Essay on Anatomy: Estimating how and why Dr Okuda made a complete wooden human skeleton in the Edo era, Japan

Probably in 1820 (late Edo era), a human skeleton for medical education was precisely carved from cypress wood, based on a criminal's skeleton, by a craftsman under the supervision of the medical doctor Banri Okuda in Osaka City. By and large, the wooden skeleton shows morphological characteristics usually seen in early middle-aged females of the Edo era. However, the claviculae, distal ends of the femora and the patellae are exceptionally larger than those of a female, implying that the bones of the original model skeleton had already been lost or were deformed before the wooden skeleton was made. Furthermore, the skeleton may not have been used for medical education, but rather for the promotion of European medicine, which was gradually developing in the Edo era. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]