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According to Heather Cole, Assistant Curator of Modern Books & Manuscripts a note detailing its origin inserted inside the book revealed the human skin used to bind the book was taken from the back of a female mental patient who had died of a stroke.The note, from Dr. Ludovic Bouland, states: “A book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering: I had kept this piece of human skin taken from the back of a woman."Anthropodermic bibliopegy, the formal name for the practice of binding books with human skin, has occurred since at least the 16th century.There are many accounts of occurrences in the 19th century in which the bodies of executed criminals were given to science, and the skins were the passed onto tanners and bookbinders, according to the University.College newspaper The Crimson said in 2006 that it believed at least three of the 15 million volumes in its libraries were thought to be bound this way.