This article attempts to relate 18th century European medical science, specifically the work of John Hunter, to social and cultural formation. The author asserts that Hunter’s medical physiology acted as a normalizing force in society, separating the “proper body” from the deviated or monstrous one. Instead of revering the strange and unordinary, Hunter’s work made deviation devoid of all meaning except for in it’s relation to the normal. With the establishment of a proper body, all bodies that do not conform to this are made wrong.
Aligning with the historical events and transitions of the time, monstrosity itself was suffering a change in definition through the scientific classification and dissection of bodies. The medical need to understand monstrosity made it less fearful and awe-inspiring; monstrosity became objectified. While alive, Byrne, as such a monstrous object, was an object with agency--he could choose when and to whom to show his “monstrosity”. After his death, his body became an object with no agency, subjected to the entitlement of the chirurgical fraternity simply by right of his monstrosity. This objectification in two different aspects measured monstrosity first by “social exceptionality” in life and then by “physical deformity” in death, transitioning both agency and social standing.
For the author, Hunter’s claims translate into the idea that if the body is disabled or “monstrous”, it does not matter in society. These bodies are simply relegated to metaphorical representations of deviations from proper society--objects to be manipulated, measured, and displayed. In addition, Huntarian physiology asserts that the individual parts of the body function only to support the mind.
The author draws a comparison from this tenant of anatomy to the social structures in England at the time, in that medical physiology legitimized the English working class. Later in the article, the author draws upon ideas from Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke to further exemplify the use of the body as a metaphor for society; the differences between the “proper body” and the deformed are used with comparative anatomy and functionalist physiology in order to express Paine and Burke’s opposing views on the new Republic of France during the Revolution and the monarchy of Britain.
Following along with the comparison between Hunter’s physiological laws and society, the author points out that Hunter’s idea that deviation has no effect upon the mind can be related to social reform. In a sense, Hunter’s work promotes the cultural idea that social reform is useless. Furthermore, Youngquist argues that dissection itself was used as a governmental policy of control and terror meant to repress the working class. Dissection worked to further establish the power structure that Hunter’s physiological tenants had already set up.
In the anecdote of Charles Byrne, the essay illustrates the profound effect objectification and dissection had on society as well as the personal effects it had on the individuals involved. It touches on how Byrne was violated as a person and driven into despair and death because of Hunter’s actions. The story easily captures an audience’s attention, and emotionally drives the arguement.
However, the strength of the article ends with the anecdote. It leaves its compelling narrative in favor of technical information that could have been summarized, and delves into a confusing analysis of Hunter’s work. While much of this information is important, the narrator’s prose is thick, just as the narrator criticized Hunter’s prose for. Furthermore, much of Youngquist’s diction is trade-based vocabulary, and some arguments seem unsupported or wander too far from subject. After Charles Byrne’s anecdote, the essay feels very weak.
-The article argues for the positive aspects of dissection of bodies in the name of science, and almost seems to condone Hunt’s anatomical exploitation. But the poems show a different side; what does this say about the objectification of bodies in regard to morality and spirituality, and does it seem as though the societal outcome is worth the moral sacrifice?
-Do the differing views of the poems and the article suggest a divide between those in the practice and those likely to become objectified?
-How do the moralistic and spiritual forms of monstrosity found in the poems, such as the 9th stanza of the Old Woman of Berkeley when she admits that she “rifled the dead man’s grave, compare against the physical forms of monstrosity outlined in the articles?
Overall, an excellent summary. You might reconsider whether Youngquist argues that “medical physiology legitimized the English working class”; Youngquist’s point is more that the English working class (or “underclass,” as he puts it) were aware of the power dynamics involved in dissection, and were thus aware of the way dissection disenfranchised them. As Youngquist puts it, dissection “was an instrument of power that advanced a knowledge to which they became materially subject” (16), by which he means that Hunter used dissected working class bodies to produce the idea of the proper body, which in turn became a standard of normalcy by which their bodies were judged and often deemed deviant or abnormal.
ReplyDelete