the anatomist Wilhelm His, who invited Ziegler to Basel to teach him how to use wax for modelling, as it was more pliable than the leather and lead he had been using previously. An important feature of the production of this series is that it was the first to make use of a new cutting instrument known as a microtome, thought to have been invented by His in 1866. At this point it should be noted that the developmental history of early cutting devices is poorly documented, and that this invention is sometimes attributed to others, for example the Czech physiologist Jan Purkyně. However, the important thing in this context is the effect it had on the models produced by this collaboration.

A microtome is an instrument that assists in accurately cutting samples into consistently very thin slices, or sections. The specimen would be attached to a sliding table which then moved it to the correct position before the blade was manually brought down to cut it. Different types of microtomes are still important devices in current microscopy, although the original design has been replaced by automatic varieties.

In addition to studying the intact specimen, His used the microtome to section chick embryos across several planes, creating a complete series of sections on which to base the models. After drawing the whole embryo and then the various sections, the main body was formed free-hand, based on the drawing of the whole, before the sectional drawings were used to measure and judge how much wax too add or remove. From the originals Ziegler would then craft a series of models. The benefit of this method was that it allowed the models to display the interior structure of the embryos in more detail, which we shall see was instrumental in making these models more than mere teaching aids.

It is true that the primary purpose of wax models was for teaching university students, or in laboratories to train researchers, doctors and science teachers. Natural embryological specimens were often in short supply, and would have to be viewed under a microscope or at the very least a magnifying glass, which would have been inconvenient for teaching a classroom full of students. While these difficulties could be remedied by using drawings and charts, these models are superior because they have the benefit of showing structures in 3-D, making them easier for the students to understand and later recognise.

However, contrary to a common assumption (which has caused models to be undervalued by historians of science), teaching was not their only important role. This is especially evident in the case of these models, as they were involved in a struggle between His’s mechanical embryology and Ernst Haeckel’s evolutionary embryology. For the Haeckelians, models were still essentially mere teaching aids, but His argued that since models functioned as a record of the researcher’s understanding of the specimen’s structure, they should be recognized as research publications in their own right, over which the author of the model, like that of a written article, holds the intellectual rights to.

This opinion was probably in part the result of His’ realization of how closely embryological models and embryological theory can be related. The His-Ziegler chick embryo series was accompanied by a book authored by His, which used these models, and the more detailed interior structure they displayed, to support an alternative to Haeckel’s phylogenetic embryology. Phylogenetics is the study of evolutionary relatedness, and Haeckel claimed that all vertebrates were the same in the early stages of development. While not denying the fact of evolution, His argued that this did not explain the developmental series, i.e. the forces that transform one stage into the next. He therefore favoured a mechanical view. What has often gone unnoticed by historians is the instrumental role played by the microtome and by modelling in the development of His’ views. He relied on his highly detailed 3-D display of the internal development of the chick as evidence against Haeckel, and in 1874 went as far as charging Haeckel with fraud, claiming he had edited pictures of embryos in order to make them look more similar than they were.

Edward Gerrard & Sons – more to models than just Ziegler

While  Ziegler and his wax models of the 19th century seem to have attracted most scholarly interest and are certainly better represented in museums, there were rival companies and technologies. Edward Gerrard & Sons was a very successful firm which created models for zoological study for over one hundred years.

The firm’s founder, Edward Gerrard (1810-1910, DNB),  was employed from 1836 by the Zoological Society of London as assistant to George Robert Waterhouse, curator of the society’s museum and in 1841 joined the zoological department of the British Museum as an attendant, working closely with curator John Edward Gray thereafter. The Catalogue of the Bones of Mammalia in the British Museum (1862) was compiled by Gerrard under his own system of arrangement, and Gray put Gerrard’s name on the title page, but was overruled by Richard Owen and the museum’s trustees, who ordered that the name be erased.  He was employed by the British Museum as an attendant for fifty-five years, until his retirement in 1896.

