Eugène-Louis Doyen and his Atlas d’Anatomie Topographique (1911): Sensationalism and gruesome theater

Abstract

ABSTRACT French surgeon and anatomist Eugène-Louis Doyen (1859–1916) was a focus of controversy and scandal throughout his career, an innovative surgeon of great technical skill whose unsurpassed abilities were offset by narcissistic and frequently unethical behavior. Doyen produced the most controversial atlas of human anatomy of the early-twentieth century, his Atlas d’Anatomie Topographique. He used a chemical process to fix whole cadavers, then used a motorized band saw with a sliding table to precisely cut sequential slices in all three anatomic planes. His intentionally arresting images of the nervous system in situ (using heliotypes in his atlas and projected images of prepared specimens in his lectures) made for gruesome theater, directed more at the public than the medical profession, which Doyen disdained and delighted in antagonizing. Although photography and photomechanical reproduction facilitated the rapid production of Doyen’s atlas, many of the fine details were lost. In addition, although he developed tissue fixation techniques that preserved the natural colors of tissues, this was not evident in the monochrome images of the printed atlas. Doyen’s atlas is compared with other anatomic atlases of the late-nineteenth century that included serial sections of the central nervous system, either from sections of entire cadavers, the isolated head, or the excised brain. In retrospect, Doyen’s fevered activity, including his efforts to depict the topographic anatomy of the nervous system, produced only modest benefits, and often produced significant costs for his patients, his colleagues, the medical profession, and his own reputation.