This ivory manikin from Germany, crafted sometime between 1500 and 1700, depicts organs in a way that physicians of the time would be sure to understand—the lungs as bellows, the heart as an anvil, and the stomach as a wine press were all common anatomical analogies. This is evidenced in a quote from Fabrici D’Acquapendente (1533-1619), pioneering Italian anatomist and surgeon: “The mechanism which nature has devised is strangely like that which artificial means has produced in the machinery of mills.”

The anatomical doll, along with eight others, is part of the collections of the Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences, a member of UAB Historical Collections in UAB Libraries.