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Microscopic Imaging and Depiction of the Invisible Body
This increase of the knowledge of the pathological mechanism of disease has caused a shift society in the way we conventionalize and diagnose diseases. In the past a disease, such as influenza, was recognized and diagnosed via the symptoms that it produced. It was common knowledge that winter was flu season so if someone had some combination of a fever, chills, sore throat, cough, and was feeling fatigued then it was assumed that, that individual had the flu and was to be treated as such. However, even though it was known the person had the flu the common person was not able to conceptualize what was happening within the body – the person was just sick. With the help of electron microscopes the common person can nownjecting its DNA, and creating more virons. Disease can now be visualized as a type of warfare occurring in the body as the virus hijacks the cells and the immune system cells arrive to fight and kill infected cells.
In addition to microscopes giving humans a look into the microscopic environment within our own bodies the invention of sophisticated imagining techniques such as x-rays has allowed us to better understand However, a by-product of this advancement, just as there was a by-product of the invention of the microscope, is that x-ray is now heavily relied on as a means to prove things which are beyond the capabilities of these imagine techniques. As is written by Tal Golan in his paper The Emergence of the Silent Witness the x-ray, when first discovered, was viewed by many doctors as “more of an interesting toy than a weapon of value in medicine” and preferred to stick to usual methods of manually probing injuries to determine the location of the bone beneath. (Tal, 472) The reason this was the view at the time was because of the limitations that the x-ray had such as finding the correct “hardness” of the x-ray to produce a clear image at the right level within the body. Additionally, there was the issue of interpreting what was being seen in the image produced (Tal 473). As time went on and professionals gained better understanding of the x-ray and thus increased its use other problems arose. One of the main problems was its use in legal cases as empirical evidence. X-rays suffer from the same problems as regular photography in this sense; while they do show what is really there, the context and information given surrounding the x-ray can result in different conclusions being drawn especially when added in a jury or persons who didn’t fully understand what they were viewing. As written by Howard Pirie, M.D. in his essay The Value of X-ray Diagnosis in Medico-Legal Cases, he states that before giving an opinion in a case a “point to be considered is x-ray evidence is only part evidence. The complete physical and symptomatic evidence and history make up of the individual is essential to a complete understanding” (Howard, 723). Too often are unfamiliar peoples with technology swayed by the use of a visual image of a thing, as it is often taken as an undeniable truth.
One of the leaders in the use of photography as a means to map the microscopic landscapes of the body was Lennart Nilsson. Nilsson was famous for using a microscopic camera to capture many different part of the body in various stages of existence. Nilsson is best known for his work of photographing embryos and fetuses at various stages of their development inside the mother’s womb (Julich, 500). He published many collection of images with various titles such as The Body Victorious – which depicted the response of the body’s immune system when a foreign antigen such as a virus or bacterial enter the body, The Incrediable Machine – which shows a variety of images of the body doing different thing, and look also explores human DNA and stem cells. While many of the images in these collections are breathtaking they too have the similar result of being taken and used for other purposes (Robert, NYT). Most notoriously for Nilsson is that his images are often used by pro-life advocates in arguing that a fetus at a certain stage of life is autonomous and has rights as a human being, rights which some argue outweigh the rights of the carrying mother. The reason Nilssons images can be such a powerful tool for use of pro-life advocates is that they often clearly show a fetus and only a fetus. Showing only the fetus without their dependence on the mother and the mother’s body for development and survival elicits a sense that the fetus has autonomy (Julich, 510).
Overall the use of photography to bring the invisible, inside world which lays within humans bodies has had profound impacts on general culture and life. Its ability to show what is within and brings any imagination and uncertainty out of the question results in many, often unexpected consequences.
