Below are illustrations from the 1967 book Le Livre de la Sante by Joseph Handler, volume 4: La Machine Humaine. Le Sang. Coeur et Systeme Cardiovasculaire. In all there are 20 volumes in Handler’s educational book series. Together they form a Big Book Of Health, a series to collect and marvel at. As 50 Watts notes, the books were “used to teach school children in Tehran”. Which makes us wonder what the Iranian kids and the French ex-pats were on? (Roland Topor illustrates Handler’s volume on mental wellbeing on volume 9: L’homme et son Esprit.)
The illustrations are fascinating, beautiful, intriguing and stylish. They help us understand the glorious human machine whilst showing us through art and skill that being human is not all about mechanics. There’s more than a spray of magic in the cogs:
La circulation du sang, illus. M. Simeon
La machine humaine, collage by P. Pottier
Le coeur et les vaisseaux, illus. G. Falk
La commissurotomie, illus. Osterwalder
La vitamine b12 et la maladie de Biermer, illus. M. Garnier
Formation des elements du sang dans la moelle, illus. E. Patergnani
Planche scolaire iranienne
Maladies coronariennes et surmenage, photomontage by R. Cieslewicz
Les varices, illus. Osterwalder
L’embolie pulmonaire, illus. L. Lenica
L’electrocardiogramme, illus. Osterwalder
Les contituants du sang, illus. Broutin
Les faisceaux musculaires du coeur, illus. Broutin, after A. Bertolasi
Influence du tabac sur le coeur et les vaisseaux, illus. B. Suter
La chirurgie des malformations congenitales, illus. Osterwalder a
La chirurgie des malformations congenitales, illus. Osterwalder b
La machine coeur-poumon, illus. P. Wyss, Laboratoires Ciba
Le greffe de moelle, illus. H. Widmann
Les malformations congenitales du coeur, illus. P. Wyss
Formation de l’embryon, illus. P. Wyss
Le coeur, pompe a quartre temps, illus. J. Lehl
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