Wonderful, this made me think of two authors and their delightful arguments.
First, Laqueur in Making Sex and Solitary sex makes an insightful argument regarding how ideas about bodies and sex gave anatomists a certain gaze that shaped how they saw what they dissected. When we look at some of these anatomical drawings today (with a different gaze) we see something altogether different. He contended that certain anatomical features are drawn resembling others because of ideas about bodies held at the time -- thus Vesalius's drawings of reproductive organs resemble one another. In fact they used similar terms for organs like testes and ovaries -- which Laqueur sustained suggest they saw them as analogous or similar.
The other is a book by Kuriyama where he tracts the history of medicine in the east and the west. One of the striking things about Western anatomical drawings is the presence of muscles and musculature. In contrast, anatomist of the east, drew transparent bodies with other stuff flowing in and out of them. The former was a result of a connection of the muscular will with free will whereas in the East the body is seen as more porous and under the effects of the outside.
Wonderful, this made me think of two authors and their delightful arguments.
First, Laqueur in Making Sex and Solitary sex makes an insightful argument regarding how ideas about bodies and sex gave anatomists a certain gaze that shaped how they saw what they dissected. When we look at some of these anatomical drawings today (with a different gaze) we see something altogether different. He contended that certain anatomical features are drawn resembling others because of ideas about bodies held at the time -- thus Vesalius's drawings of reproductive organs resemble one another. In fact they used similar terms for organs like testes and ovaries -- which Laqueur sustained suggest they saw them as analogous or similar.
The other is a book by Kuriyama where he tracts the history of medicine in the east and the west. One of the striking things about Western anatomical drawings is the presence of muscles and musculature. In contrast, anatomist of the east, drew transparent bodies with other stuff flowing in and out of them. The former was a result of a connection of the muscular will with free will whereas in the East the body is seen as more porous and under the effects of the outside.