Most Kissed Woman In History
No. This is not about the Guinness Record for the most number of kisses.
Who knew a kiss could be so powerful? Especially when it comes to Anne, it could save someone’s life. Over the years, innumerable people had kissed Anne and it is not for the reasons you think.
This woman with a serene, angelic smile is the face behind the modern-day CPR mannequin and the reason that countless people were rescued from death due to drowning.
But why her? Her stories of becoming a mannequin are many and varied and a part of the French legend.
But the most popular version is that Anne was a young woman whose body was found in the lake and the morgue attendant was so drawn by her beauty that he captured the plaster mask of her face.
The Morgue in Paris aka The Theatre of Death
The Paris Morgue strived as a tourist attraction throughout the 19th century. Found in the year 1804, the morgue was located on Île de la Cité. At the time, Parisians began socializing and the free theatre was the Theatre of Death.
In 1864, it was shifted to a bigger location at the edge of the Seine river. There were two reasons for this.
One, to easily pick corpses off the streets and river. These were generally unidentified and the open morgue helped with the identification. Two, the area surrounding the river drew in a lot of tourists and visitors and provided increased visibility.
Needless to say, La Morgue was at the peak of attraction and was open every day of the week from early morning to 6 pm.
At the Morgue, the bodies were stripped naked, inspected, frozen, and then laid on blocks of black marble stones. Freezing water dripped from the ceiling to slow down decomposition. But this gave the dead a bloated, blotchy appearance. After three days, the bodies are removed due to decomposition and were replaced by a plaque or a wax cast.
This was where Anne was found.
L’Inconnue de la Seine
The name Anne was coined about half a century later. A body of L’Inconnue de la Seine(An unknown woman from the Seine) was brought in the late 1800s.
The young woman was about 16 and found in the river of Seine. Though no cause of death was found, it was suspected that she had committed suicide.
An attendant at the morgue was fascinated by her calm smile and took a death mask off her face. Her body was put to display at the Theatre of Death. Her appearance drew in a lot of people (or so the legend says) and soon after her death mask was hung at the morgue, people started assembling for a likeness of the cast as a souvenir.
The mask started selling like hot cakes in gift and facsimile shops and everyone wanted one of the otherworldly plaster masks.
Soon, it became the fodder of creativity for writers, poets, and artists. Since, the poor, drowned girl was unidentified and her background unknown, people were able to romanticize her life story. A failed love story, perhaps? Maybe that is why she had committed suicide?
Her mask spread from France to Britain, Germany, and other parts of Europe.
Toy Shop and “Anne” quin
Asmund Laerdal was a toymaker based in Norway. In his early career (the 1940s), he made children’s books and small toys made of wood. Later, he proceeded to make soft, malleable toys out of the newfound material called plastic.
One of his most popular dolls was a female with half-closed, sleepy eyes and a calm smile called Anne. And no. Anne was not L’Inconnue de la Seine at first.
It started one day when Laerdal’s son, Tore, fell into an unknown source of water and nearly drowned. Laerdal fished his son out of the water and pumped his chest to push the water out. Tore was saved. This incident made Laerdal sympathetic towards saving people from drowning.
When a group of anesthesiologists approached Laerdal to make a life-sized doll to train people on the process of CPR or Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, (the process that saved Tore’s life), Laerdal was immediately interested.
Keeping Anne as an inspiration, he wanted a face that moved people’s hearts. Then, he remembered the plaster mask of L’Inconnue de la Seine in his mother-in-law’s house and recreated its face for the CPR doll. The Mannequin was named Anne after the doll. It was later known as Resusci Anne.
The Annequin had a collapsible chest for simulating compressions and a slightly open mouth for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He was especially firm on the doll being a female as the men at that time were reluctant to kiss a male doll.
Over the years, many CPR dolls came into the market, but the most famous one was always Anne. Many practiced mouth-to-mouth resuscitations on Anne(L’Inconnue de la Seine) and hence, became the “most kissed” woman till today.
It is ironic how a drowned woman became a symbol for saving lives.
Many have debated the authenticity of the story. A drowned body is generally bloated, a bit decomposed, and might have lacerations all over it. Then how was the death mask so perfect?
Multiple explanations exist. One is that the story of L’Inconnue de la Seine and the plaster mask of a young model were mixed to increase the saleability of the mask. Another is that after the death mask was obtained off L’Inconnue de la Seine, the mask maker smoothened it to increase the aesthetic appeal of the mask.
Whatever might be the reason, Resusci Anne changed the course of millions of lives and remains the “most kissed woman”.
More on mysterious dead women:
And on medicine:
