Question

How did William Harvey’s ideas about autopsies from the cultural of his time

Answer 1

Cultural views on autopsies during William Harvey's time were restrictive due to fears and legal and religious prohibitions. The Renaissance, with figures like Leonardo da Vinci and Andreas Vesalius, marked a shift towards scientific study of anatomy through dissection. The nineteenth century brought non-surgical methods to study the living body.

Step-by-step explanation:

The cultural views on autopsies during the time of William Harvey were substantially influenced by fears, legal restrictions, and the church's position on dissection. For centuries, the internal structures of the human body were studied minimally due to legal and religious sanctions against autopsies, as well as the practical challenges of controlling bleeding, infection, and pain during surgery. However, the cultural attitudes began to change during the Renaissance, particularly in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, marked by the detailed anatomical drawings of Leonardo da Vinci and Andreas Vesalius.

Their work sparked increased interest in human anatomy, leading to medical schools teaching anatomy through human dissection. Despite the taboo, anatomy became a recognized field of study, partly due to the practice of dissecting the corpses of criminals and the deceased who donated their bodies for research. It was not until the late nineteenth century that medical researchers discovered non-surgical methods such as X-Rays to look inside the living body, marking a significant progression from the earlier reliance on autopsies.

Answer 2

William Harvey Discoverer of the mechanisms that circulate blood inside the body, Harvey knew that all secrets end up being revealed. I also knew that beauty sometimes takes strange forms, which frequently takes the form of viscera and maps, of the bodies that inhabit the bottom of the ponds and of those who travel the roads tirelessly until they reach cities of languages ​​and customs foreign. Harvey had dissected hundreds of animals until he managed to establish the theory that the heart was the organ responsible for driving blood inside veins and arteries, but his theory was not complete. He knew that in the human body the process was the same, but he needed to prove it. In seventeenth-century England, autopsies were prohibited. They altered the order of things, the natural law that established that the viscera should remain inside the bodies, which should not be revealed in the eyes of men. But the practice of medicine required corpses, and students and doctors robbed them of cemeteries when night fell. All except Harvey, who hated digging in the earth, dragging bodies in the middle of the shadows, manipulating unknown corpses. When he finally managed to prove his theory, he did it with some bodies that he did not need to steal from a cemetery: he carried out with his own hands the autopsy of his father and his sister. Beauty sometimes takes strange forms.