Abstract

Of the things that may be doubted was a man named Descartes who abandoned the study of letters to live among the abattoirs on Kalverstraat. He packed home carcasses of cows, like girls slung over his shoulder. He stretched them out and peeled back their layers. He obtained human corpses and did the same. He pierced more than a dozen wombs in which there were small calves, some as big as mice, others like rats, and yet others like small dogs. He flayed a calf alive. He dissected the heads of animals to explore memory and imagination. On the noisy and noisome street his autopsies and vivisections were respected as the art of butchery.

pdf

Share