The Visible Human Project

The Visible Human Project is a critical investigation of the spectacular, three-dimensional recordings of real human bodies - dissected, photographed and converted into visual data files - made by the US National Library of Medicine in Baltimore. Catherine Waldby uses new ideas from cultural studies, science studies and social studies of the computer to situate the Visible Human Project in its historical and cultural context, and to consider the meanings such an object has within a computerised culture. In this fascinating and important book, Catherine Waldby explores how advances in medical technologies have changed the way we view and study the human body, and places the VHP within the history of technologies such as the X-ray and CT-scan, which allow us to view the human interior. Bringing together medical conceptions of the human body with theories of visual culture from Foucault to Donna Haraway, Waldby links the VHP to a range of other biomedical projects, such as the Human Genome Project and cloning, which approach living bodies as data sources. She argues that the VHP is an example of the increasingly blurred distinction between `living' and 'dead' human bodies, as the bodies it uses are digitally preserved as a resource for living bodies, and considers how computer-based biotechnologies affect both medical and non-medical meanings of the body's life and death, its location and its limits.

Originally published in hardcover in 2006.

The Visible Human Project is a critical investigation of the spectacular, three-dimensional recordings of real human bodies - dissected, photographed and converted into visual data files - made by the US National Library of Medicine in Baltimore. Catherine Waldby uses new ideas from cultural studies, science studies and social studies of the computer to situate the Visible Human Project in its historical and cultural context, and to consider the meanings such an object has within a computerised culture. In this fascinating and important book, Catherine Waldby explores how advances.

Featuring full color cross-sectional images from The Visible Human Pro ject, this new atlas is co-authored by a radiologist and includes orie ntation drawings with corresponding MRIs and CTs. Thus students can un derstand the relationship between anatomy and how it is represented in these imaging modalities. The text includes 100 full color tissue ima ges, 200 line drawings, and 200 magnetic resonance and computed tomogr aphy images. Images are labeled with numbers; the key is on a separate two-page spread to facilitate self-testing.

Presents anatomically exact, three-dimensional, computer-generated images of the human body, featuring both systemic and regional anatomy, and includes descriptive text, a glossary, and discussion of the history of anatomical illustration. Includes an interactive CD-ROM sampler.

Atlas of the Visible Human reference text completely catalogs the internal human male in a way never before possible. The latest in high-definition computers were used to compile cuts taken from one cadaver into three different perspectives: transverse, coronal, and sagittal. This text is an invaluable reference for professionals, students, and anyone interest in the fascinating detail of the human body.

Starting with the groundbreaking drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, this lavishly illustrated book chronicles the remarkable history of anatomical illustration from the Renaissance to the digital 'Visible Human' project today. Its survey of five and a half centuries of meticulous visual description by anatomists and artists will be a welcome addition to the libraries of artists, art students, doctors and anyone interested in the history of science.