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SUMMARY:Toys in Monkeyland: the utility of anatomical models and medical e
 xpertise in late eighteenth-century Vienna - Anna Maerker (Oxford Brookes 
 University)
DTSTART:20100211T163000Z
DTEND:20100211T180000Z
UID:TALK22042@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Alex Broadbent
DESCRIPTION:In the mid-1780s the Austrian emperor Joseph II received anato
 mical wax models from the renowned Florentine workshop at the Museo La Spe
 cola for use at his newly founded surgico-medical academy Josephinum. Like
  its Tuscan counterpart\, the expensive Viennese model collection raised c
 onsiderable public interest after its arrival\, but they also became the s
 ubject of controversy. In a public skirmish with the Josephinum's surgeons
  over the public utility of their expertise\, local physicians denounced t
 he models as vulgar. They chimed in with a printed satire\, _Monkeyland_\,
  which eloquently ridiculed the anatomical waxes as 'pretty toys' and its 
 users at the new surgeons' academy as uncivilized 'butcher's apprentices'.
  The paper argues that surgeons eager to stress their usefulness for the s
 tate renounced the models' utility (despite their acknowledged accuracy) i
 n order to side with doctors' claims to sophistication.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, History and Philosophy of Science\, Department o
 f
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