© Harvard University
Harvard University will remove the binding from a 19th-century book because of its “ethically charged nature.” Read: the binding was made of human skin.
The book Des destinations de l’âme (a.k.a The destinies of the soul) by French author Arsène Houssaye was written in the mid-1880s and has been held in the university’s Houghton Library since the 1930s. However, in 2014 the book attracted international attention when research revealed that the pages were bound with human skin.
The binding was done by the book’s first owner, the French doctor Ludovic Bouland. He had used the skin of a female patient who had died in the hospital where he worked, without the consent of her relatives.
The university said on Wednesday that “after careful study, stakeholder engagement and consideration” it had decided to remove the binding due to its “ethically charged nature”. She will work with authorities to make a “final and respectful settlement” for the human remains. “We believe it is time to lay the remains to rest.”
