En 1873 el director de la Escuela Nacional de Medicina, en la Ciudad de México, Leopoldo Río de la Loza, hizo un encargo de modelos anatómicos de cera al prestigioso taller francés de T. Vasseur, uno de los más importantes a finales del siglo XIX -responsable de iniciar la colección del Hospital de Saint Louis-, y que ofrecía este tipo de piezas internacionalmente a través de catálogos. La adquisición de estas ceras anatómicas respondía al interés de aquella época de mejorar las colecciones de los museos de anatomía, asunto de interés para instituciones públicas y coleccionistas privados como médicos y estudiantes de medicina. Pero ¿Por qué se volvió necesario este tipo de coleccionismo? ¿Cómo se construyeron estas colecciones de anatomía? y ¿A qué tipo de factores científicos, políticos y sociales responden cada una de ellas?
Cera anatómica del taller de T. Vasseur. Muestra el rostro de un niño con prurigo en el rostro, actualmente exhibida en el Museo de Medicina Mexicana de la UNAM, Ciudad de México.
A lo largo del siglo XIX, tras la inestabilidad producida por la guerra de independencia de México (1810-1821), comienza un proceso de institucionalización y reorganización de la medicina. Paulatinamente, los médicos adquirieron mayor relevancia política y social, en especial durante el gobierno de Porfirio Díaz, -conocido como Porfiriato (1876-1911)-, cuando consolidan su autoridad al amparo de su conocimiento científico.
Cera fabricada en el taller de Vasseur que muestra parte de los músculos y órganos internos de la parte superior del cuerpo humano. Museo de Medicina Mexica de la UNAM, Ciudad de México.
En ese momento el conocimiento médico se sustentaba en el método clínico: es decir, para aproximarse a las enfermedades, se usaban todos los sentidos para buscar en los cuerpos los signos de enfermedad, las alteraciones que provocaban en determinados tejidos y posibles soluciones. Para dar continuidad a la observación clínica y con propósitos de enseñanza, se empezaron a coleccionar piezas anatómicas de casos que los médicos consideraran de interés. En general, las colecciones institucionales incrementaban su acervo a través de intercambios y compras en el contexto de redes nacionales e internacionales y gracias a gestiones propias y a donaciones de coleccionistas particulares. Por ejemplo, en 1872 el médico Manuel S. Soriano donaría 67 piezas anatómicas al Museo Anatómico de la Escuela Nacional de Medicina, lo que le valdría el reconocimiento público de esta institución. Los objetos que conformaban las colecciones eran elaborados con diversos materiales y técnicas: preparaciones de órganos y tejidos naturales, momias, fotografías, dibujos y figuras realistas de cera, yeso y papel maché, si bien había una marcada preferencia por los especímenes naturales. De hecho, en México, en su mayoría, las colecciones anatómicas eran compuestas de material orgánico y, en este sentido, la colección de ceras adquirida en París era una excepción, posiblemente por tratarse de un objeto de prestigio que, en ese momento, se anexaba a los museos más importantes de anatomía del mundo.
Finalmente, hay que destacar el hecho de que la mayoría de las anatomías naturales eran obtenidas de los cadáveres de los hospitales de beneficencia pública, en los que se atendían a los sectores marginados de la población. Es posible identificar que los médicos hacían distinciones entre cuerpos, produciendo la objetivación de algunos de ellos, principalmente de los estratos bajos de la sociedad, quienes eran utilizados en la elaboración de piezas anatómicas y, de esta manera, los médicos daban continuidad a las distinciones sociales aún después de la muerte.
In 1873, Leopoldo Río de la Loza, the director of the Escuela Nacional de Medicina, in Mexico City, bought anatomical wax models from the prestigious French workshop of T. Vasseur, one of the most important at the end of the 19th century -responsible for starting the collection of the Hospital de Saint Louis-, which sold this type of pieces internationally through catalogs. The acquisition of this collection of anatomical waxes responded to an increasing interest in improving the collections of anatomy museums, a matter of interest to public institutions and private collectors alike. But why did this type of collecting become necessary? How were these anatomy collections built? And what kind of scientific, political, and social factors shaped the collection of anatomical objects?