Around 1850 Gerrard set up the family taxidermy and osteology business for which he became best known. The Gerrard workshops soon became famous as a place where hunters, travellers, naturalists and later film set designers met and exchanged or sold specimens. The nearness of London zoo ensured a regular supply of dead animals, and during the heyday of British taxidermy, from about 1880 until 1914, Gerrard’s business thrived in competition with dozens of other firms. His sons entered the taxidermy and modelling business with him and continued the firm until 1967. There is a published history of the firm (P.A. Morris, Edward Gerrard and Sons: A Taxidermy Memoir, 2004) and great photographs of their work can be seen at Taxidermy for Cash.

While the firm’s speciality was preparing and articulating skeletons, used for teaching comparative anatomy and dentistry, it also made zoological models, such as the “brain series”, anatomy specimens and embryo models. While museums around the world have taxidermy specimens made by the company very few of the zoological models appear to have survived, or at least to have been catalogued online.  Our models date from between 1900-1935 (based on the address shown on label) and are part of the “brain series”.  A poster advertising the whole series is held by D’Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum,University of Dundee.  We hold 8 models which suggests we are missing 4 from the complete series;  Dundee holds 7 models  but unfortunately we do not make a complete set between us! They appear to be made of casting plaster, painted in green and cream. Whilst one of our models is chipped they seem to be very durable and are more robust and would stand up to repeated handling better than the older wax models.

Research into the history of embryology and its pedagogy has found that as the science became more experimental and less descriptive the need for accurate model-making declined.  After World War I, Friedrich Ziegler found himself with increasingly fewer commissions and when he died in 1936 the Ziegler studio closed.  However in the case of Gerrards and Sons it is interesting that after the Second World War the biological models section was the most profitable side of the business and was sold in 1960s to a large educational supply company. The later date of the models themselves and this sale suggests use of models in teaching continued well into the 20^th century.

The next step is to try and find out more about the use of the models in teaching. While Dundee holds lots of correspondence between Sir D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson, the first Professor of Biology at Dundee, and Edward Gerrard from the 1880s and 1890s it is all about the taxidermy specimens. It would be great if Leeds University Archive could tell us more.

The BIG Store Room Clean Up! Take 1.

On March 17^th 2012, a group of enthusiastic and dedicated taskforce members spent the day going through some of the many boxes in the museum store room. The purpose of this activity was to aid the inventorying backlog of the some 10,000 objects, books and texts currently residing there and to help us to decide what to keep and what to dispose of. Once items are disposed, we will have room to construct our additional shelving and focus on the important scientific and medical objects, which form of the core of our project.  

Taskforce members uncovered some very interesting and, in some cases, rare examples of nineteenth century scientific texts, needlework and crafts, and some pretty gruesome photographs of victims of the Industrial Pennines smallpox outbreak of 1953. It’s safe to say that not many ate lunch straight after viewing these images. Emily, Kiara and Jessica also bravely battled with some strong frames in order to demount some of the old history of education museum images. These old frames are now being donated to another local museum initiative.

It was a long and tiring day, where taskforce members carried out necessary but repetitive and fairly uninteresting work. But morale remained high, as taskforce members worked in time to the beat of Brazilian jazz and electro-funk with Shloer and doughnuts as well deserved rewards. We managed to list approximately 10 boxes of items or approximately 1,000 items, which has made a considerable dent in the inventorying backlog and I want to thank all of youfor making the day such a success. We will be organising another sometime in the summer term so watch this space!

Claire

Miall’s Microscopy and the Modelling of more than Mammals

This is Hydrophilus piceus – ‘The Great Water-Beetle’. Of those beetles native to the UK it is second in size only to the stag beetle. What is more, it is the only insect to have been modelled by Friedrich Ziegler. While human embryology has tended to be the source of interest for those that come to the Ziegler models, it is always useful to bear in mind the wide variety of subjects in which these models were considered useful. What then was special about this beetle, and why does Leeds have a complete collection of the 34th Ziegler series?

