The Marburg Museum Anatomicum and its unusual gynecological specimens: A brief history and ethical contextualisation

The Marburg Museum Anatomicum displays a number of unique specimens related to obstetric problems. An ethically intensely disputed example is the bisected body of a pregnant woman and her fetus. Current information stemming from previous publications relates it to a fictional young woman who, who, having got pregnant by a student, committed suicide. This narrative was derived from a novel by the author Walter Bloem (1868-1951), orally transmitted without further proof of reliability. The present study attempts to uncover the true background beyond this narrative and to clarify the acquisition of the body by the anatomical collection and its personal background.

Archival material as well as contemporary publications of professors of obstetrics and of anatomy along with data derived from civil and ecclesiastic registry offices were evaluated and compared with observations on the specimen.

Comparison of data derived from the fictional description and observations on the specimen showed significant differences, excluding the narrative as a reliable source. Closer examination of the scientific output of former chairs of obstetrics showed that Professor Wilhelm Zangemeister (1871-1930), head of the clinics of gynecology and obstetrics between 1910 and 1925, published several studies on the clinical significance of narrow pelvis during delivery. In his textbook of obstetrics, published in 1927, he showed an illustration of a frozen section of a pregnant woman with kyphosis who had died from myocarditis. The drawing clearly represents the specimen, having been mounted in a large glass vessel in 1922 and included in the collection of the Anatomical Institute.

The current narrative on the bisected body of a pregnant woman and her fetus preserved in the Marburg Museum Anatomicum has nothing to do with the specimen in the collection. In fact, the latter was prepared in 1922 by order of the former professor of obstetrics, Wilhelm Zangemeister, who later published the case in his textbook of obstetrics. The ethical consequences of the changing ontological status and origin of the specimen and its public display are discussed.