Cambridge: Exploded human Victorian skulls on display at museum

Exploded skulls from the Victorian era have been put on display at the University Museum of Zoology

Rare exploded Victorian skulls have been put on display at a museum.

The skulls are on display at the University Museum Of Zoology in Cambridge.

Victorians used to blow up human and animals skulls to teach medical students about anatomy, according to an expert from the museum.

Exploded skulls from most major vertebrate groups, including humans, were included in the exhibition, a museum spokesperson said.

Prof Jason Head said the exhibition had taken up to a year to put together.

He said it was believed that Edmé François Chauvot de Beauchêne invented the exploding method during the Victorian era.

"You can take the bones and put them back together and then explode them out, so you can see where the various vessels and channels are for nerves and blood vessels moving within the bones, and what the nature of the sutures between the bones was like," he said.

"You can imagine how important that would be for medicine, but also for all aspects of biology, for looking for characters for evolutionary relationships, for understanding growth and the relation between form and function."