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3. More Wondrous and More Worthy to Behold: The Future of Public Anatomy
- Johns Hopkins University Press
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36 chapter three More Wondrous and More Worthy to Behold The Future of Public Anatomy geoffrey rees, phd Since knowledge of the human body has enormous use, in no way should the anatomical teaching be neglected. It is always a worthy matter for man to behold the nature of things and not to despise the consideration of this wondrous work of the world, which was so skillfully created that it reminds us about God and His Will, as if we were watching a theatre. But it is most befitting and useful for us to see in ourselves the series of parts, figures, connections, powers and duties. It is said that there is an oracle “know thyself” which, although it advises many things, may here be taken to mean that we should earnestly behold those things which in ourselves are worthy of admiration and are the sources of most actions in life. And because men were created for the sake of wisdom and justice, and true wisdom is knowledge of God and consideration of nature, it should be acknowledged that anatomical teaching in which the causes of many actions and changes in us are seen, should be learned. Philipp Melanchthon, “Oration in Praise of Anatomy,” 1550 The Future of Public Anatomy 37 To the maxim “everything old is new again,” the exhibitions of plastinated human bodies traveling the globe are no exception. Although the scale of these exhibits is unprecedented, as is their popularity, in spirit they hearken back to a prior practice of European humanist education. Just as the Renaissance was characterized by a renewed emphasis on all things human, including the human body, at the same time a central tenet of the Reformation— encapsulated in the doctrine of sola scriptura—was that all persons should read scripture directly and not depend on others to interpret it for them. As early as the middle of the sixteenth century these two strands converged in a focus on human anatomy. This convergence is exemplified in the epigraph from Philipp Melanchthon, one of the most influential institutionalizers of Reformation educational practices . In his“Oration in Praise of Anatomy”Melanchthon analogizes the human body to a theatrical performance of God’s word, so that the body becomes a kind of text open to direct interpretation, and at the same time he invokes the classical injunction of the oracle at Delphi to“know thyself”as a human being. (This is the same oracle, incidentally, that Socrates in Plato’s Apology says inspired his pursuit of knowledge of what makes excellence in a human being and a citizen.) The result was that all human beings were thought to have a compelling interest in learning directly for themselves about human anatomy. Its study became a path to knowledge of God and self. The interest in anatomy exemplified in Melanchthon’s oration reached its dramatic peak during the seventeenth century, when public dissections of human cadavers were celebrated as a valuable civic and philosophical entertainment. Many European cities built “theaters” expressly for the purpose. In principle, if not exactly in practice, these performances of dissection promoted the ideal that knowledge of the human body was of interest to all human beings, that it was too important to restrict to medical practitioners. So the finest seats in the theaters were reserved for the most important citizens of the community, while medical students were relegated to the galleries. Intended as much to entertain as to edify, the anatomic theaters realized practically the vision articulated by Melanchthon. [54.196.106.106] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 08:24 GMT) 38 geoffrey rees Although anatomy remained open in varying degrees to public study beyond the heyday of the anatomic theaters, by the middle of the nineteenth century the importance of anatomy to the possibility of self-knowledge for all persons gave way to the consolidation of medicine as a modern professional discipline. Part of the mystique and authority of the tradition of medical education for the past 150 years, indeed a rite of passage that traditionally makes doctors different from ordinary persons, has been the anatomy lab of first-year medical students.The anatomy lab has been closely restricted to firstyear medical students, so that to become a doctor has been to gain privileged access to the interior of the human body. The anatomy lab of modern medical schools, extending the metaphor of the body as a “text,” institutionalized a reversal of the Reformation spirit of common inquiry and ministry that urged...