Harvard University announced on Wednesday that it has removed human skin from the binding of a book held in one of its libraries for over 90 years.

The book in question, "Des Destin‚es de l'Ame" (Destinies of the Soul), a 19th-century meditation on life after death, was discovered in 2014 to be bound in the skin of a deceased woman.

Acknowledging past failures in its stewardship of the book, Harvard stated that the removal of the binding was necessary to address the objectification and compromise of the dignity of the deceased individual whose remains were used.

The university is currently in consultation with French authorities to determine a final, respectful disposition of the human remains.

Harvard had previously capitalized on the morbid interest surrounding the book's discovery, describing it as "good news for fans of anthropodermic bibliopegy, bibliomaniacs, and cannibals alike." Anthropodermic bibliopegy, the practice of binding books in human skin, was once relatively common, according to Harvard.

Dr. Ludovic Bouland, the book's first owner, reportedly took skin from the body of a mentally ill woman, who died of a heart attack, at a hospital where he worked. Bouland justified the use of human skin by stating that a book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering.

Harvard acknowledged that its stewardship practices related to the book fell short of ethical standards. It criticized the sensationalistic and morbid tone used in previous blog posts about the book, which fueled international media coverage.

In 2022, Harvard released a report identifying over 20,000 human remains in its various collections, ranging from skeletons to teeth, hair, and bone fragments.