Determinants of the revival of dissection of the human body in the Middle Ages.
The author reviews the causes of the rebirth of human dissection in the Middle Ages after a hiatus of 1500 years, that is, after the practice was abandoned in the time following Herophilus of Alexandria in the third century BC. It is concluded that three main factors determined the rebirth: the removal of obstacles (i.e., the devaluation of the body), the stimulus to proceed (i.e., the resuming of the slow progress of medicine toward the scientific mode), and the different value attributed to cadavers of different people, that is, the correspondence between life deeds and the importance of the cadaver (which made the corpses of executed criminals available and pedagogical dissection possible).
Prioreschi
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Section of History of Medicine, Department of Pharmacology, Creighton University, Medical School, 2500 California Plaza, Omaha, NE 68178, USA. plinio@creighton.edu
D004210:Dissection / Q000266:history*; D005060:Europe; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D012068:Religion and Medicine