Anatomical wax from the workshop of T. Vasseur. It shows the face of a child with prurigo on his face, currently exhibited at the UNAM Museum of Mexican Medicine, Mexico City.
Throughout the 19th century, after the instability produced by the Mexican War of Independence (1810-1821), a process of institutionalization and reorganization of medicine began. Gradually, doctors acquired greater political and social relevance, especially during the government of Porfirio Díaz, -known as Porfiriato (1876-1911)-, when they consolidated their authority based on their scientific knowledge.
Wax model made in the Vasseur workshop showing part of the muscles and internal organs of the upper part of the human body. Museum of Mexican Medicine of the UNAM, Mexico City.
At that time, medical knowledge was based on the clinical method: that is, to approach diseases, all the senses were used to search bodies for signs of disease, the alterations they caused in certain tissues, and possible solutions. To give continuity to clinical observation, and for teaching purposes, doctors collected anatomical pieces they considered of interest. In general, the institutional collections increased their holdings through exchanges and purchases in the context of national and international networks and thanks to the efforts of and donations from private collectors. For example, in 1872 doctor Manuel S. Soriano donated 67 anatomical specimens to the Museo Anatómico of the Escuela Nacional de Medicina, which would earn him public recognition. The objects that made up collections were produced with various materials and techniques: preparations of natural organs and tissues, mummies, photographs, drawings, and realistic figures made of wax, plaster, and papier-mâché, although there was a marked preference for natural specimens. In fact, in Mexico, most of the anatomical collections were made up of organic material and, in this sense, the collection of waxes acquired in Paris was an exception, possibly because it was a prestigious object that, at that time, was annexed to the most important anatomy museums in the world.
Finally, it is important to highlight the fact that most of the natural anatomies were obtained from the corpses of public charity hospitals, which tended to the more marginalized sectors of the population. It is possible to identify that the doctors made distinctions between bodies, producing the objectification of some of them, mainly those from the lower strata of society, who were used in the elaboration of anatomical pieces. In this way, doctors gave continuity to social distinctions even after death.
Among the many skulls and casts preserved in the anthropological collection of the Museum of La Plata, the cast skull numbered 1745 in the catalogue complied by then-director Robert Lehmann-Nitsche (1872-1938) in 1911, is of particular interest to learn more about the circulation of scientific knowledge and collections between Europe and America in the 19th century.
The story of the cast 1745 begins in France in December 1864, when a group of quarry workers began excavating on a hill in the Quiberon peninsula to extract stones. The hill of Manné-Beker-Noz, located near the village of Saint-Pierre (Morbihan, France), had been known to the local people since time immemorial for the dolmen that surmounted its crest. During the excavation of the site, the quarrymen found by chance a prehistoric tomb containing the skeletal remains of an adult male and a terracotta urn of large size (fig. 1). After being informed of the discovery, Alexandre Gressy, a member of the learned society of Morbihan, went to the site to study and collect the bones and the artifact. In this he was helped by the colleague René Galles, who drew sketches of the archeological finds.
Sketch of the tomb of Quiberon, «Bulletin de la Societé polymathique du Morbihan » (1865), p. 52.
The discovery was reported a few months later on the journal of the Societé polymathique du Morbihan by its president, the physician Gustave de Closmadeuc (1828-1918). In addition to being the chief surgeon of the Vannes hospital, Closmadeuc was also an avid archeologist. In his article he explained that the importance of the discovery consisted first of all in the good state of conservation of the Man of Quiberon, which would allow for a detailed anthropological examination. For this purpose, Closmadeuc had taken upon himself the task of putting together the different cranial fragments found in the tomb and sent the reconstructed skull to the Laboratory of Anthropology directed by Paul Broca in Paris for analysis:
«By dint of patience I managed to match and glue together most of the cranial fragments. I was thus able to reconstitute the head, which is currently in the hands of Mr. Broca and Mr. Follin […] who offered me their help. […] We will then leave it to our eminent colleagues to inform us about the anthropological value of the skull that we have entrusted to their examination» (Closmadeuc 1865, pp. 42-3).
