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Andrew Cunningham, The Anatomist Anatomis'd: An Experimental Discipline in Enlightenment Europe, The History of Medicine in Context (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), pp. + xxiv + 442, £65.00, hardback, ISBN: 978-0-7546-6338-6.
Anatomy for centuries has been a if not the central discipline of medicine. Unsurprisingly, it has thus also been a key topic of medical historiography. But when we have to recommend some few modern general books to non-specialists and students, there is only a small number to choose from. With regard to the Renaissance, my choice would be Andrew Cunningham's monograph from 1997. But what about the following 'long' eighteenth century (1650-1800)? Up to now, there was hardly a book that could claim to cover this period in a substantial and general manner reflecting actual scholarly interests. Cunningham now has published a volume on this period hoping 'that one day this book might actually be read by students' (p. xxii). Are his hopes justified?
As the author stresses, this book is not primarily concerned with the history of the body, nor with anatomical discoveries or the relationship between anatomy and art. It is about the discipline of anatomy, about the elements and especially the various forms of practice that constituted this discipline. It thus reflects current approaches in the history of science and science studies to describe scientific disciplines and identities as a...