THE DEVLIN INCARNATE

onlyrealredheads: What an incredibly beautiful woman.

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 21:52:43 -0400

onlyrealredheads:

What an incredibly beautiful woman.

The Plague

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 14:08:05 -0500

The Plague:

I have always loved Arnold Böcklin’s allegorical depiction of of the nature of plague.

biomedicalephemera: Top: Hand of a day-laborer who had been...

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 00:09:53 -0500

biomedicalephemera:

Top: Hand of a day-laborer who had been drowned 24 hours prior
Bottom: Hand of a drowned person submerged in running water for several weeks

The process of tissues decomposing and sloughing off in animals generally reaches its peak around three to four weeks, in a moderate climate. However, in running water, the washing away of the acids from the liquefied fats and proteins, and the lack of insect activity, can often significantly retard or alter the decomposition.

Because of this, it can often take several extra weeks for tissues submerged in running water to separate from the body, and when they do separate, they don’t so much slough off when their substrate is consumed, but “slip” off, often in large sheets. The dermis of the hand is well-connected to itself, but less well-connected to its substrate, and as such is often subject to a phenomenon called “gloving” - where the skin slips off in, you guessed it, a “glove”.

Atlas of Legal Medicine. Dr. Eduard von Hofmann, 1898.

cabbagingcove: Caricatures of Death Personified From a...

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 00:09:06 -0500

cabbagingcove:

Caricatures of Death Personified

From a pre-Revolutionary magazine, first published in Russia in 1906. Illustrations by Boris Kustodiev.

Personifications of death included depictions of the devastating 1906 drought and ensuing famine, and the ravages of cholera, in the midst of revolutionary uprisings in Moscow.

biomedicalephemera: Suicide by hanging, with an old rope wound...

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 00:06:52 -0500

biomedicalephemera:

Suicide by hanging, with an old rope wound five times about the neck.

The lack of cyanosis (blue skin - generally caused by lack of oxygen) and the marked ecchymoses from the rope lead the forensic pathologist to conclude that this man hanged himself, or was hanged while still alive.

For a prolonged period during the 1800s and early 1900s, strangulation and staging a hanging was a crime not unheard of, and a fairly popular tactic for disguising a murder. If the decedent was dead prior to hanging, the ecchymoses (ruptured blood vessels) would not have formed as they did, and if he was strangled manually, significant cyanosis would appear prior to death. Because there is a lack of cyanosis and a presence of imprints from the rope, one can conclude that he was alive when he was hanged. Though it does not completely rule out murder, this conclusion would likely lead to a finding of “suicide” on the death certificate, barring suspicion of forced hanging.

Atlas of Legal Medicine. Dr. Eduard von Hofmann, 1898.

biomedicalephemera: Thornback ray (Raja clavata) and thornback...

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 00:06:23 -0500

biomedicalephemera:

Thornback ray (Raja clavata) and thornback ray skeleton

Like sharks, rays and skates have fully cartilaginous skeletons, which provide a stable structure but more flexibility than bone. You can see that, much like fish, rays have defined, er, rays, in their fins. The difference is that while fish tend to have a few unconnected rays and a ~~taught~~ taut tissue between them, the Rajiforms (skates and rays) have many, many rays, which are all connected perpendicularly by collagen. The body is then formed around these rays, which propel the Rajiforms forward in an undulating (wave-like) motion.

A history of the fishes of the British Islands. Jonathan Couch, 1863.

necroluste: Selene and Endymion by Victor Florence Pollet.

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 23:59:13 -0500

necroluste:

Selene and Endymion by Victor Florence Pollet.

Stigmata, my ass. You can SEE the fucking fingerprints where...

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 23:57:37 -0500

Stigmata, my ass. You can SEE the fucking fingerprints where someone dabbed “blood” under the statue’s eyes…still, they ARE a determined bunch of hypocrites.

Photo

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 23:55:01 -0500

Photo

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 23:42:39 -0500

mszombi: dresses-and-style: New series and new print AatP...

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 23:42:16 -0500

mszombi:

dresses-and-style:

New series and new print AatP [Alice and the Pirates]: Elisabeth [Sissi]

We’ll start accepting the reservation at 17:00 on December 21th.

Oooh, I like this.

I would marry or be in a relationship with both of them...

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 23:40:49 -0500

I would marry or be in a relationship with both of them (they’re so beautiful)…and as their genes are identical, it wouldn’t matter which fathered children- technically both would be the father + the uncle. (I’m not suggesting that *they* would touch each other sexually…no way. But rather, that they would share me). Then again, it’s hard enough to find just one person in the world anymore. To find two that were game for it? High improbability rate. VERY high.

“Cupid with his wings on fire”. Photograph by Nan...

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 23:34:55 -0500

“Cupid with his wings on fire”. Photograph by Nan Goldin.

mirzantropia: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jim...

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 23:33:18 -0500

mirzantropia:

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jim Tierney

"Let someone love you just the way you are – as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you..."

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 23:31:00 -0500

“Let someone love you just the way you are – as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you sometimes feel, and as unaccomplished as you think you are. To believe that you must hide all the parts of you that are broken, out of fear that someone else is incapable of loving what is less than perfect, is to believe that sunlight is incapable of entering a broken window and illuminating a dark room.

[NOTE: I *never* hide my flaws. I feel it’s best to air one’s dirty laundry up front if you are truly interested in pursuing a relationship with someone. And I wholeheartedly accept the others faults, flaws, and quirks- I never try to change a person. But no matter how fervently they SAY they accept me…deep down, they do not. And eventually, it rises to the surface and they realize it- and they leave me. Hypocrites all.]”

- Marc Hack (via seeking-home)

theossuary: Since exhumations are all the rage right now, I...

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 23:17:43 -0500

theossuary:

Since exhumations are all the rage right now, I thought I’d share my favorite: Elizabeth Siddal, artist and model to the Pre-Raphaelites.

Siddal died of a laudanum overdose at the age of 32 in 1862 in London. Her husband, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, left a journal containing the only copies of many of his poems in her coffin, tucking it away in her famous red hair.

Rossetti, drug- and alcohol-addled by the end of the 1860s, became obsessed with retrieving those poems so that he could publish them. Or, it seems, Rossetti’s agent, the slightly (or totally) shady Charles Augustus Howell, became obsessed with this. In any case, Howell exhumed her coffin in the middle of the night at Highgate Cemetery.

Howell reported back to Rossetti that she was remarkably well preserved and still beautiful. Whether this was actually true or not, the manuscript didn’t make it out so well preserved. A worm had burrowed through the entire book, leaving behind a big old wormhole.

More here and here.

Figs.

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 23:16:52 -0500

Figs.

Photo

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 23:15:18 -0500

Photo

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 23:14:43 -0500

Photo

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 18:31:12 -0400