Harvard has removed a human skin binding from a book written in 1879.
The university has had the book in the Houghton Library since 1934, but it was only discovered to be bound in human skin ten years ago.
The book, “Des Destinées de l’Ame,” by Arsène Houssaye focuses on the soul and life after death.
According to the Harvard Library website, "The volume’s first owner, French physician and bibliophile Dr. Ludovic Bouland (1839–1933), bound the book with the skin he took without consent from the body of a deceased female patient in a hospital where he worked as a medical student in the 1860s."
Houssaye had personally gifted the book's text to Bouland.
Bouland later placed a note inside the book that said, “A book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering.” The note also described the process he used to treat the skin before binding.
"This book is bound in human skin parchment on which no ornament has been stamped to preserve its elegance," the note said. "By looking carefully you easily distinguish the pores of the skin. A book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering: I had kept this piece of human skin taken from the back of a woman."
It is believed the skin came from a patient at a French psychiatric hospital whose body was unclaimed.In 2023, Houghton Library conducted a review of the book’s stewardship, prompted by the recommendations of the Report of the Harvard University Steering Committee on Human Remains in University Museum Collections issued in fall 2022. After careful study, stakeholder engagement, and consideration, Harvard Library and the Harvard Museum Collections Returns Committee concluded that the human remains used in the book’s binding no longer belong in the Harvard Library collections, due to the ethically fraught nature of the book’s origins and subsequent history. Harvard Library announced that it had removed the human skin from the book’s binding and placed it into respectful temporary storage.
The Library is now researching the anonymous female patient, Bouland, and the book, and working with authorities in both the United States and France to try to determine a "respectful disposition of these human remains."
The book and the removed binding are now off-limits to students, but an uploaded version is available online.
"The human skin formerly on Houghton Library's copy of Des destinées de l’âme is permanently unavailable to library users. The disbound text block of the book is currently unavailable to consult in person but can be studied online through HOLLIS, Harvard Library’s main search tool," the website explains.
