Description
The first book to show how the concept of bodily organs emerged and how ancient tools influenced conceptualizations of human anatomy and its operations.
Medicine is itself a type of technology, involving therapeutic tools and substances, and so one can write the history of medicine as the application of different technologies to the human body. In Tools and the Organism, Colin Webster argues that, throughout antiquity, these tools were crucial to broader theoretical shifts. Notions changed about what type of object a body is, what substances constitute its essential nature, and how its parts interact. By following these changes and taking the question of technology into the heart of Greek and Roman medicine, Webster reveals how the body was first conceptualized as an "organism"-a functional object whose inner parts were tools, or organa, that each completed certain vital tasks. He also shows how different medical tools created different bodies.
Webster's approach provides both an overarching survey of the ways that technologies impacted notions of corporeality and corporeal behaviors and, at the same time, stays attentive to the specific material details of ancient tools and how they informed assumptions about somatic structures, substances, and inner processes. For example, by turning to developments in water-delivery technologies and pneumatic tools, we see how these changing material realities altered theories of the vascular system and respiration across Classical antiquity. Tools and the Organism makes the compelling case for why telling the history of ancient Greco-Roman medical theories, from the Hippocratics to Galen, should pay close attention to the question of technology.
About the Author
Colin Webster is assistant professor of classics at the University of California, Davis.
Reviews
"Webster offers a novel and sophisticated analysis of the debates found in ancient medical writers' works, with an argument grounded in the societies that produced the texts." * Choice *
"[Webster] ends by pointing out how successful the analogy with tools and mechanisms has been both in advancing understanding of how the body functions, and as a spur to inventing machines that would do the work of the body e.g. iron lungs. This book will appeal to the classicist interested in original sources and interpretation of the Greek, to the medical historian, and any doctor with an interest in medical history." * Classics for All *
"Tools and the Organism makes the novel and convincing argument that ancient Greek medical and philosophical conceptions of the body were influenced at a fundamental level by contemporary technologies. Webster's observations are fresh, creative, and insightful." -- Claire Bubb, New York University
"A compelling, enriching, and original book. Webster transforms our understanding of the relationship between technology and corporeality in the ancient world and beyond." -- Rebecca Flemming, University of Exeter
"Tools and the Organism offers a fascinating, original, and persuasive account of how the concept of the organic body developed in feedback loops with the use of technology. Webster's analysis is admirably nuanced in its reading of ancient Greek medical and philosophical texts in their material environment. He also shows the significance of this early history to contemporary thinking about the organism." -- Brooke Holmes, Princeton University
Book Information
ISBN 9780226828770
Author Colin Webster
Format Hardback
Page Count 320
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 567g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 28mm
Medicine is itself a type of technology, involving therapeutic tools and substances, and so one can write the history of medicine as the application of different technologies to the human body. In Tools and the Organism, Colin Webster argues that, throughout antiquity, these tools were crucial to broader theoretical shifts. Notions changed about what type of object a body is, what substances constitute its essential nature, and how its parts interact. By following these changes and taking the question of technology into the heart of Greek and Roman medicine, Webster reveals how the body was first conceptualized as an "organism"-a functional object whose inner parts were tools, or organa, that each completed certain vital tasks. He also shows how different medical tools created different bodies.
Webster's approach provides both an overarching survey of the ways that technologies impacted notions of corporeality and corporeal behaviors and, at the same time, stays attentive to the specific material details of ancient tools and how they informed assumptions about somatic structures, substances, and inner processes. For example, by turning to developments in water-delivery technologies and pneumatic tools, we see how these changing material realities altered theories of the vascular system and respiration across Classical antiquity. Tools and the Organism makes the compelling case for why telling the history of ancient Greco-Roman medical theories, from the Hippocratics to Galen, should pay close attention to the question of technology.
About the Author
Colin Webster is assistant professor of classics at the University of California, Davis.
Reviews
"Webster offers a novel and sophisticated analysis of the debates found in ancient medical writers' works, with an argument grounded in the societies that produced the texts." * Choice *
"[Webster] ends by pointing out how successful the analogy with tools and mechanisms has been both in advancing understanding of how the body functions, and as a spur to inventing machines that would do the work of the body e.g. iron lungs. This book will appeal to the classicist interested in original sources and interpretation of the Greek, to the medical historian, and any doctor with an interest in medical history." * Classics for All *
"Tools and the Organism makes the novel and convincing argument that ancient Greek medical and philosophical conceptions of the body were influenced at a fundamental level by contemporary technologies. Webster's observations are fresh, creative, and insightful." -- Claire Bubb, New York University
"A compelling, enriching, and original book. Webster transforms our understanding of the relationship between technology and corporeality in the ancient world and beyond." -- Rebecca Flemming, University of Exeter
"Tools and the Organism offers a fascinating, original, and persuasive account of how the concept of the organic body developed in feedback loops with the use of technology. Webster's analysis is admirably nuanced in its reading of ancient Greek medical and philosophical texts in their material environment. He also shows the significance of this early history to contemporary thinking about the organism." -- Brooke Holmes, Princeton University
Book Information
ISBN 9780226828770
Author Colin Webster
Format Hardback
Page Count 320
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 567g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 28mm
