Week 4: Medicine + Technology + Art
Humans have been cutting open bodies since almost the beginning of history (Vesna Week 4 Lecture, Part 1 ). Scientists used to cut sections of cadavers and photograph them (see below) until the 20 th century brought new technologies to help us look inside bodies without cutting them open. Scientist preparing to photograph transverse section of human head (Vesna Week 4, Part 1 ) Two familiar methods of looking inside the body without cutting it open are the x-ray and the MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) which was invented by Raymond Vahan Damadian. Dr. Damadian became his own first MRI patient because nobody else was willing to get inside the MRI. However, when he got into the machine it didn’t work and the reason turned out to be that he was too big, so a student had to get in instead. As stated by Silvia Casini in her article, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) as Mirror and Portrait: MRI Configurations between Science and the Arts , “magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and its f...


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