Religatum de Pelle Humana - Jeremy Norman's HistoryofScience.com

144 Bibliologia Comica
but neither he nor anyone else can give a primary source for
the information. Likewise, extensive investigation by the reference
department of Cincinnati' s efficient Public Library failed
to shed more light on the matter. William G ... is still a
bibliographical ghost, if not also the defunct negress and the
Chinese girl.
The most frequently misquoted story of a human skin binding
in modern times is also the best known and is missing
from no respectable study of anthropodermic bibliopegy. It
deals with the famous volume owned by Camille Flammarion,
French popularizer of astronomical research. As late as 1925
the book was still in the library of the observatory at Juvisy,
and it may still be there if sorne Nazi who never heard of
Buchenwald did not liberate it. But between the American
Weekly and romantically inclined Gallic bibliophiles, the story
has been mutilated so that sorne versions are almost unrecognizable.
However, a careful study of the different texts will
yield a reasonably accurate narrative.
One tale, and this seems to be the one that has fastened
itself on the Gallic mind, has it that a twenty-eight year old
countess of foreign (i.e., not French) birth prevailed upon
her husband to invite Flammarion to her chateau in the
Jura. S3 The young woman was dying of tuberculosis, and she
told Flammarion that after her death she was going to have
him sent a present which he would be compelled to accept.
An anonymous writer in the Chronique médicale argues that
Flammarion later admitted that on the night of the farewell
he had expressed intense admiration for the dazzling white
shoulders of the countess. It was not beyond a popularizer
like Flammarion to encourage at Ieast a minimum of publicity,
and certainly an admission on his part of such a titillating
detail improves the story. Nevertheless, the Chronique
médical is not altogether trustworthy, for it states that the
physician who cut away the skin was a Dr. V ... , whereas
other versions attribute the operation to a Dr. Ravaud. On
her deathbed the countess is alleged to have told Ravaud that
she had secretly loved Flammarion for a long time even