The body

Abstract

“The body” is in trouble. The category that we used to accept as certain has become exceedingly problematic, at least among academics. Along with “soul” and “mind”, it is now couched in inverted commas or hyphenated by a range of specialisms focusing on its use and performance throughout history. Such notions as body-politics, body-theory, and body-fascism reflect increased awareness of the body as a cultural construct, rather than a biological constant. Yet while body concepts have exploded in scholarly discourse, the functional use of the term has arguably narrowed in medical practice. In the early modern medical tradition derived from Galen and Hippocrates, a physician's response to illness was centred on the patient rather than the disease. Sickness was a product of an individual's humoral imbalance. Since this condition could derive from material, spiritual, or psychological influence, cures were effected through the mutual treatment of mind and body. In the dualistic age of modern medicine, mind and body are less frequently regarded in such holistic terms. In conventional western medicine, the body (living or dead) has instead come to denote the physical structure that serves as a tangible marker of individual identity. As a composite of bones, flesh, and organs, the body of the patient no longer carries the spiritual or psychological weighting that it did in the 17th and 18th centuries. While philosophers and clerics wrestle over our souls, physicians and surgeons deal with the body as a material unit in need of alteration, repair, or healing. This does not mean that the material medical body carries no ethical loading. Ownership of bodies alive or dead has become a heated political issue, as shown by the debates over abortion, female circumcision, artificial feeding, childbirth, tissue transplantation, and organ donation. Although in western nations a patient's right to autonomy is usually assured, events such as the scandal about retained organs at the UK's Alder Hey Children's Hospital or the creation of hybrid embryos remind us that the body is not a given, but an active space for conflicts over the rights and responsibilities of individuals and the medical profession. Today's political and ethical disputes over ownership and control of the body render it as troublesome now as it ever was.