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Surgery
Published in Michael Stolberg, Gabrielle Falloppia, 1522/23–1562, 2023
The treatment of ulcers followed three indications: (1) drying and/or evacuating the corrosive humor, (2) tightening and strengthening the affected part, and (3) fighting the cause of the humoral flux into it. Among the remedies that could be used, Falloppia recommended in particular, waters that contained alum, like those in Abano. They had a drying, cleansing, and repelling effect when the ulcers were washed with them and could also be prepared artificially. In some cases, it was moreover necessary to promote the regeneration of flesh and skin.31
Ancient Egypt
Published in Scott M. Jackson, Skin Disease and the History of Dermatology, 2023
The Egyptian swnw left his mark on the history of medicine and, in some minor ways, on the history of dermatology. Several informative documents, such as the medical papyri, as well as human remains enable us to identify disease “in the flesh” from their era. The Egyptians did have a name for the skin—inm—but they lacked a detailed nomenclature for skin diseases comparable to the one developed by the Mesopotamians. Personal hygiene was crucial to the ancient Egyptian as were esthetics and cosmetics. While there seemed to be specialists in virtually every field but dermatology, skin disease was on the mind of the general swnw, and almost 20 percent of the most famous Egyptian medical papyrus, the Ebers, was devoted to skin disease. The Egyptians saw the skin as a reflection of internal health, particularly in the case of inflammatory skin diseases and itching. Many of the therapeutic interventions of the swnw, such as purgation, influenced the Greeks, Romans, and beyond. Although the papyri contain glimpses of a preference for a natural view of disease and its treatment, Egyptian medicine could not shed its supernatural influences.
Anatomy and surgery
Published in Vivienne Lo, Michael Stanley-Baker, Dolly Yang, Routledge Handbook of Chinese Medicine, 2022
Li Jianmin 李建民, Michael Stanley-Baker, Vivienne Lo
The understanding of muscular flesh as it is explained in the Inner Canon is that it is responsible for bodily movement. The Taiyin yangming lun pian 太陰陽明論篇 (On the theory of Taiyin and Yangming) treatise of the Suwen 素問 describes the relationship between movement and human bodily fluids as follows: All the four limbs are supplied with qi by the stomach, yet it doesn’t [thereby] get to the channels; the necessary factor in the supply is the spleen. Now, if the spleen is sick and is unable to move the fluids for the stomach and the four limbs are not supplied with the qi of water and grain, the qi weakens by the day; the channel paths do not connect up; the sinews and the bones, the muscles and the flesh, none of them has qi to survive. So, from this they no longer function.2
Reconfiguring Health: The Importance of Recognizing Embodied Subjectivity and Social Dynamics in Health
Published in The American Journal of Bioethics, 2023
For many years, health research has upheld Cartesian dualism, which separates the mind from the body and individuals from their contexts. However a more ecological perspective rooted in the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty has emerged recently, emphasizing the interconnectedness of health and its systems (Gómez-Carrillo et al. 2023). His concept of Flesh challenges dualism by emphasizing the most subjective aspect of our experience of the world. Our flesh is the medium through which we perceive and interact with the world, and it is intersubjectively shared. Therefore, it breaks down the dualism between subject and object and the mind-body dichotomy that has long been promoted in health research. We perceive ourselves from within and may experience ourselves as invisible. However, when others view us from the outside, we become real and visible. This phenomenology of recognition (Benjamin 2018) is the essence of our being in the world. Still, these processes are shaped by cultural practices of representation, voicing and silencing of perspectives, and, as Ferryman convincingly argues, by practices of Hypervisibilization and Invisibilization.
Mpox: epidemiology, clinical manifestations and recent developments in treatment and prevention
Published in Expert Review of Anti-infective Therapy, 2023
Nikil Selvaraj, Shreya Shyam, Puvin Dhurairaj, Kaviarasan Thiruselvan, Akil Thiruselvan, Yochana Kancherla, Pritika Kandamaran
Individual patient and caregiver factors, such as the patient’s course of illness, the extent and location of lesions, the ability to cover lesions, and the risk to caregivers, should be taken into account when developing isolation and infection control procedures for children hospitalized with suspected or confirmed Mpox or admitted with exposure to Mpox. The transmission of the Mpox virus to other people can be stopped by isolation and infection control measures. Children with immune-compromising diseases should be especially careful to avoid close contact with those who have Mpox. When socializing with family members who have Mpox, children above the age of two should wear a well-fitting mask or respirator, if possible. If a child or teen has Mpox, they should stay away from uninfected people and animals until the rash clears up, the scabs come off, and a new layer of healthy skin forms. When feasible, keep the number of caregivers to one, whether the patient is at home or in the hospital. In order to prevent direct skin-to-flesh contact with the rash, caregivers should cover any areas of injured skin with bandages as much as possible. Children with Mpox over the age of two should wherever feasible, engage with caregivers while wearing a well-fitting source control (such as a surgical mask). To prevent infection, caregivers should use gloves while helping to change bandages or clothing that covers the rash. After use, gloves should be thrown away, then hands should be washed [33] (Figure 6).
Black Flesh Matters! The Human Stakes of BLM and Rethinking the Psychoanalytic Subject
Published in Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 2021
Epistemologically, then, Vesalius’s work can be seen as a transitional phase in the movement of the European view of the human body from that of a fluid interior to a hardened exterior that barely carries any connotations of the bodily at all. While for the early anatomists “the actuality of the skin may have been invisible,” this was due to their focus on “the flesh beneath the skin” (Connor, 2004, p. 15). The flesh was the site of a grotesque body that exceeded the closed, smooth regions of the body’s surface. The grotesque body is made up of “execrescences and orifices,” and “the boundaries between body and world and those between individual bodies are much less differentiated” (Benthien, 2004, p. 89). The new aesthetic evident in Vesalius’s anatomical drawings prefigures and parallels an emergent western European discourse of and attitude toward the embodied self. Vesalius depicted a body in the process of hardening over, a muscular layer protecting the (masculine) subject from anything too internally grotesque.