Firstly, it is an ideal organism for the study of development. Not only does the beetle have a thoroughly interesting life cycle (including the building of a nest upon the surface of a pool of water) but includes moments in which one can see straight through its exoskeleton. This is possible after it sheds its skin, which occurs no-less than three times.

Secondly, it is cheap to maintain and can be grown easily in laboratory aquaria. Indeed in Britain, the homeland of aquarium keeping, they were commonly kept by amateurs and (if you couldn’t be bothered to catch one yourself) could be bought for the very reasonable price of 1 shilling.

Finally, in their early stages of growth, they are very very small indeed. For the study of this aspect of its development therefore, you would need a microscope, and preferably a series of Ziegler models with which to work.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, microscopy was beginning to enter into the disciplines of zoology and botany. In Leeds a very early advocate was Louis Compton Miall (1842-1921), who introduced a course on practical biology to, what was then the Yorkshire College of Science, in 1894. This was before the department had even built its own laboratory.  Samuel Alberti has described how such rooms were by no means pleasant places to work. Here he quotes a student from the early 1900s:

“the atmosphere is even more polluted & tainted than that of the Chemical Department…At the far end of the room are stationed mysterious jars evolving a strange & unpleasant odour, giving a decidedly fish-markety aroma to the place.”

While most of the messiest work would be done through dissection, Alberti has highlighted that microscopy was increasingly coming to dominate biological instruction. Miall was insistent upon each student becoming at least competent in the skills necessary for the preparation of slides and the ability to understand precisely what one was seeing. It was here that Ziegler’s models would have been of the most use. An excellent picture of the this kind of laboratory work, taken at Manchester (which can be found in Nick Hopwood’s ‘Embryos in Wax‘), demonstrates how each student would have access to these models, while carrying out their own microscopic analysis. Hydrophilus piceus would have been particularly important to the students at Leeds as Miall was widely acknowledged as one of the worlds foremost experts upon aquatic insects, publishing a book on the subject in 1895. You can read it here for free! Unfortunately the students in the picture at Manchester are busily working away at something other than insects, which in a round about way returns me to my original point.

It is usually the amphibian, reptilian, mammalian and of course human embryological models that receive the most attention in displays of Ziegler models. In choosing to display Hydrophilus piceus we are both recognising the history of the development of biology at Leeds and ensuring that as much as possible of the variety to be found in Ziegler is available to the public. To my knowledge the only other permanent display of such models in the UK can be found at Cambridge’s Whipple Museum of the History of Science. Other large collections can be found at the University of Aberdeen, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the University of Dundee, while some examples are also held at the University of Birmingham. Finally, a few years ago the Wellcome Collection produced an exhibition surrounding the history of anatomy which included some Ziegler models. A video of the exhibition, which focusses upon the earliest examples of wax modelling, can be found below.

That’s everything for now, though this post is a work in progress. If you know of any other exhibitions focussing upon Ziegler in the UK, or have any recommendations for this post, please let me know in the comments  section.

Heritage Reading Group – 6th March, 12.30-2.00pm

Thought this may be of interest. I hope to go…..

Claire

 

The next meeting of the Heritage Reading Group will be 6th March at 12.30pm in 104, Student Common Room in the Old Mining Building (number 53 on the campus map). All postgraduates and staff very welcome indeed.
We will be reading Laurajane Smith’s ‘”Man’s inhumanity to man” and other platitudes of avoidance and misrecognition: an analysis of visitor responses to exhibitions marking the 1807 bicentenary’ (Museum and Society, 8(3): 193-213) which explores visitor responses to exhibitions and displays developed as part of the bicentenary of the abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The discussion will be introduced by Helen Graham, School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies.

To facilitate staff and student access to the reading group texts we have set up a shared ‘Community’ on Elgg (Leeds’ in house blogging site). The texts for the March meeting and all future groups will be posted here. https://elgg.leeds.ac.uk/hrg/ To join the group Log in with your standard ISS username and password, all you need to do is ‘join’ the Community.

We hope to see you on 6th March,
Helen Graham and Nick Cass