This is not a foodie-blog type post, by the way. I’d call it a socio-political post (even though that sounds a bit pompous.) Anyway… I have a cute cookbook from 1915 called “Dyrtids Kogebog” that came from a flea market excursion. Dyrtid is a Danish word that refers to a time of scarcity. I guess an appropriate translation would be “A cookbook for times of scarcity”. Basically, the cookbook focuses on a mainly vegetarian-type diet, especially meals based on grains. The author, Mikkel Hindhede, had the idea that much of the starvation that took place in the early 1900s was due to a misguided focus on raising animals for meat, rather than raising nutritious grains at a far, far lower cost than the animals. This was an interesting angle that I had never encountered previously. Curious to learn more, I came across an article from the European Vegetarian Union’s newsletter…
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The History of Medicine Division of the US National Library of Medicine is sharing selections from its collection of illustrated anatomical atlases dating from the 15th to the 20th century in a digital project called Historical Anatomies on the Web. Selections means that you mainly see high-quality images, not text, and not complete works. The site says, Atlases and images are selected primarily for their historical and artistic significance, with priority placed upon the earliest and/or the best edition of a work in NLM’s possession. If you ever wanted to see illustrations from Jacopo Berengario da Carpi‘s own Isagogae breues, perlucidae ac uberrimae in anatomiam humani corporis, published in Bologna by Beneditcus Hector in 1523, here’s your chance. (Love that very exotic sounding title.) The illustrations are rather interesting constructions of how to show what a person’s insides look like: figures are standing up in a nonchalant manner and holding…
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