An Amsterdam anatomist kept bodies looking asleep by injecting them with wax, and Peter the Great bought his collection

historyThe Public Domain Reviewlate 1600s · Amsterdam, Netherlands

An Amsterdam anatomist kept bodies looking asleep by injecting them with wax, and Peter the Great bought his collection

the gist

Frederik Ruysch, a Dutch anatomist working in Amsterdam in the late 1600s, developed a way to inject liquid wax into the finest blood vessels of a body. Once the wax set, it held a detailed shape, and he tinted it red so organs looked lifelike. After thirty years of experiments he found a preserving liquid that kept tissue supple and coloured. He displayed these preparations in cabinets arranged as artworks, with skeletons, memento mori captions and flowers. Visitors often thought he was using tricks, but he argued that the lifelike appearance proved his methods were accurate. In 1697 Tsar Peter the Great visited, and afterwards bought the whole collection. His work made anatomy a more acceptable public pursuit.

so what

Ruysch's work showed that anatomy could reveal hidden structures of the body, and his combination of science and artistry blurred the line between medicine and display. The fame of his preparations helped make dissection a respected public subject.

fun fact

Peter the Great bought Ruysch's entire anatomical collection after visiting Amsterdam in 1697.

D. W. Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909)

the gist

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.

how it works

To corner a market, a trader buys up most of the available supply and the futures contracts that promise more. Anyone who has to deliver the commodity must then buy from the cornerer at whatever price is demanded. The trader profits until the stock is released or the scheme collapses.

so what

A century on, it still shows how markets can be rigged by someone who controls supply, and how the people at either end, farmers and eaters, pay for it. It also helped establish editing as a way to argue a point, not just tell a story.

the bigger pattern

Corners have recurred whenever supply could be locked up, from the Hunt brothers' attempt on silver in 1979 to 1980 to the 'Black Friday' gold panic of 1869. Many such schemes end by collapsing, and the response is often new rules on speculation.

fun fact

In the film the Wheat King dies by falling into a grain elevator and being buried in the wheat he hoarded, an ending borrowed from Norris's novel The Octopus.

Usman Khawaja refuses to answer Sandpapergate question about Pat Cummins | 7.30

from ABC News In-depth

One of the darkest days in Australia's sporting history has been dragged back into the spotlight.

A new autobiography by former Test cricketer Usman Khawaja has made explosive revelations about the Australian Test team's 2018 ball-tampering saga in South Africa.

7.30 host Sarah Ferguson speaks to Usman Khawaja.

7.30 is the ABC's flagship current affairs program, delivering original journalism, exclusive investigations, in-depth analysis and interviews on the major issues affecting Australia and the world.

With on-the-ground reporting from ABC journalists across every state and territory and around the world, 7.30 has the latest on politics, policy, the economy, cost of living, housing, health, climate and energy, national security and global affairs.

Note: In most cases, our captions are auto-generated.

on YouTube: ABC News In-depth ↗