Abstract
Andrew Cunningham, The Anatomist Anatomis’d: An Experimental Discipline in Enlightenment Europe, Ashgate: Farnham, 2010; xxii + 443 pp., 110 illus.; 9780754663386, £70.00 (hbk)
As Cunningham outlines in his introduction, histories of disciplines are unusual today and the history of anatomy has often been of great men and their achievements or of how ideas were developed. However, in this book Cunningham attempts to discover and explain the core of the discipline in the long eighteenth century: the practices and beliefs of anatomists and the rules and tacit knowledge that formed their work. This fresh approach results in an informative and engaging discussion of anatomy in the early modern period.
In the first chapter, Cunningham traces some of the key factors in the creation of the anatomical discipline including the traditions it was built on and more practical matters such as the creation of anatomy theatres across Europe and the printing of anatomical knowledge. Through these examinations, key details about anatomy and its perceived functions become clear. Dissections performed in early modern anatomy theatres were not research events. They were formally conducted rituals filled with messages about the role of the divine in the creation of the universe; a core message that existed independently of the many variations of Christianity upheld by anatomists at the time. Conversely the pursuit of new information about the body and its structures was conducted in private and spread through educational societies and the medium of print. Although this chapter in particular is lengthy, the book is divided into useful sections that can be referred to independently. This makes the book easy to read and potentially very useful as a reference work for students.
The second chapter focuses more upon the men who were involved in anatomy and examines why people entered the discipline, both learning and teaching. Cunningham manages to include numerous examples of different anatomists and their teaching methods from across Europe. These examples provide significant amounts of detail and counteract the tendency towards generalized discussion that could have easily developed in a work of this scale and scope. The brief discussion of the place of women in European anatomy provided at the end of this chapter is particularly tantalizing and could perhaps have been dealt with in more detail. It is the brevity of some of Cunningham’s sections that could be seen as a criticism of this work. With so much time and so many geographical locations to cover some very interesting points can only be introduced. However, the overarching necessity for a work dealing with anatomy as a whole European discipline compensates for this minor issue.
It is perhaps in Chapters Three, Four and Five where Cunningham’s book really excites. His fascinating discussion of the relationship between anatomy and its sub-disciplines is thought provoking. The section on physiology demarcates the theoretical discussion of how anatomical structures functioned together as separate from the process of dissection. Similarly the section dealing with pathology amply demonstrates the development of the anatomical field to include the dissection of diseased dead bodies in the search for ‘sensory signs of disease’ (190). In discussing the differences and relationship between the anatomical field and its nearest relatives, the boundaries of anatomical investigation are clearly elucidated. In Chapter Four Cunningham offers further details about the provision of bodies for dissection, the use of preserved body parts for teaching purposes and the development of wax modelling. He also offers at this point insight into the production of anatomical illustrations and the role of painters in this process. Again the section detailing the tensions and controversies surrounding anatomical discoveries in print is particularly enthralling and effectively underscores the tensions that existed in a discipline rapidly redefining the understanding of the body. Finally, in Chapter Five Cunningham explores the relationship between anatomy and the dissection (and vivisection) of animals. Given that the boundaries of anatomical investigation have been clearly laid out by this point, the introduction of comparative anatomy and its role in the creation of knowledge about the human body provides some interesting nuance about how anatomists saw their own activities.
Cunningham concludes by tracing the decline of anatomy through the French revolution and the end of the ancien régime. While this provides a nice conclusion to the book, it is striking that while the rest of the work has pertained to the activities of those across Europe, only a few lines are dedicated to noting that the changes that happened in France did indeed spread to Germany, and much more slowly, to Britain.
The Anatomist Anatomis’d is a rich and varied work that succeeds in delineating and exploring the various aspects of the discipline of anatomy during the long eighteenth century. The numerous examples of specific people and activities alongside a large selection of images bring this intellectual endeavour to life and make it thoroughly absorbing.