ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the ways in which the human body has been represented and constructed in biological science and medicine, primarily from the nineteenth century onwards, in Europe and North America, and the implications of this for notions of what constitute normalcy and deviance, and how these notions became important in politics, colonialism and criminology. The texts examined here include those by some of the most influential authors/scientists of the time, including Charles Darwin, Louis Aggasiz and Henry Havelock Ellis. It also considers the pioneering medical textbook, a bestseller since its first publication, Anatomy Descriptive and Surgical, by Henry Gray and Henry Vandyke Carter, better known as Gray’s Anatomy.
