The History of the Morgue

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Bodies are displayed naked, although they have a cloth covering the groin. The clothes are often hung behind the body to help with recognition. There was one woman who, once her head became too decomposed to display, they created a wax model of her head and put that on display instead. Journalists would report in detail about the crimes connected to the bodies on display.

When a toymaker and a doctor teamed up to make the world’s first CPR doll, they decided to make the doll’s face look like one specific woman – a woman who they thought had drowned. People call her l’Inconnue de la Seine, or the Unknown Woman of the Seine.

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Artwork by Julienne Alexander.

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