Old-school Master’s thesis

A while ago, while roaming through the halls of my University building, I stumbled upon some old Master’s thesis (theses?). They are all dated from mid 60’s to late 80’s, and are written on a typing machine. What really drew my attention were illustrations – they are all drawn by hand, using ink. I honestly don’t know if the authors did them themselves, or hired someone to do it for them (I believe it’s the former), but these are just gorgeous!

Hardcovers of Master’s theses

The inside of one thesis

All three of these theses are in Croatian, but I translated the titles:

Chromosomal structure of salivary glands of Chironomidae larvae and its importance in the determination of species by Vladimira Tavčar (1964)
Gene segregation study of HLA, AB0 and Rh systems by Gordana Puškadija (1980)
Effect of adriamycin and epirubicin on DNA cell synthesis in culture by Dijana Abramić (1987)

Inside of the Master’s thesis (no. 3)

Also, these are all on the topic of Molecular biology – I will visit libraries at other departments of my University (Zoology, Botany, Microbiology, Animal Physiology) to try and find similar ones! Which one would you like to see first?

Inside of the Master’s thesis (no. 2)

I am honestly so fascinated by these illustrations, they are wonderful! So detailed and neat… However, the oldest one is my favourite, because the author not only had to do her research in the lab, but also did the fieldwork, which is precisly something I would like to do one day – combine field Biology with Molecular biology.

Inside of the Master’s thesis (no. 1)

As you can see, the photographs were also used, but they were glued in the thesis.

This aspects is fascinating to me as well – the hand-drawn map!

Inside of the Master’s thesis (no. 1)

That’s it for now, I hope you enjoyed these beautiful drawings as much as I did! I have a few more photos, so if you’re interested into seeing more, please let me know!