Week 4: Medicine, Technology, and Art

 Of all the material we have covered thus far, this week's material—which focused on medicine, technology, and art—truly helped me realize how far we as a society have pushed apart that which we consider science and that which we consider art. However, to come to this conclusion I first had to learn just how much the arts, medicine, and technology have helped one another progress. 

The first topic that helped me understand this relationship was the influence Leonardo da Vinci had on our understanding of anatomy. According to Professor Vesna, da Vinci performed private studies where he dissected human bodies which allowed him to create detailed, anatomical, drawings. According to art critic and journalist, Alastair Sooke, da Vinci opened more than 30 corpses and produced important discoveries such as the first accurate depiction of the human spine, and incredible depictions of the human heart—particularly his observations about the aortic valve. In doing so, he made a significant contribution to the social acceptance of the study of the human body.  

Capturing images of the human body then became much more technologically advances with the medical community later utilizing tools such as x-rays discovered by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, computed axial tomography scans, and magnetic resonance imaging invented by Raymond Vahan Damadian.

Another interesting way in which the arts have helped progress medicine is through the Hippocratic Oath. According to Peter Tyson's article "The Hippocratic Oath Today", the classical version of the Hippocratic Oath has physicians vow to "neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it ... {nor} give to a woman an abortive remedy". This vow, which is incredibly problematic as it encourages medical professionals to act as if their expertise gives them the right to exercise their will on someone else, could not have developed into the modern versions without the study of arts and humanities. Rachel Hajar also found that teaching the arts to medical students helps shrpen their observational skills and helps them become more empathetic thus allowing them to understand their patients better. 

Works Cited 

Hajar, Rachel. “What has Art to do with Medicine?” NCBI, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5965014/. Accessed 21 April 2022.

Sooke, Alastair. “Leonardo da Vinci's groundbreaking anatomical sketches.” BBC, 28 August 2013, https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20130828-leonardo-da-vinci-the-anatomist. Accessed 21 April 2022.

Tyson, Peter. “The Hippocratic Oath Today | NOVA.” PBS, 26 March 2001, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/hippocratic-oath-today/. Accessed 21 April 2022.

Vesna, Victoria. “Human Body & Medical Technologies.”

Vesna, Victoria. "Human Body & Medical Technologies part 2".

Work Cited (Images)

Sooke, Alastair. “Leonardo da Vinci's groundbreaking anatomical sketches.” BBC, 28 August 2013, https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20130828-leonardo-da-vinci-the-anatomist. Accessed 21 April 2022.

“What's the difference between all the different head scans (X-Ray, CT, MRI, MRA, PET scan)?” San Diego Brain Injury Foundation, 5 February 2020, https://sdbif.org/index/whats-the-difference-between-all-the-different-head-scans/. Accessed 21 April 2022.