After the book was stripped of its human skin cover, interested readers can still access its content directly at the Harvard Library or online.
On March 27, after years of criticism and debate, Harvard University announced that it has removed the human skin cover from the book Des Destinées de l’Ame (translated: The Destiny of the Soul), which had been housed in the university library for 90 years.
The book “Des Destinées de l’Ame” had a cover made of human skin. (Photo: Ethics Alarms).
The university stated that its management practices related to the book “did not meet the ethical standards that the institution upholds,” according to The New York Times.
With the removal of this cover, Harvard indicated it would consider options for respectfully handling the remaining body part. The university also acknowledged past failures in managing and caring for the book, and sometimes used inappropriate tones to promote media coverage.
Des Destinées de l’Ame is a book by French author Arsène Houssaye, reflecting on the soul and life after death. In the 1880s, Houssaye gifted the book to his close friend, Dr. Ludovic Bouland, a prominent American physician.
Bouland stated that he covered the book with human skin taken from an unclaimed corpse of a female patient who died from a stroke. He also included a note in the book stating that “a book about the human soul deserves to be covered in human skin.” The book was donated to Harvard Library in 1934. For many years, the authenticity of the claim that the book was covered in human skin was debated.
In 2014, Harvard University attracted worldwide attention when it announced that DNA testing on the book confirmed it was bound in human skin with a 99.9% accuracy rate.
Now that the human skin cover has been removed, interested readers can still access this book both at the library and online.
