Recently I've been fascinated by the social and religious taboos early day scientists had to overcome to study human anatomy. Some called it witchcraft and playing God. Others such as Yasukazu Minagaki (1784-1825) couldn't resist dissecting the cadavers of criminals in hopes to aid the living. And while drawings of cadavers in western medicine always depict corpses as painless living entities, Yasukazu's work is gruesome, informative, honest, and elegantly raw. His work is currently stored in the Keio University Library. The collection is also online.
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