Yorick Labelled. Leitz Summicron 50mm DR.

The Honda's having new CV joints installed today. At 150k miles, the old ones owe me nothing. Anyhow, this leaves me on the bus and strolling through the Harvard campus past their little science museum. There is a special medical exhibit from the Countway Medical Library collection on at the moment. The sign on the door was very specific about no photography in the exhibit but it didn't say anything about photographing this magnificent skull through the window… This is one of a series of oversized, anatomically exact models commissioned from a local sculptor at the end of the 19th century by a Harvard Medical School professor. Apparently this was a time when Harvard class sizes were beginning to swell and the professor wanted to make sure that the back-benchers could see all the details. The model is carved from soft wood, and on the inside (where I couldn't photograph) all the bones are painted in different colors. I was particularly impressed with the accuracy of the atlas and axis, the top-most bones of the cervical spine. As radiographers, we are obliged to image the little odontoid bone at the back of the patient's throat in cases of a whiplash injury; it's one of the hardest bones to visualize well. It all relies on our understanding of where the teeth lie in relation to the occipital and mastoid bones at the back of the skull.