Through science, humans have been able to study and learn about the world we live in and what we are made of. One subject that has drawn interest all along human history has been the human body. Science has given humans the opportunity to understand how the body functions. Regardless of the studies that have been made throughout history, scientists keep learning new information about this organ now at days.
We certainly know that the skin surrounds our whole body, is thin but strong, and it’s main function is to protect everything that lies beneath it. This information has been tested and proven, but we wonder about earlier civilizations and the data they had about this organ back then. In this essay we will expose how the skin was seen during three different, but transcendent periods during history:
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During the nineteenth century in the American continent, profound changes took place in perceptions of the human body and its boundaries. There were two approaches to skin in this period: the medical perception and the psychological perception. The medical perception described skin as a membrane for the exchange of fluids, while the psychological perception described this organ as an interface that transmits information from inside to outside, like a mediator. An unknown disease called Yellow Fever erupted; it received this name because it turned the skin a yellowish color. Vaccines were created to help prevent this disease, so people wouldn’t die from it. Artists during this period gave an important representation to skin in their paintings. They emphasized its contour and its surface in order to demonstrate its importance and that is a clear example of how important and relevant was this organ in that period’s society. Returning to the study of the skin in The French Revolution, being something new for scientists, we could notice it was more focused on the medical field. Surgeries were popular and their techniques such as cesarean sections, replacement of tissues, and removal of organs, were constantly improved. The prevention of infection after surgery were accomplished when surgeons began to wash their hands very well before the operation, wore surgical gowns, gloves, and masks and sterilized instruments used during surgery. T.G. Morton discovered the use of inhaled ether as a surgical anesthetic and published “The Historical Memoranda Relative to the Discovery of Etherization”. By the end of The Industrial Revolution there was a great amount of things that were known and understood about science because people were more interested in it and technological advances helped inventions to be achieved. Galvanized things were now something that a lot of people believed in, and later on it would be more common thanks to Frankenstein and the first electric battery. The pictures that are shown, are drawings made by Andreas Vesalius and other scientist during the earlier periods.