Paul Broca (1824-1880), the most famous anthropologist of nineteenth century France, published the results of his analysis on both the «Bulletin of the Societé polymathique»and the Bulletin of the Society of Anthropology of Paris. Like Closmadeuc, Broca stressed the extraordinary significance of the archeological discovery in Quiberon. «My dear confrere», he wrote in a letter to Closmadeuc in June 1865, «The skull of Quiberon that you sent us is one of the most important remains of the Stone Age» (Broca 1865, p. 47). Most ethnologists and linguists of the time believed that, during the Stone Age, Europe had been populated by a backward and racially homogenous human group marked by the brachycephalic head shape. This group, scholars maintained, was later replaced by the more civilized Indo-Aryan people, whose skulls were dolicocephalic. The Quiberon skull, however, seemed to tell a very different story: «This skull is the most dolicocephalic of all the Stone Age skulls that have been found so far in France» Broca pointed out with surprise (fig. 2).
Figure 2. Cast skull of the Man of Quiberon preserved in the Museum of La Plata. The dolicocephalic shape of the head is clearly visible. Picture by Nathalie Richard.
Since archeological evidence suggested that the Man of Quiberon had enjoyed high social status, Broca decided to compare the measurements of his skull with those of 90 upper-class nineteenth century Parisians. He concluded that the Quiberon skull «bears, in relation to the average type of the modern French, many characteristics of inferiority similar to those which are present today in certain savage, or at least highly barbaric, races». For Broca, the shape of the Quiberon skull resembled that of «negroes and Neo-caledonians». In his works, he distinguished two types of dolicocephaly: the frontal dolicocephaly, found among the «Germanic races», and the occipital dolicocephaly, typical of «African and Oceanic races». The first was characterized by a highly developed frontal region and was therefore considered an indicator of high intelligence. The second, on the other hand, was marked by a highly developed occipital region at the back of the skull, which was believed to be the seat of instinct and therefore considered an indicator of a more primitive and animal mind.
By underlining its features of inferiority and characterizing its occipital dolicocephaly as primitive and African (and thus very different from the frontal dolicocephaly found among civilized people like Indo-Aryans), the French anthropologist tried to solve the contradiction that the Quiberon skull had exposed: the presence of early dolicocephalic skulls in Stone Age France. Rather than questioning the existing theories on the racial composition of prehistoric Europe, Broca resorted to the explanation that the Man of Quiberon belonged to a human group less racially evolved than Indo-Aryans.
The skull of Quiberon remained in Paris, where it became part of the collection of the Society of Anthropology. In 1874, however, a copy of it was sent to Buenos Aires. In fact, in that year Broca exchanged a number of specimens with the Argentinian amateur collector Francisco Pascasio Moreno (1852-1919), who he had never met in person but whom he knew through a mutual acquaintance with Carlos Germàn Burmeister (1807-1892), director of the National Museum of Natural History of Buenos Aires. Among the 15 casts that Broca sent to Argentina and that later became part of the collection of the Museum of La Plata was the Quiberon skull. The original specimen remained in France, probably to allow further studies of it. On his part, Moreno sent to Broca a series of Patagonian prehistoric skulls, although we do not know which ones and in what number. As a result of this exchange, Moreno was appointed correspondent of the Society of Anthropology of Paris and his article on the prehistoric cemeteries of Patagonia was published in its journal.
