Donors Fund Acquisition of Momentous Book
From left: Norva Lee and John Wm. Jr. Devereux with Joel Klein, Molina Curator for the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, at The Huntington. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
De humani corporis fabrica (On the fabric of the human body), by the Flemish physician and anatomist Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564), revolutionized the field of anatomy by providing detailed, accurate descriptions of the body based on the direct observation and dissection of humans.
The couple’s gift was to honor Lee’s 25 years of leadership at The Huntington, where she was a volunteer docent from 1972 to 1977. She became the volunteer services director in 1977 and held this position until her retirement in 1998. Lee developed and implemented the institution’s education programs with a very dedicated staff, serving approximately 25,000 students annually. She also managed the volunteer corps, which increased from about 300 volunteers to over 700—more than half of whom were docents.
In addition to honoring Lee’s tenure at The Huntington, the Devereuxs wanted to acknowledge and pay tribute to John’s loving parents, John Wm. Devereux, M.D., and Dorothy L. Devereux, R.N.
Vesalius’ Fabrica was described as “the greatest medical book ever written” by Sir William Osler (1849–1919), one of the founders of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The volume’s large, folio-sized woodcut illustrations convey the beauty and complexity of the human body with unprecedented clarity.
Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica, 1543, page 174. Arguably the most famous images from the Fabrica are the so-called “muscle men,” showing full-body depictions of human musculature. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
The Fabrica recently acquired by The Huntington once belonged to the Los Angeles County Medical Association Library and was the first rare book purchased for its collection. For decades, this book was the pinnacle of the association’s library collection, embodying its commitment to medical history and education. In the early 1990s, they generously presented their extraordinary pre-1800 special collections to The Huntington. However, several of the books that duplicated Huntington items were auctioned, including their copy of the Fabrica. This wasn’t an uncommon practice at the time and was done to avoid redundancy and manage collections efficiently.
In 2024, Joel Klein, Molina Curator for the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, was elated to receive an email from a bookseller who had acquired a 1543 Fabrica containing a stamp from the Los Angeles County Medical Association. Thanks to the Devereuxs and the other generous donors, this first-edition Fabrica has been reunited with the other books in the Los Angeles County Medical Association’s collections at The Huntington.
Reacquiring the Fabrica has restored a significant piece of medical history to The Huntington and also honors the legacy of the Los Angeles County Medical Association Library.
Huntington curator Joel Klein shows the Fabrica to invited guests in the Library. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
Read more about bringing Vesalius’ Fabrica home to The Huntington
The acquisition of the Los Angeles County Medical Association’s Fabrica was made possible through the generosity of The Francis Bacon Foundation, The Dorothy L. Johnston Foundation, Michael Mackness and Eric Sigg, The Southern California Society for the History of Medicine, Drs. Martha and Faustino Bernadett, John Wm. Jr. and Norva Lee Devereux, Dr. and Mrs. J. Mario Molina, the Los Angeles County Medical Association, Dr. Yushu Chou, Dr. George Fouras, Dr. Po-Yin Samuel Huang, Dr. Nuriel Moghavem, Dr. Linda Mirdamadi, Dr. C. Freeman, Dr. Heather Silverman, Dr. Nancy Ellerbroek, Dr. Michael Ong, and Dr. Marc Mendes.
For more information about supporting acquisitions at The Huntington, please contact Amanda Greenberger, associate director of major gifts, at 626-405-2263 or agreenberger@huntington.org.