Imaging the Human Body: Quasi Objects, Quasi Texts, and the Theater of Proof

Author(s): T. Hugh Crawford

Source: PMLA, Vol. 111, No. 1, Special Topic: The Status of Evidence (Jan., 1996), pp. 66-79
Published by: Modern Language Association
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Imaging the Human
Quasi Objects, Quasi
and the Theater of Proof
T HUGH CRAWFORDis as-
sociate professor of American
literature and director of the
Officeof GeneralEducationand
InterdisciplinaryStudies at Vir-
ginia MilitaryInstitute.The au-
thor of Modernism, Medicine,
and William Carlos Williams
(U of OklahomaP, 1993), he is
working on a book entitled Re-
thinkingAgency: Melville, Fou-
cault, Latour.
66
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T.Hugh Crawford
Body:
Texts,
Give me the ocular proof
Or by the worth of man's eternal soul,
Thouhadst been better have been born a dog .. !
William Shakespeare,Othello
Elections, mass demonstrations,books, miracles, viscera laid open on the altar,
viscera laid out on the operatingtable,figures, diagramsand plans, cries, mon-
sters, exhibitions at the pillory-everything has been tried somewhere at one
time or another in an attemptto offerproof
Bruno Latour
N DON DELILLO'S White Noise after Jack Gladney-Hitler
scholar, academic entrepreneur, and emerging paranoid-is ex-
posed to hazardous chemicals, he visits a state-of-the-art medical facil-
ity to learn the truth of his disease: "They inserted me in an imaging
block, some kind of computerized scanner. Someone sat typing at a
console, transmitting a message to the machine that would make my
body transparent. I heard magnetic winds, saw flashes of northern light"
(276). Jack never examines the results of these tests; he never sees his
own body rendered transparent by cybermedical-imaging devices. In-
stead, he evades the information produced by that technology and, by
the end of the novel, slips into anonymity: "Dr. Chakravarty . . . wants
to insert me once more in the imaging block, where charged particles
collide, high winds blow. But I am afraid of the imaging block. Afraid
of its magnetic fields, its computerized nuclear pulse. Afraid of what it
knows about me" (325). Jack fears the strange knowledge produced by
machines that penetrate the inner recesses of the human body, that can,
through magnetic fields and microchips, make the hidden visible.
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 T Hugh Crawford
In the field of medical imaging, theories, tech-
niques, and rhetorics converge to produce knowl-
edge. Historical taboo and cultural belief in the
fragilityof life have protectedthe interiorof the hu-
man body from scientists' prying eyes. However,
in the modernperiod (datingroughlyfrom Andreas
Vesalius's first public anatomiesin 1540), the pro-
ductionof medical knowledge has dependedon the
exposure of physical detail. In a pioneering study
on the developmentof the concept of syphilis, Lud-
wik Fleck notes, "Observationand experimentare
subjectto a very popularmyth.The knower is seen
as a kind of conqueror,like Julius Caesarwinning
his battles accordingto the formula 'I came, I saw,
I conquered.'A person wants to know something,
so he makes his observationor experimentand then
he knows" (84).' Fleck challenges this formula, as
does Bruno Latour,whose ideas problematize the
rhetoricof objectivity used to produce knowledge
of the human body. Latour's critique can be ex-
tended to texts that represent the human body
througha mix of images, words, and measurements
in an attemptto chartand,by implication,to master
biological functions. To illuminate strategies used
to develop convincing accounts of usually hidden
biological processes, I examine three such texts:
Vesalius's De Humani Corporis Fabrica, William
Beaumont's studies of digestive physiology, and
Wilhelm ConradRontgen's "PreliminaryCommu-
nication: On a New Kind of Rays." This seems a
rathereclectic list, but I have chosen these works
because each authormade significantcontributions
to knowledge of the human body, defined a set of
proceduresand methods and a rhetoricfor produc-
ing such knowledge, and created texts and images
that circulated well beyond the walls of his own
laboratory. I then analyze an advertisement for
a contemporary medical-imaging device that, by
foregrounding the superimposition of diagnostic
data, provides a useful counterexampleto the care-
fully constructedobjectivity of the earliertexts.
