"Scientific Peep Show" The Human Body in Contemporary Science Museums

Nuncius ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Canadelli

AbstractThe essay focuses on the discourse about the human body developed by contemporary science museums with educational and instructive purposes directed at the general public. These museums aim mostly at mediating concepts such as health and prevention. The current scenario is linked with two examples of past museums: the popular anatomical museums which emerged during the 19th century and the health museums thrived between 1910 and 1940. On the museological path about the human body self-care we went from the emotionally involving anatomical Venuses to the inexpressive Transparent Man, from anatomical specimens of ill organs and deformed subjects to the mechanical and electronic models of the healthy body. Today the body is made transparent by the new medical diagnostics and by the latest discoveries of endoscopy. The way museums and science centers presently display the human body involves computers, 3D animation, digital technologies, hands-on models of large size human parts.

Paragrana ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 221-239
Author(s):  
S. Simon John

AbstractThe socio-cultural construction of human body differs from the biological construction, and the body is seen as an existential basis of human interaction within given social, cultural, political and environmental conditions. Human body is not only an organic object but also a cultural object and it is constantly being altered by natural and cultural process. Every folk society has its own traditional understanding of the concepts of 'body′, 'self′, 'soul′ and 'agency′ and several rituals are performed in order to heal, purify and transform the body. Rituals are one mode of cultural praxis through which bodies, knowledge, powers, agency and selves have been repositioned through practice. This study is an effort to understand the socio- cultural construction of human body with special reference to 'rituals′ that are performed in folk religious practices in Tamil Nadu, South India. How human body is culturally professed, purified, transformed and healed through rituals is the important subject matter of this paper.


Author(s):  
Patil Dhanashri ◽  
H. Pampanngouda ◽  
Patil N. J. ◽  
Umapati Baragi

The human body it has been composed of Doshas, Dhatus and Malas. For the maintenance of life these three plays an important role. Among these Dhatus has its main function in structuring the body and supports the body. The food material is first broken down and converted into an assimlable form called Aahararasa. This Aahararasa is then absorbed in the body and the Dosha, Dhatu, Mala are refurbished from it. The production of Dosha, Dhatu and Mala from Aahararasa takes place at micro level and can only be inferred from logical inferences. The Food substances undergo metabolic transformation by the effect of Jatharagni, Bhutagni and Dhatwagni. After this process the Paaka of the food occurs and it nourishes the Dhatus. This process of digestion at Micro level is called as Dhatuparinama. The metabolic transformation of food which is explained in contemporary science; it is also explained in Ayurveda. Acharaya Charaka explains ‘Dhatavo hi dhatvahara’ it means that the Dhatu produced by assimilating the food material i.e. Aahara Rasa is in itself the diet of different Dhatus and hence is responsible to maintain them in a healthy state.


Physiotherapy ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Dobrowolski

AbstractSince the second half of the 19th century, the notion of beauty has been gradually losing its classical meaning. More and more often, our aesthetic tastes are met by that which is violent and based on creaking dissonances. Similarly, the body of a contemporary human is perceived today in a different way than it was in ancient Rome or Greece. The attractiveness of body depends now to a lesser extent than then on the arrangement of its build, appearance, and function into a harmonious whole, reflecting the idealized world of nature. The sentimentalism of the beautiful is being replaced by the aesthetics of functional machinery, and what was until recently rejected with disgust begins to be considered desirable. Not condemning all these occurrences in advance, it is worth considering if this re-aesthetization of human body is beneficial to the humanity.


2019 ◽  
pp. 3-13
Author(s):  
Alexandru Cîtea ◽  
George-Sebastian Iacob

Posture is commonly perceived as the relationship between the segments of the human body upright. Certain parts of the body such as the cephalic extremity, neck, torso, upper and lower limbs are involved in the final posture of the body. Musculoskeletal instabilities and reduced postural control lead to the installation of nonstructural posture deviations in all 3 anatomical planes. When we talk about the sagittal plane, it was concluded that there are 4 main types of posture deviation: hyperlordotic posture, kyphotic posture, rectitude and "sway-back" posture.Pilates method has become in the last decade a much more popular formof exercise used in rehabilitation. The Pilates method is frequently prescribed to people with low back pain due to their orientation on the stabilizing muscles of the pelvis. Pilates exercise is thus theorized to help reactivate the muscles and, by doingso, increases lumbar support, reduces pain, and improves body alignment.


Humaniora ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-90
Author(s):  
Anak Agung Ayu Wulandari ◽  
Ade Ariyani Sari Fajarwati

The research would look further at the representation of the human body in both Balinese and Javanese traditional houses and compared the function and meaning of each part. To achieve the research aim, which was to evaluate and compare the representation of the human body in Javanese and Balinese traditional houses, a qualitative method through literature and descriptive analysis study was conducted. A comparative study approach would be used with an in-depth comparative study. It would revealed not only the similarities but also the differences between both subjects. The research shows that both traditional houses represent the human body in their way. From the architectural drawing top to bottom, both houses show the same structure that is identical to the human body; head at the top, followed by the body, and feet at the bottom. However, the comparative study shows that each area represents a different meaning. The circulation of the house is also different, while the Balinese house is started with feet and continued to body and head area. Simultaneously, the Javanese house is started with the head, then continued to body, and feet area.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1354067X2110040
Author(s):  
Josefine Dilling ◽  
Anders Petersen

