Anatomist Honoré Fragonard flayed the skin off his subjects, soaked them in alcohol, and preserved them with a secret-recipe varnish.

But his best ingredient was a bizarre sense of humour. In the Musée Fragonard, you meet a trio of dancing foetuses, ‘Sansom’ - a toothless man waving a jawbone, and a horseback rider with veins of brightly coloured wax.

Until the 1990s it was only open to those with a ‘specialist interest’.

Fragonard was deemed insane and lost his job. But perhaps he was only trying to bring a human face to medicine – a leering, monstrous, pop-eyed one at that.

cole Nationale Vétérinaire de Maisons-Alfort
7 avenue du Général de Gaulle
94704 MAISONS-ALFORT Cedex
tel: 01 43 96 71 72
fax: 01 43 96 31 62
www.vet-alfort.fr

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