GALEN'S ANATOMICAL PERFORMANCES

When Galen invites us to visualise the thorax as a geographical formation, he represents the body as a world of knowledge, and presents himself as its periegete. The body is a metaphor for the world. Marcus Aurelius, for example, Galen's own emperor, saw the whole order of creation as a body: he compares the selfish and wilful man, who has cut himself off from the unity of nature, to a severed hand or foot or head, lying apart from the rest of the body to which it belongs. The intact body is a powerful symbol of organic unity and, at least to the ancients, the smooth functioning of its component parts under central direction was a figure for the smooth functioning of a hierarchical society. Conversely, the body that has been marked or mutilated, whose interior has been exteriorised and laid open to public view, was a symbol of disturbing resonance and enduring fascination.