A diagram of female genitalia in the 16th-century work was censored, presumably by its original owner

St John's College has acquired a sixteenth-century anatomy book which researchers at the University say indicates that taboo hindered the development of scientific knowledge about the female anatomy.

Theedition of Thomas Geminis book Compediosa Totius Anatomie Delineatio,dating to 1559, has been subject to much academic attention, asit features an example of censorship by its owner, suggesting that scientific investigation into the female anatomy was hindered by a cultural aversion to female sexuality.

The book depicts a semi-dissected female torso, with a triangle of paper cut away, presumably by the original owner, from where the female genitals would have been. Curator Shelley Hughes suggested that the owner was disturbed by the offending part of Geminis depiction.

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"Sin and female flesh were held in close association in 16th century society with naked women often portrayed as the servants of Satan, Hughes told the Cambridge News.

"Perhaps Christian Europe would have to overcome its shame over the female reproductive organs in order to discover more about their structure."

Her sentiments echo the general purpose of the exhibition - to map the development of medical knowledge as the religious sentiments which impeded human dissection and asserted female biological inferiority gradually faded.

The book was featured in an exhibition named Under the Knife At St Johns: A Medical History Of Disease And Dissection on Saturday 25th at St Johns College, which traced medical breakthroughs from as early as the 13th century through pieces from the College Librarys Special Collections

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John's book discovery suggests taboo hindered knowledge of female anatomy - Varsity Online