In this article, we argue that certain behaviour connected to the attempt to attain contemporary female body ideals in Denmark can be understood as an act of achievement and, thus, as an embodiment of the culture of achievement, as it is characterised in Præstationssamfundet, written by the Danish sociologist Anders Petersen (2016) Hans Reitzels Forlag . Arguing from cultural psychological and sociological standpoints, this article examines how the human body functions as a mediational tool in different ways from which the individual communicates both moral and aesthetic sociocultural ideals and values. Complex processes of embodiment, we argue, can be described with different levels of internalisation, externalisation and materialisation, where the body functions as a central mediator. Analysing the findings from a qualitative experimental study on contemporary body ideals carried out by the Danish psychologists Josefine Dilling and Maja Trillingsgaard, this article seeks to anchor such theoretical claims in central empirical findings. The main conclusions from the study are used to structure the article and build arguments on how expectations and ideals expressed in an achievement society become embodied.


2021 ◽  
pp. 095715582110259
Author(s):  
Caroline D. Laurent

In recent Franco-Vietnamese literature written by descendants of immigrants, the liminality of exile is portrayed in all its complexity through migrant bodies – that of parents’ bodies – and through political and social bodies – linked to History and the Việt Kiều’s positionality in French society. The experience of external movement becomes an internal one, creating porosity between the outside and the body, self and others, places and times. This article argues that, in Minh Tran Huy’s Voyageur malgré lui and Doan Bui’s Le Silence de mon père, by representing their family’s migration, both authors present the silenced histories of the Vietnamese community in France. In order to do so, Tran Huy and Bui first focus on uncovering and writing the stories of their silent fathers: through their embodiment of exilic history, the fathers transmit the wound of their immigrant condition to their daughters. Consequently, daughters come to manifest similar bodily expressions of traumas they have not experienced and know little about. The fathers’ histories are eventually voiced and re-invested by the second generation. This shows how the unearthing of their fathers’ life stories is also about reappropriating a dual identity as well as making Asian diasporic perspectives and histories visible, notably to create new avenues of representation for French individuals of Asian descent.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayukh Nath ◽  
Shovan Maity ◽  
Shitij Avlani ◽  
Scott Weigand ◽  
Shreyas Sen

AbstractRadiative communication using electromagnetic fields is the backbone of today’s wirelessly connected world, which implies that the physical signals are available for malicious interceptors to snoop within a 5–10 m distance, also increasing interference and reducing channel capacity. Recently, Electro-quasistatic Human Body Communication (EQS-HBC) was demonstrated which utilizes the human body’s conductive properties to communicate without radiating the signals outside the body. Previous experiments showed that an attack with an antenna was unsuccessful at a distance more than 1 cm from the body surface and 15 cm from an EQS-HBC device. However, since this is a new communication modality, it calls for an investigation of new attack modalities—that can potentially exploit the physics utilized in EQS-HBC to break the system. In this study, we present a novel attack method for EQS-HBC devices, using the body of the attacker itself as a coupling surface and capacitive inter-body coupling between the user and the attacker. We develop theoretical understanding backed by experimental results for inter-body coupling, as a function of distance between the subjects. We utilize this newly developed understanding to design EQS-HBC transmitters that minimizes the attack distance through inter-body coupling, as well as the interference among multiple EQS-HBC users due to inter-body coupling. This understanding will allow us to develop more secure and robust EQS-HBC based body area networks in the future.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 1431
Author(s):  
Ilkyu Kim ◽  
Sun-Gyu Lee ◽  
Yong-Hyun Nam ◽  
Jeong-Hae Lee

The development of biomedical devices benefits patients by offering real-time healthcare. In particular, pacemakers have gained a great deal of attention because they offer opportunities for monitoring the patient’s vitals and biological statics in real time. One of the important factors in realizing real-time body-centric sensing is to establish a robust wireless communication link among the medical devices. In this paper, radio transmission and the optimal characteristics for impedance matching the medical telemetry of an implant are investigated. For radio transmission, an integral coupling formula based on 3D vector far-field patterns was firstly applied to compute the antenna coupling between two antennas placed inside and outside of the body. The formula provides the capability for computing the antenna coupling in the near-field and far-field region. In order to include the effects of human implantation, the far-field pattern was characterized taking into account a sphere enclosing an antenna made of human tissue. Furthermore, the characteristics of impedance matching inside the human body were studied by means of inherent wave impedances of electrical and magnetic dipoles. Here, we demonstrate that the implantation of a magnetic dipole is advantageous because it provides similar impedance characteristics to those of the human body.


Nuncius ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-49
Author(s):  
Dario De Santis

AbstractThe scientific debate which developed during the eighteenth century, proposed and diffused new theories on the generation not only within the scientific community. Microscopic investigation and various experimental campaigns fostered daring models attempting to unveil the natural phenomena from which life originates. Besides the famous scientific and philosophical works that marked the age, in the second part of the century two pamphlets appeared that well represent the importance of the querelle about embryological systems defining the concept of generation as a voyage within the human body. Lucina sine concubitu and Juno abortans, respectively published in England and in Germany between 1750 and 1760, narrate the odd and imaginary adventures of two doctors who are trying to interrupt and modify the embryos' journey towards the body of the mother.


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