In conclusion, the (cast) skull of Quiberon tells us the story of specimens and ideas that travelled from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and not just from the peripheries to the centers. It also shows how 19th century collecting practices were closely intertwined with racial theory and physical anthropology’s attempt to elaborate a racial hierarchy of the world’s population.
Figure 3. Picture by Nathalie Richard.
Selected sources and bibliography
Claude Blanckaert, De la race à l’évolution. Paul Broca et l’anthropologie française. 1850-1900, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2009.
Paul Broca, Étude anthropologique du crane de Manné-Beker-Noz, «Bulletin de la Societé polymathique du Morbihan » (1865), pp. 47-49.
Gustave Closmadeuc, Tombeau découvert au Manné-Beker-Noz, Bulletin de laSocieté polymathique du Morbihan (1865), pp. 39-46.
Máximo Farro, La formación del Museo de La Plata. Coleccionistas, comerciantes, estudiosos y naturalistas viajeros a fines del siglo XIX, Rosario, Prohistoria, 2009.
Chris Manias, Race, Science, and the Nation. Reconstructing the Ancient Past in Britain, France and Germany, Abingdon, Routledge, 2013.
Irina Podgorny, Margaret Lopes, El desierto en una vitrina. Museos e historia natural en la Argentina, Mexico, Limusa, 2008 (2e éd., Rosario, Prohistoria, 2014).
Nathalie Richard, Travelling skulls. About some skulls and casts kept in the storerooms of the Museum of La Plata, 2022, https://scicomove.hypotheses.org/959
L’action Staff Exchanges vous intéresse ? Ce webinaire est fait pour vous !
Le PCN A.M.S.C. organise une matinée d’information dédiée à l’appel à propositions Staff Exchanges 2022 le mardi 18 octobre prochain, de 10h00 à 12h00.
Cette session sera animée par un intervenant de la Commission européenne, plusieurs lauréats et le PCN AMSC.
Voici le programme :
10h00-10h45
Intervention de la REA Présentation de l’action Staff Exchanges Session de questions-réponses avec les participants
10h45-11h05
Intervention du PCN A.M.S.C. Retour sur les statistiques de participation Présentation du dossier de candidature
11h05-11h35
Table ronde Retours d’expérience de Rachid HARBA (coordinateur du projet STANDUP – RISE 2017), Marc LANDRY (coordinateur du projet PsyCoMed – SE 2021) et de Nathalie RICHARD (coordinatrice du réseau SciCoMove – RISE 2020).
11h35-12h00
Session de questions-réponses Echanges entre les participants et l’ensemble des intervenants
By Alejandro Martínez, Universidad Nacional de La Plata
While exploring the collections of Central American plants housed in the Herbarium of the Museum of Natural History in Paris, our attention was drawn to a sample belonging to the tree known as caucho or hule, from Guatemala. According to the enclosed information, this handful of leaves had been collected and sent to Paris by a Mr. Guerin. A subsequent visit to the Archives Nationales de Pierrefite-sur-Seine allowed us to learn more about this unknown personage and the history behind these rubber leaves and other Central American natural objects that arrived in Europe sent by Guerin.
During the Universal Exposition of Paris in 1900, visitors passing through the Pavilion of the Republic of Guatemala, located in the Champs de Mars, could see the main products produced in that nation. Particularly attractive were the exhibits on coffee, wood, medicinal plants and minerals.
One of the curiosities of this pavilion was a large, almost square mass at the entrance. It was not a huge igneous rock extracted from the volcanic highlands of the north, nor was it a blurred sculpture, one of those familiarly known as “barrigones”, whose manufacture is attributed to the Olmec people. It was instead a giant block of rubber extracted from the rubber tree or Castilla elástica, by its scientific name, a plant of the Moraceae family, native to Mexico and Central America.
