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23 as anatomical dissection

rodaki

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doing research I run into this article which is about the technologies used in making anatomical atlases (don't ask, looking into the corporeal aspect of texts can lead one to some weird readings:eek:)

Anyway, reading it I could not help thinking of hx 23
(excuse me for the . . uhm . . creepy, uncomfortable passage but you are forwarned; who said science does not have its dark side?)

in this first quotation is the description of the process followed for the creation of a software that allows medical students and doctors to study the human body in full detail:

the body is systematically and very finely sliced into oblivion. Beginning
with the feet, the frozen sections are fitted into a cyromacrotome, a dissection
device, described by its creators as a “milling device” that planes the body at very
fine intervals between .3 and 1 millimeters. This technique effectively obliterates
the body’s mass, each planed section dissolving into sawdust due to its extreme
desiccation. After each planing the cross section of the remaining body-section is
digitally photographed, so that each photograph registers a small move through
the body’s mass. Each of these photographs is then converted into a computer data
file, and its position in the overall body registered according to the initial template.

what follows is less creepy and explains the treatment of the body in the traditional anatomical manuals (also known as anatomical atlases)

This analogy between corporeal and cartographic space simplified the prob-
lem of how to translate the three-dimensional volume of the body onto the space of
the page, because it conceptualised the body as an accretion of laminar “surfaces,”
as landscapes to be traversed by the eye, a volume composed of layers and systems
of tissue which are laid one upon the other. Hence the anatomical demonstration
proceeded, ideally at least, as a flaying. The ́ecorch ́e figures of classical anatomy
were produced through the peeling away of first skin, then successive layers of
muscle, to work through the body’s volume as if through the layers of an onion,
from outer surface to bone

. . thus medicine advances . .
progress can be way more cruel than I could have thought . .


rodaki
 

dobro p

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I thought the second passage was just as creepy as the first, but I thought that 23 could handle both, or at least describe both just as easily.
 

rodaki

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yes, re-read it, see what you mean, but it actually refers to images into which we have become accustomed, from doing basic stuff in school, like this:
anatomy1.jpg


but being sliced into oblivion????
that sent shivers down my spine :eek:

rodaki
 

Trojina

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Interesting correspondences. I think I've seen 23 refer to surgery more than once on this forum.
 

rodaki

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ohh, hadn't thought of that . . nice!!
 

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