Corpses in Belgian Anatomy, 1860 1914

This book tells the story of the thousands of corpses that ended up in the hands of anatomists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Composed as a travel story from the point of view of the cadaver, this study offers a full-blown cultural history of death and dissection, with insights that easily go beyond the history of anatomy and the specific case of Belgium. From acquisition to disposal, the trajectories of the corpse changed under the influence of social policies, ideological tensions, religious sensitivities, cultures of death and broader changes in the field of medical ethics. Anatomists increasingly had to reconcile their ways with the diverse meanings that the dead body held. To a certain extent, as this book argues, they started to treat the corpse as subject rather than object. Interweaving broad historical evolutions with detailed case studies, this book offers unique insights into a field dominated by Anglo-American perspectives, evaluating the similaritiesand differences within other European contexts.

Examines the impact of changing medical practices and cultural attitudes towards death and the donation of bodies to medical facilities at the turn of the twentieth century Takes a unique methodological approach, following the trajectory of the corpse in anatomy from acquisition to disposal Offers new insights into understudied European centres, drawing comparisons with other continental cases and showing how religious and cultural ideas influenced the practice of dissection

Auteur
Tinne Claes is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Cultural History since 1750 Research Group at the University of Leuven, Belgium, and Fellow of the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO), Belgium.

Résumé

"Tinne Claes has written a wonderful study on anatomy in fin-de-siècle Belgium. This book is certainly greater than its parts and will provide intellectual sustenance and great pleasure to all those who read it. ... What Claes has produced is a fascinating, thought-provoking and extremely valuable contribution to our understanding of the development of the modernist society in the Western World which forms the basis for most current debates about what it is to be a social human." (Ross L. Jones, Metascience, Vol. 30, 2021)

Contenu
1 Introduction.- 2 Anatomy is Done?.- 3 From Deathbed to Dissecting Table: Acquiring Anatomical Material.- 4 Under the Scalpel: Dividing the Body.- 5 The Jar and the Coffin: Keeping and Disposing of the Dead.- 6 Conclusion.