The story of the body and the story of the person: towards an ethics of representing human bodies and body-parts.
Western culture has a few traditions of representing the human body - among them mortuary art (gisants), the freak show, the culture of the relics, renaissance art and pre-modern and modern anatomy. A historical analysis in the spirit of Norbert Elias is offered with regard to body - person relationship in anatomy. Modern anatomy is characterized by separating the story of the person from the story of the body, a strategy that is incompatible with the bio-psycho-social paradigm of clinical medicine. The paper discusses different aspects of the above traditions and how they might bear on this conflict and on contemporary bioethics and bedside practice.
Barilan
Y Michael
YM
Department of Internal Medicine B, Meir Hospital, Kfar Saba, Israel. bentovia@shani.net
D000716:Anatomy, Artistic / Q000941:ethics / Q000266:history*; D004995:Ethics, Professional; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049690:History, Ancient; D049691:History, Medieval; D018594:Human Body; D006801:Humans; D008488:Medical Illustration; D008512:Medicine in the Arts; D028662:Principle-Based Ethics