From Dissection to the Origin of Diseases

This chapter sheds light on some of the trends that shape medical practice and, through the perspective of the conceptual history of medicine, analyzes how scholars have explored the body, its ailments and its mechanisms since the Renaissance. The Renaissance saw an increase in dissection activity, making it possible to systematize the direct examination of the state of corpses in places where bodies were found under varying conditions. Through autopsies and dissections, the chapter considers the extent to which new explorations of the human body can link cuts and the search for signs of disease to one another. It analyzes several elements of the history of the development of a Cartesian mechanistic model, questioning how it leads to a new dismantling of the body into sets of structures. The chapter explores the impact of anatomical research on clinical thinking, particularly through some aspects of the work of Giovanni Battista Morgagni.