Fig. 1 Castilla elastica Sessé ex Cerv. var. liga J. Poiss. (Herbario del MNHN)
At the end of the exhibition, the block was divided and distributed among various scientific institutions in Paris by René Guérin, general curator of the Guatemalan pavilion, who also donated leaves, flowers, seeds and fruits of Castilla elástica to the Natural History Museum of Paris. This French chemist, who until then had gone unnoticed by European scientific circles, began to send different specimens to the Paris Museum and at the same time began to publish in magazines dedicated to plants and animals of economic interest to tropical regions.
Guérin first arrived in Guatemala in 1890, as part of a financial mission led by Inspector Edmond Sénéchal, whose objective was to reorganize and put into operation the Mint in that country. He remained there until the end of 1893 when his task was completed and he had to return to France. Although at the beginning of 1894 he returned to Guatemala hired to run a school of mines. At the same time he presented a request to the Ministry of Public Instruction of France to carry out a free mission in that country.
This mission project had the recommendation of Sénéchal, his former boss, who, in addition to emphasizing its disinterested nature, pointed out that Guérin’s objective was to send to the Paris Museum, at the expense of the French State, “the interesting collections of mineralogy that he had already assembled and those of ethnology and prehistoric archaeology that he hoped to form in the course of his next explorations” (Letter from Edmond Sénéchal to the Minister of Public Instruction, Paris, March 10, 1894. Archives Nationales F/17/2973/1)
Indeed, the “service of travels and scientific and literary missions” of the French Ministry of Public Instruction financed more than 2300 individual missions in the period from 1840 to 1914, as Jean-Christophe Bourquin has shown. From 1871 onwards, however, and within the framework of a policy of colonial expansion, literary and intra-European travel gradually gave way to more distant movements with an exploratory, naturalistic or archaeological purpose (Bonneuil 1999; Bourquin 1993).
After being analyzed by the Commission of Travel and Scientific Missions, Guérin’s application was rejected. In the opinion of Ferdinand Fouqué (1828-1904), a geologist at the College de France, “this young man has not had the necessary education to successfully carry out a mission of the type he is applying for. He does not seem to know natural history necessary for the success of a scientific mission.”. (Letter from Ferdinand Fouqué to the Minister of Public Instruction, Paris, May 12, 1894. Archives Nationales F/17/2973/1) For his part, Julien Haton de La Goupilliere (1833-1927), director of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines in Paris, said “It has not been possible to find any trace of the person to whom your letter refers. I may add that I have not had the slightest acquaintance with any person of that name.” (Letter from Haton de la Goupilliere to the Minister of Public Instruction, Paris, April 2, 1894. Archives Nationales F/17/2973/1)
Unknown and with no sign of having had any training in science, Guérin, a young chemical essayist, became part of the large group of unfortunate applicants for individual missions, whose study, as Stephanie Soubrier points out, allows us to identify the mechanisms of exclusion of a certain category of individuals and projects while showing us the constant redefinition of the boundaries of scientific legitimacy (Soubrier 2018)
Guérin continued to insist on his fondness for the natural sciences despite the rejection. Shortly after having been notified, he wrote again to the Ministry, requesting a copy of the “Advice to naturalist travelers” by Henri Filhol (1843-1902), wishing to have “practical information on the collection, preparation, and conservation of plants and animals”. The book was sent to him at the end of 1894 (Letter from René Guérin to Raoul de Saint-Arroman, Guatemala, October 3 and December 4, 1894. Archives Nationales F/17/2973/1). And although we have no news after this request of his activity as an amateur naturalist, it seems that in addition to his work at the Mint and the Central Chemical Laboratory of Guatemala, he continued with his plan to form collections to send to Paris.
