Satanists? Cannibals? One day it was normal to bind books with human skin

Leather-bound books are becoming increasingly rare today, but there was a time when this was standard, and even human leather was used for this purpose. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, the practice was widespread throughout Europe and even received a pompous name to identify it: Anthropodermic Bibliopegia.

A few dozen of these macabre pieces today are still part of museums, galleries, and private collections, and another pattern can be observed in them: Normally, the content of the book is precisely related to the person who provided the raw material.

Some of the most famous cases of anthropodermic bibliopegia belong to the medical and police fields. An example of the first case is that of Dr. John Stockton Hugh, who collected the skin of Mary Lynch's thigh, one of his patients who died of a powerful parasite, to bind his book on women's health and reproductive tract function. No one knows for sure the real reasons for this bizarre binding, but some believe it to be a kind of "tribute" or "immortalization" of the deceased.

In the criminal area, the examples are even more numerous, and some of them quite bizarre. One of the best-known cases was that of William Burke, sentenced to the gallows for murdering 16 people and then selling their bodies for medical research. His body was publicly dissected, and his skin served as a cover for paperbacks for doctors.

Another case is that of John Horwood, an 18-year-old Englishman sentenced to death for the murder of young Eliza Balsum. A book about the history of crime was written and bound to whose skin? Of himself: Horwood. But the most unusual is a book of French eroticism, which was produced from the skin of a woman's breasts. As if that were not enough, the authors insisted on one more detail - one of the nipples was placed on the cover!

Well, after that, thank for the emergence of new ethical concepts and valuing the human being as an individual that put an end to this practice that today would be considered, at least, Satanist.