The Anatomy Lesson (Morley novel) The Anatomy Lesson (Morley novel) The Anatomy Lesson (1995) is a novel by John David Morley, inspired by Rembrandt’s painting "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp". In Amsterdam, the streetwise, drug-addled, Dutch-American teenager Kiddo lives in the shadow of his hero-worshipped older brother, Morton, a brilliant science student who, having completed his physics and engineering Ph.D., is to take up a fellowship at M.I.T.. But, after Morton’s premature death from a virulent strain of cancer, Kiddo begins to uncover a shadow-side to his brother’s existence, even as he wrestles with the anguished question of Morton’s dying wish: that he
Nicolaes Tulp but also because of the fantastic stories that he relates. An example; Jan de Doot, a blacksmith in Amsterdam, was in such pain from a bladder stone, that he sharpened a knife and removed it himself, because he refused to be the victim of the 'stone cutters'. These were the barber-surgeons who performed such procedures but had a high death rate. To everyone's surprise, Jan de Doot survived this operation which was said to produce a stone the size of an egg. A painting illustrating this story is in the collection of the Anatomy Museum of Leiden. Tulp minutely described