Catalog of objects entry of the year 1908. Articulated arthropods.MNHN
His performance at the head of the Guatemalan delegation was marked by the uncertainty inherent in the comings and goings of politics since the participation of that country in the Universal Exposition was not decided until the last minute. The Guatemalan pavilion was inaugurated in July 1900, three months before the beginning of the exposition. Journalist Émile Berr (1855-1923) wrote: “The Republic of Guatemala, which had initially decided not to participate in the 1900 Exposition, changed its mind at the last moment and, at the beginning of April, hurriedly commissioned a Commission, presided by Mr. Salvador Herrera, to organize “something” in Paris that could be done. A delegate, Mr. Guérin, head of the national chemical laboratory of Guatemala, was charged with improvising a general exhibition of the country’s products” (“Le Guatémala”, Le Figaro, Paris, July 3, 1900, p.3).
With a little more than two months to organize the exhibition and thanks to this somewhat fortuitous event, Guérin had the opportunity to exhibit in Paris the collections he had managed to assemble after almost a decade (Gers 1901). His linguistic chart of Guatemala, for example, caught the attention of Fernand Deslile (1848-1911) who invited him to present it at the Congress of Americanists that was taking place there. During the exhibition, he also managed to establish a relationship with several Parisian naturalists and began to send different collections to the metropolis, among them human skulls, mosses, plants, ants, beetles, locusts, and even a bat. The last entry recorded in the catalog of articulated arthropods of the Paris Museum dates from 1908 and Guérin’s presence in the publications began to decrease around 1910. By 1913, back in France, although still using his title of director of the central laboratory in Guatemala, we find him acting as a member of the jury at the universal and international exhibition in Ghent. After that, he sank back into oblivion.
References
Bonneuil, Christophe 1999 “Le Muséum national d’histoire naturelle et l’expansion coloniale de la Troisième République (1870-1914)” en Revue française d’histoire d’outre-mer, tome 86, n°322-323, pp. 143-169.
Bourquin, Jean-Christophe 1993 L’État et les voyageurs savants. Légitimités individuelles et volontés politiques. Les missions du ministère de l’Instruction Publique (1840-1914), Tesis, Université Paris I.
Gers, Paul 1901 En 1900, Corbeil: Ed. Crété. Soubrier, Stephanie 2018 “Les éconduits de la Science : les demandes de missions lointaines rejetées par le ministère de l’Instruction publique (1842-1900)”, en Revue d’histoire du XIXe siècle [online], 57 | 2018, puesto en línea el 26 de diciembre de 2020, consultado el 21 de enero de
Susana Garcia a présenté ses recherches dans le cadre d’une journée d’étude organisée par Dominique Frère (laboratoire TEMOS, UBS Lorient) et Nathalie Richard. Intitulée « Histoire et usage des collections », cette journée, qui s’est déroulée à Lorient le 5 octobre 2022 a réuni plusieurs chercheurs et responsables de musées bretons. Les étudiants de master de Lorient et du Mans y ont assisté.
Susana Garcia a présenté les résultats des recherches qu’elle mène dans les archives françaises, notamment au Havre et à Nantes, sur la circulation des informations, des spécimens et des objets par l’intermédiaire des baleiniers. Les marins et armateurs qui pêchent la baleine et le phoque dans les mers du sud de l’Atlantique et du Pacifique au 19e siècle, sont des sources essentielles de savoirs sur les mammifères marins et les faunes terrestres des zones qui peuplent les régions proches de l’Antarctique. Ils collectent des données, mais aussi des spécimens qui arrivent dans les ports européens et aboutissent dans des collections locales ou nationales.
Participait également à la journée d’étude, Brigitte Nicolas, conservatrice du Musée de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales situé à Port-Louis, près de Lorient, qui a évoqué l’histoire de ce musée et la constitution de ses collections. La collection du musée aspire à être représentative de tous les objets que les navires de la compagnie apportaient en France. Outre les célèbres porcelaines, ces navires transportaient aussi des spécimens naturalistes, même si le musée de Port-Louis n’a pas vocation à les exposer.
