The anatomical museum of Spitzner: From education to sensation

Medicine enjoyed great social prestige from the early nineteenth century onwards. Through dissections, anatomy mapped the body and tried to unravel the secret of life. It transformed medicine from quackery and conjecture into a professional and scientific discipline. From 1850, the first large travelling anatomical cabinets appeared at the fairgrounds, converting public curiosity into a commercial enterprise.

The German Pierre Spitzner founded his museum in France around 1870 and travelled with the exhibition. From 1878, he added Belgian fairs to his itinerary. Spitzner called himself 'doctor', but whether he had actually studied medicine is questionable. By using that title, he positioned himself as an expert who wanted to share his knowledge with the general public. Under his motto 'art, science and progress!', he preached the societal importance of medicine. Thanks to the arts, and especially wax models, Spitzner and his colleagues were able to convey medical knowledge in a comprehensible and aesthetic way.

From the eighteenth century onwards, anatomists had experimented with medical models in wax. Doctors saw these models as an alternative to studying real bodies, given the scarcity of human remains in medical schools. Soon, the artistic and lifelike models also aroused the interest of the general public. The versatility of wax allowed modellers to recreate realistic bodies, without the inevitable decay of real bodies. As dissection rooms and university cabinets increasingly became the exclusive domain of the scientist in the nineteenth century, travelling anatomy museums and wax models allowed the general public to learn about anatomy.

Spitzner made a point of ensuring that visitors could find the latest scientific insights in his museum. A popular subject was embryology, which explained the earliest developmental stages of a pregnancy. Visitors could also learn about obstetrics: the possible scenarios of childbirth, from a breech birth to a caesarean section. Museums regularly organized separate visiting days for women with a female guide. This allowed them to study these intimate topics without the improper presence of men. Minors were not allowed.

Many museums also had an anthropological section with wax models depicting different 'races'. These busts showed a stereotypical representation of Asian and African people, who, according to the museum catalogue, could be placed in a racial hierarchy. At the bottom of this hierarchy were the most 'primitive races' and at the top was the European 'race', described as the most civilized. Nineteenth-century anthropology presented this hierarchy as a fact, under the guise of science. Spitzner and other travelling exhibitions played a big role in spreading these racist and colonial ideas to a wide audience.

A popular slogan used by Spitzner and his competitors was the ancient Greek maxim 'Know thyself'. The first travelling cabinets formulated it as an invitation for visitors to immerse themselves in the secrets of the body. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the message became more pressing. They argued that it was everyone's civic duty to inform themselves about issues of health and illness. At the time, there were many fears about disease and hygiene, with the working class in particular being targeted as the culprit. In particular, alcoholism, syphilis, and tuberculosis were regarded by authorities not just as life-threatening diseases but also threats to society in general.

Anatomical museums appropriated a societal role to educate the public about these dangers. Gruesome models of faces and genitals affected by syphilis and other venereal diseases had to scare spectators to such an extent that they would adjust their behaviour. A healthy life meant above all a decent and modest one. Thus, these museums turned health into an individual responsibility. Those who did fall ill only had themselves to blame. The fairground, where the festive excitement could lead to a lapse in moral judgement, was according to Spitzner and his competitors, the best place to remind the public of that duty.

In 1896, Pierre Spitzner died and his wife Desirée took over the museum management. A challenging task awaited her. In the run-up to the twentieth century, it seems as if fairground spectacle knew no bounds. Every year, new innovations and attractions were introduced. For museums like Spitzner's, whose collections already required a big investment, it was difficult to keep up. Desirée tried to compensate by exhibiting so-called 'phenomena', people with a peculiar appearance or act. But this was not always well-received. When the museum opened in Rotterdam in 1898, Mrs Spitzner invited press and local doctors to the opening night with a special performance by fakir Ben Ali Soliman. His demonstrations, during which he pricked and cut himself with needles and knives, were so shocking to some that they quickly left the room unsettled.

These sensational shows raised questions among critics about whether the collection was appropriate for public display. They felt the objects were too explicit and worried they would only attract thrill-seekers. The low point came in 1903, when Mrs Spitzner opened the museum in London. On the morning of 5 February, the police raided the rooms, confiscated several 'offensive' models and arrested her and several employees. Gradually, the family realized that they needed to change if they wanted the museum to survive.

The museum doubled down on its ambition to offer a serious and scientific exhibition. France and the Netherlands, where they had encountered the harshest critics, were scrapped from their itinerary. The Belgian public, however, appreciated the museum still. The museum's educational and moralizing message was reinforced and collaborations with respected organizations like the Red Cross were encouraged. The bright and intricate posters were exchanged for a more sober approach. In advertisements, the museum cautioned that it was not a place of entertainment and would only admit 'civilized' visitors.

That strategy paid off: in the years after World War I, the Spitzner museum reinvented itself, while other competitors disappeared. But even for the Spitzner museum, times changed. The presence of a self-styled 'scientific' museum on the fairground increasingly became a contradiction. The nineteenth-century funfair, where knowledge and new inventions had been central, in the twentieth century evolved into an amusement park where rollercoasters pushed physical limits.

Artist Paul Delvaux noticed these tensions when he visited the Spitzner museum at the Brussels fair in 1932. Captivated by the contrast between the buzz and 'fake cheerfulness' of the rides outside and the horrors inside the museum, Delvaux was inspired to capture this dream image – or rather a nightmare – in his artworks.

For a while, the museum managed to balance on that border, but eventually all that was left in the eyes of the public was a house of horrors. In 1960, the museum opened its doors for the last time. The Spitzner museum was dispersed among collectors and museums. Today, the objects invite us to try and understand how these wonderful yet macabre collections once travelled the fairgrounds as objects full of knowledge and beauty.