The human body is the battleground where our most fundamental ideas about the way the world is come into sharp focus.

When we think and talk about the body, we are suddenly very aware of that pattern of thinking which frames concepts in opposition, divides the world up between dark and light, material and immaterial, technology and humanity, invisible and visible, mind and body, body and soul.

In this ten part series, academic and broadcaster Professor Alice Roberts traces how human knowledge of anatomy has grown and changed over time, and how this changing understanding has in turn affected our understanding of who we are.

Episode 9: Dutch Still Life - the theatre of anatomy

Art, literature and science in 17th century Holland shared a fascination with death – and overlapped each other in macabre ways as they explored their subject. Dutch anatomists made great discoveries both about the structure of the body and how to preserve and prepare corpses for dissection. But they also created what today we'd call artistic installations. Some turned their dissection theatres into museums of curiosities open to the public, others took preserved body parts to create creepy scenes – a boy's foot stamping on the guts of a girl who had died, a fetal head resting on a pillow of placenta. Professor Alice Roberts explores this intriguing turn of events in the history of anatomy.

Presenter: Professor Alice Roberts
Actor: Jonathan Kydd

A Made in Manchester production for BBC Radio 4 Show less