All images from Le Livre de Sante by Joseph Handler (Monte Carlo: Andre Sauret, 1967):
volume 1: La Place de L’Homme dans L’Univers. Les Materiaux de la Vie.
Le cycle du carbone, illus. by Michel Simeon
Le cycle des graisses, illus. by Michel Simeon
La fabrication des proteines, illus. by Michel Simeon
Le Cellule, illus. by Peter Wyss
Voyage Fantastique, illus. by Peter Wyss after the movie
Echelle de taille des etres vivants, illus. by Sophie Granddval
Le role des acides nucleiques, illus. by J. M. Folon
Also see: Folon’s Kafka
Le role des mitochondries, illus. by J. M. Folon
Le systeme de Copernic, illus. by Colette Portal
Saturne, Mars, Jupiter, illus. by Peter Wyss
From the autobiography of albert einstein by Gerhard Roth (1972):
drops of protein, spermatocysts, watch-hands, thermostats, tiny valve pipes, air, odometers, gel, ccm, atmospheres, ions, magnets, electrolytes, bicycle spokes, honey-combs, fish fins, urine, test tubes, positive poles, negative poles, parchment, amniotic sacs, egg shells, leaf patterns, protozoa, gills, tooth enamel, ether, celluloid, isotopes, cepeid variables, gamma rays, idioplasm, perpetua mobilia, quintessence, radioactivity, signs of the zodiac, gonococci, arsenic, water wheels, alizaris, hieroglyphics, deuterons, nerve tracts, mother of pearl, jellyfish, 5 degress, pollen, meridians, hygrometers, alveoli, quinine, spectrum lines, glass fibre, parallaxes, ears, nematoblasts, flickering, bronze, footnotes, ellipses, leiden jars, phlogiston, gun powder, gravity, primodial sea, selenium, systoles, eye-balls, heliozoans, chrysoprase, fossils, units of length, cyclotrones, spawn, glaze, nothing, paleolithic era, polyps, chalcedony, CaCo3, division signs, spirit of wine, ammonium, graphite, larynxes, gall stones, WORDSi swim, swim in a flickering. the relays clatter in my head…dreamy phase! i race through the convolutions of my brain, i look through the vitreous spheres of my eyes…exquisite speech bubbles burst in my brain, bespatter my perception, drip from furniture. in a rabble of words from condensed perceptual mist! the echo of the anthropomorphic shit resounds from every atom, to form calcified vessels. my watch ticks…tic-toc, like a small bird in a steel case, my head is a glass bubble through which one can glimpse a frantic ticking cog wheel mechanism — and here, here in my pocket i have a little key with which i can set this mechanism in motion whenever i want.
Stay tuned for images from volumes 2 through 20 of this French health encyclopedia. I recently found the complete set. This volume is relatively light on hand-drawn illustrations, but I decided to feature the series in order.
I’ll add more information about Le Livre de Sante as I work my way through it, but here are my first impressions: It was likely marketed to a general audience, as it feels like a Time-Life series you’d find in Michel Houellebecq‘s childhood home. (Roland Topor himself illustrates a variety of phobias.) It has enough graphic close-ups of disease and dead people — think Faces of Death — that I hope it wasn’t marketed to high schools. I also wonder if the whole project was just a whim of Andre Sauret, who was primarily known as a publisher of art books (see Milton Glaser and World Literature).
Previously exhumed: Biology Today.
