13 May 2009

Japanese pregnant dolls


I've just come across these 19th century pregnant dolls used to train Japanese midwives how to deliver babies. Aside from being a useful teaching tool, the dollls were also used for public entertainment in sideshows that aimed to educate people about the human body. The pregnant doll's abdomen opens to show foetuses at different stages of development.

1 comment:

Cherryskin said...

Awesome! Stretchmarks and all.

 
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The Baby Bump Project by Meredith Nash is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.