Main description:

Dissection is a practice with a long history stretching back to antiquity and has played a crucial role in the development of anatomical knowledge. This absorbing book takes the story back to classical antiquity, employing a wide range of textual and material evidence. Claire Bubb reveals how dissection was practised from the Hippocratic authors of the fifth century BC through Aristotle and the Hellenistic doctors Herophilus and Erasistratus to Galen in the second century AD. She focuses on its material concerns and social contexts, from the anatomical subjects (animal or human) and how they were acquired, to the motivations and audiences of dissection, to its place in the web of social contexts that informed its reception, including butchery, sacrifice, and spectacle. The book concludes with a thorough examination of the relationship of dissection to the development of anatomical literature into Late Antiquity.

Contents:

1. Introduction; Part I. Practice: 2. Dissection in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods; 3. Dissection in the Roman Period; 4. Practical Considerations of the Dissector; 5. The Broader Social Contexts of Dissection; Part II. Text: 6. Anatomical Texts of the Classical and Hellenistic Periods; 7. Anatomical Texts of the Roman Period; 8. Galenic Anatomy before Anatomical Procedures; 9. Galen's Anatomical Procedures and its Innovations; 10. Epilogue: A Waxing and Waning Art.