Des Destinées de l'Ame (Destinies of the Soul) has been housed at Houghton Library since the 1930s.
In 2014, scientists determined that the material it was bound with was in fact human skin.
Des Destinées de l'Ame is a meditation on the soul and life after death, written by Arsène Houssaye in the mid-1880s. He is said to have given it to his friend, Dr Ludovic Bouland, a doctor, who then reportedly bound the book with skin from the body of an unclaimed female patient who had died of natural causes.
Des Destinées de l'Ame arrived at Harvard in 1934. Located within the book is a note written by Dr Bouland, stating no ornament had been stamped on the cover to "preserve its elegance".
"I had kept this piece of human skin taken from the back of a woman," he wrote. "A book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering."
But the university has now announced it has removed the binding "due to the ethically fraught nature of the book's origins and subsequent history".
It added it was looking at ways to ensure "the human remains will be given a respectful disposition that seeks to restore dignity to the woman whose skin was used".
From BBC (published 7 hours ago)
The book, from the mid-1880s, was reportedly bound with the skin from the body of a female patient.
www.bbc.com