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This article focuses on the famous skull collection of the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840) to demonstrate that human remains in early modern scientific collections possessed an important but often underestimated economic value in addition to their well-known scientific and social worth. Blumenbach’s skulls are thus presented as a part of a vigorous early modern ‘necro-economy’ and as a product of its networks. The article highlights three strategies of enrichment which were used to create the value of these bones: reference to scientific values, the use of emotions and story-telling. The last two strategies in particular are relevant to present-day debates concerning the restitution of musealized human remains, for their analysis helps us deconstruct a perceptual bias that tends to contrast a Western and predominantly ‘scientific’ (and thus seemingly universal) value of collected human remains with theoretically ‘softer’ cultural values allegedly attributed to them in their countries of origin.

This essay shows that early modern practices that used human bodily matter cannot be – as hitherto – explained by the absence of the emotion of disgust nor as being conducted in spite of disgust. Instead, it proposes to read those practices’ changing history as part of the history of the ‘paradox of disgust’. Four case studies (on anatomy, excrement, mummies and skulls) demonstrate that disgust was highly productive: it attracted fascination, allowed physicians to fashion themselves, and was even believed capable of healing. Over time and for complex reasons, however, the productive side of disgust declined. Combining current approaches in the history of emotions and material culture studies, this essay sets out not only to propose a new narrative for the changing role of disgust in early modern science and societies, but also to explore how variations in settings and human intervention changed the way emotions were used and perceived.

Übermäßiges Essen und Trinken, Sexualität, das Sezieren von Leichen oder verschwenderisches Zurschaustellen des eigenen Reichtums: Im Exzess wurde - so die These des Buches - gesellschaftliche Ordnung gestaltet. Wie produktiv das Agieren im Übermaß sein konnte, beleuchtet Sarah-Maria Schober an Medizinern, die um 1600 in Basel lebten. Sie folgt den Ärzten an Orte, an denen sie Grenzen austesteten: in Bäder und Haushalte, an ihre Schreibtische und auf die anatomische Bühne. Damit bietet sie zugleich eine quellennahe Analyse einer städtischen Gesellschaft im späten 16. und frühen 17. Jahrhundert.