Humanity's Mirror: 150 Years of Anatomy in Melbourne

Hardcover, high quality paper and production, 318pp, 53 figures.
A$35, plus (in Australia) postage and handling (A$8). Please enquire for international postage rates.

Ordering Details

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Book Orders
Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology
The University of Melbourne
3010, Australia

Fax order form to: 61 (0)3 9347 5219

Order by phone: Ms Patricia Hartshorn 61 (0)3 8344 5804

Pick up directly from the Department:

General Office
Level 7, Anatomy Department
Medical Building
Cnr Grattan St and Royal Pde
The University of Melbourne

Or order through Melbourne University Bookshop.

About the Book

Humanity’s Mirror explores the study of anatomy in Melbourne in the last one hundred and fifty years. It is a unique exposition of the creation and growth of a university anatomy department in a thriving medical school. For much of this period anatomy was the queen of the medical sciences and occupied the most important place in medical education in Melbourne. Humanity’s Mirror follows the development of medical education from the days before ‘bacteria’ and modern surgery, when quacks often had as much credibility as university trained practitioners, until the establishment of today’s world renowned high tech biomedical precinct in Melbourne’s Parkville. Far from portraying anatomy as a dry and unapproachable subject, this book serves up a rich feast of adventure, scandal and humour. Famous Melbourne criminals walk in and out of its pages. Humanity’s Mirror is about the social and intellectual life of medical Melbourne, which was replete with heroes and villains, valour and pettiness, drama and intrigue. It uncovers a wide variety of forgotten archival material and is therefore a rich and unparalleled source for medical and social historians and their students. For anyone curious about the intriguing story of medical Melbourne, it provides compelling reading.

About the Author

After gaining an honours degree in history from the University of Melbourne, Ross Jones taught history in secondary schools in Melbourne, Oxford and Canberra. In 2000, he completed a PhD at Monash University on the eugenics movement in Australia. Since then he has been teaching medical history at the University of Melbourne and writing medical and educational history, as well as this book. He is a Fellow of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science and the Johnstone-Need Medical History Unit at the University of Melbourne.