Frédéric Bonnor, conservateur du musée de Dinan, au nord de la Bretagne, a présenté l’histoire de la collection de ce musée municipal qui existe depuis les années 1840. Les collections sont actuellement en caisse, dans l’attente d’une nouvelle ouverture au public. Constituées par strates successives, elles sont hétéroclites et contiennent des œuvres d’art et des objets archéologiques, d’ethnographie bretonne et exotiques. Elles intégraient à l’origine des animaux naturalisés qui ont disparus. Certains de ces spécimens viennent d’Amérique latine. Le premier catalogue, publié en 1850, mentionne ainsi un jaguar tué le 9 septembre 1837 à vingt lieues à l’est de Montevideo.
Soazig Le Henanff a présenté la collection Anita Conti, une aventurière, maintenant considérée comme une pionnière de l’océanographie et qui a collecté de multiples objets, réalisé des photos et des films, ainsi que des dessins qui rendent compte de ses observations et de ses voyages. Fruit de toute une vie, cette collection éclectique a été réorganisée par la collectrice à la fin de sa vie. Elle est un témoignage biographique plus qu’une collection savante et témoigne du parcours exceptionnel d’une femme au 20e siècle. Collection et fonds documentaire ne sont pas exposés et sont conservés aux archives de Lorient.
By Amandine Péquignot, Maître de conférences du Muséum, MNHN (Paris)
“Bicho” defines in Spanish a small animal, especially insect, but also a person. In Argentina, a “bicho raro” describes a man of alert and insightful intelligence.
Caras y Caretas (Argentina), 19 de octubre de 1900, n°107
Friedrich Wilhelm Karl Berg, better known by the name of Carlos Berg (1843-1902) could be a “bicho raro” by being an entomologist who was out of the ordinary for his way of preparing his collection and a sharp person whose movement between Europe, Argentina and Uruguay we can follow thanks to his collections left and his particular technique of preparation and arrangement of specimens. Berg were among the most important and influential zoologists in Argentina.
Born in Tukums (current-day Latvia), having worked a few years in trade and being librarian, Berg moved in 1865 to Riga where he became curator of the entomological department of the Riga Museum and then teacher in natural history and chemistry at the Technical Preparatory School of the Baltic Polytechnic in Riga.at the Riga Technical University. Around 1872, he was called by Carlos Burmeister, director of the museum of natural history in Buenos Aires (Argentina), who searched for entomologists to fill the new position of inspector at the Public Museum. A few years later, he became a professor of biology at the Faculty of Physical and Natural Sciences of the National College of Buenos Aires. In 1892, Berg succeeded the late Burmeister as director of the Museum. Within this establishment, Berg took part in the expansion of many collections including in entomology.
Between 1875 and 1901, Berg described and named over 21 genera and 122 species of Lepidoptera. One of the most important Lepidoptera publication was “Lepidopteros patagónicos observados en el viaje de 1874” (1875).
In 1906, the entomologistCarlos Bruch (1869-1943), at the time in charge of the zoology section and greatly influenced by Berg, informed about the selling of Berg’s private collection, among others, his entomological collection (Source : MLP archives). The Museo de La Plata bought the collection which represented around the 10 000 specimens and 590 types nowadays.
In answer to the ladybug’s caricature in Caras y Caretas, we took as exemple a Exoplectra fulgurata (Berg, 1874) presented in the MLP’s entomological collection to illustrate Berg’s labelling.He developed a very personal and distinctive practice for organizing and labeling his collection as we observed for ichthyologic specimens preserved in fluid at the MACN (Chiaramonte and Péquignot, 2019) which today allows them to be clearly identified or also recognized when the collection has been revised by him. As well in entomology, Berg wrote himself his label (recognize of the typical “B” of Berg), the type status of the specimens was reported by a tiny label framed in red with “Typus” printed in red, the Latin name was written on a tiny label with red framed when it was a typus specimen, the locality – was typed on a tiny green label -when it is in Argentina.
Since from 1890 to 1892, Berg was director of the National Museum of natural history in Montevideo (Uruguay), we may follow el “bicho raro” other way too…