Fritz Kahn

Man as industrial machine

Healthy effects of sunlight

Mechanism of salivation

When Bodies: The Exhibition was shown at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, I was one of those stragglers that kept getting to the end of the displays, only to start over again at the beginning. I lose all sense of time when viewing anatomical charts, mannequins and cutaways, transfixed by the complexity of the nervous system, organ function and blood circulation.

Fritz Kahn (1888-1968) a German scientist, gynecologist and author, created a graphic system that presented the metaphor of man as machine. His entertaining visuals with assembly workers and switchboard operators at their posts within the factory of a body was a unique and revolutionary method that made science, particularly health and the body more accessible for the public.

A new lavishly illustrated monograph, “Fritz Kahn: Man Machine” by Uta and Thilo von Debschitz (SpringerWeinNewYork) is available here.