A Dissectologist’s Community Table

Are you puzzled by the title of this column?  If so, this puzzlement is actually a clue in solving your conundrum.  Here’s another bafflement buster:  You will find a Dissectologist’s Community Table at the Jefferson Public Library, a wonderful public space to visit for many reasons.  Still clueless?  Here’s my final I’m still buffaloed enlightener.  The writer of this column enjoys many hours sitting around our Dissectologist’s Community Table puzzling with other patrons at the public library.  

By now, most likely you have solved the mystery of the meaning of the word dissectologist.  Simply stated, a dissectologist is a person who loves to solve jigsaw puzzles.  You may still justifiably wonder how this word became associated with jigsaw puzzles.  The answer is that the first commercial jigsaw puzzles were made by a cartographer (map maker) who glued a map of Europe onto hardwood and then cut along the borders of the countries.  These prototypes of today’s jigsaw puzzles were called dissected maps.  To learn geography children reassembled these dissections into the map of Europe.  It follows that a dissectologist is someone who studies dissections to reassemble them. 

The British cartographer and engraver, John Spilsbury, created the first dissected map described above around 1760.  As his effort was well-received, Spilsbury started a business producing puzzles of the World, Europe, Asia, Africa, America, England and Whales, Ireland, and Scotland. Still today, parents can buy geographically themed puzzles to help their children learn geography.  

During the Great Depression in the United States in the 1930’s, jigsaw puzzles surged in popularity and were made out of cardboard and cut with new die-cutting techniques, reducing cost.  Sales of jigsaw puzzles also surged during the recent Covid-19 pandemic.  Today, jigsaw puzzles are cut with precision steel blades stamped down on the puzzle or with lasers.  

While this is difficult for me to understand, not all people enjoy assembling jigsaw puzzles.  But for those who do, there may well be mental health and cognitive benefits in assembling dissected pieces.  In an article published May 18, 2022, called “Mental Health Benefits of Jigsaw Puzzles,” Diorell Manzana explored four mental health benefits associated with working on jigsaw puzzles: (1) improving short-term memory, (2) reducing stress and anxiety, (3) building connections with others working on the same puzzle, and (4) improving attention to detail, problem-solving and analytical skills. 

As I consider that solving jigsaw puzzles surged during two of the most difficult times in the history of our country, the Great Depression and the Covid-19 pandemic years, it makes sense to me that working on jigsaw puzzles provides mental health benefits.  Solving jigsaw puzzles requires concentration, which moves the dissectologist into the present moment, letting go of anxious thoughts.  Working with others together to assemble jigsaw puzzles builds relationships. 

The puzzle table at the Jefferson Library is a community table, open to all.  It is a welcoming table and, for both new and long-time residents of our community, a great place to meet people, even if what you do is stop by and chat with the dissectologists.  In researching this column, I found a tee-shirt for sale with this friendly counsel: “A day without working on jigsaw puzzles probably won’t kill you.  But why take the risk?”  

“Veni, Vidi, Solvi.”  In English, “I came, I saw, I solved”—motto of “The Fellowship of Puzzle Makers” from a warm, amusing and engaging novel, with the same name, written by Samuel Burr.  Available from the Jefferson Public Library, reading this book is an excellent way to more fully understand the value of creating and solving all kinds of puzzles, including all the puzzles inherent in human relationships. “Our whole life is solving puzzles,” according to Erno Rubik, famed inventor of the Rubik’s Cube.  “The problems of puzzles are very near the problems of life.”

But enough of all this deep thought already!  As an anonymous disectologist wrote: “All this reality is really cutting into my jigsaw puzzle time.”  Got to go!  Bye!

Having lived in Jefferson since only December 2021, Bryan knows he will always be a newcomer in town. Though this may surprise his readers, he wants everyone to know that he truly delights in this role!