One of the most compelling formulationsin con-
temporarystudies of scientific evidence is Latour's
theaterof proof, a physical space where the objects
of science are said to be freed from rhetoricaldis-
tortions, faulty vision, and the inadequaciesof the
"lesser"senses. Latourarguesthateven thoughthey
are not simply social constructs, objects produced
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67
by the theaterof proof are far from natural.Rather,
evidence revealed by the careful staging of scien-
tific proof lies at the intersection of many histori-
cally constitutednetworksof truthproduction.The
material objects unveiled in this public space are,
to use a term Latourborrows from Michel Serres,
quasi objects-hybrids that participatein both nat-
ural and social realms by circulating, sometimes
unnoticed, in networks that are also both natural
and social (Latour,We51-55). As an example La-
tour notes that the hole in the ozone layer is both a
naturaland a social construction. It is a meteoro-
logical phenomenonthathas been producedin part
by human society; it has both natural and social
implications; and knowledge of it as a phenome-
non dependson a rangeof sociotechnologicalprac-
tices. Without adopting a facile realist position,
Latour insists that studies of science should con-
front knowledge that is not simply textual. He
points toward an emerging attempt to theorize
forms of evidence that do not lend themselves ex-
clusively to a hermeneuticsof textualanalysis.This
trendis in many ways a response to the textualiza-
tion of knowledge that has gained ascendancy in
the academy in the past several decades, and it is
directly tied to an increasing emphasis in cultural
analysis on the image, table, photograph,and film
and on the physical presentation of material ob-
jects as means of producingknowledge.2
In a study of nineteenth-centuryFrenchsanitary
science, Latourdescribes the operationof the the-
ater of proof. He argues that Louis Pasteurdevel-
oped the power to define objectivity, standardsof
practice,and mechanismsof measurementby stag-
ing highly controlled"miracles":
Havingcapturedthe attentionof othersin the only
placewherehe knewthathe wasthestrongest, Pasteur
inventedsuchdramatized experimentsthatthe spec-
tatorscouldsee the phenomenahe was describingin
blackand white. Nobodyreallyknew whatan epi-
demicwas;to acquiresuchknowledgerequireda dif-
ficultstatisticalknowledgeandlongexperience.But
the differentialdeaththatstrucka crowdof chickens
in the laboratorywas somethingthatcouldbe seen
"as in broaddaylight." (Pasteurization85)
Pasteur's chickens are quasi objects, their signif-
icance determined by his ability to translate a
68 ImagingtheHumanBodj
simple binary opposition (live/dead) into biologi-
cal evidence: "Pasteurwas not stintingin the labo-
ratory and outside in concentrating interest and
discussion on a few extremely simple perceptual
contrasts: absence/presence; before/after; living/
dead; pure/impure"(86). In Pasteur's "miracles,"
the production and dissemination of biological
knowledge becomes a celebration of the visible
and consequentlya suppressionof the verbal.
Latour argues in The Pasteurization of France
that "[t]o make other [nonhuman]forces speak, all
we have to do is lay them out before whoever we
are talking to. We have to make others believe that
they are deciphering what the forces are saying
ratherthan listening to what we are saying"(196).3
Latour'snotion of scientificobjectivityrelies on the
suppressionof context and emphasizes the single,
materialdetail.The functionof the theaterof proof,
a device designed to create objectivity,can be seen
in Vesalius'spublic anatomies."TheTwenty-Second
Demonstration,"from Baldasar Heseler's eyewit-
ness account,Andreas Vesalius'First Public Anat-
omy at Bologna, 1540, reveals a careful shifting of
authority from the words of the ancients to the
public presentation of easily observable objects
(273-74). Michel Foucault claims that "it was,
during the Middle Ages, indispensable that a sci-
entific text be attributedto an author, for the au-
thor was the index of the work's truthfulness. A
proposition was held to derive its scientific value
from its author.But since the seventeenth century,
this function has been steadily declining" ("Dis-
course" 221-22; see also Schaffer). The date of
this decline can be pushed back to Vesalius and
Curtius's sixteenth-centuryquarrelover the "vein
without pair," a single (asymmetrical) vein that
serves the lower ribs. In Heseler's retelling, Cur-
tius denies that the vein exists, because it would be
asymmetrical,but Vesalius replies, "[Y]ou want to
talk about things not visible and concealed. I,
again, talk about what is visible." They enter
Vesalius'stheaterof proof:
Now we want to look at this and we shouldin the
meantimeleaveGalen,for I acknowledgethatI have
said,if it is permissibleto say so, thathereGalenis in
thewrong,becausehe didnotknowthepositionof the
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veinwithoutpairin thehumanbody,whichis thesame
to-dayas it wasin his time.Curtiusansweredsmiling,
forVesalius,cholericas he was,wasveryexcited:No,
he said,Domine,we mustnot leave Galen,because
he alwayswell understoodeverything,and,conse-
quently,we alsofollowhim. (Heseler273)
Historiansusually depictVesaliusas a medicalhero
because he rejectedGalenic dogma and insteadre-
lied on his own powers of observation,but Curtius
cannotbe dismissed so easily.Vesalius'sseemingly
unmediatedobservationmarksthe constructionof a
modernsense of objectivity that strives to circum-
vent human subjectivity through careful material
presentation.4Vesalius triumphedbecause he de-
signed a situationwherethe interpretationof partic-
ular images depended on the absence or presence
of the vein. As Susan Bordo has argued, this con-
structionof a point of view, which directlyparallels
the development of perspective in the visual arts,
is a method of controlling both the seers and the
seen (63-65).5 The body had to be opened in such a
fashion that the objects Vesalius wished to present
were clearly visible. The audience was thus pre-
sented with a specific quasi object cleansed of ex-
traneousor occluding matter.6Having rejected the
ancients, Vesalius became the new authoritywho,
throughphysicaldexterityand a good deal of show-
manship (in the absence of modern refrigeration,
public anatomies were conducted expeditiously),
caused the quasi object to appear.
The title page of Vesalius's Fabrica (fig. 1) de-
picts one of his public performances,demonstrates
the constructionof this new authority,and reveals
the violence that often accompaniesthe production
of biological objects.7 As Foucault writes in The
Birth of the Clinic, "[T]o look in orderto know, to
show in order to teach, is not this a tacit form of
violence, all the more abusive for its silence, upon
that sick body that demands to be comforted, not
displayed?"(84). The body in Vesalius'sanatomical
theateris beyond comfort,yet its position and gen-
der andthe public natureof the performanceinspire
sympathyfor the victim, who is being used to pro-
duce objective proof.8Evelyn Fox Keller, who has
examined the masculine underpinningsof modern
science, observes in her discussion of Francis Ba-
con's metaphorsthat "the aim of science is not to
 T:Hugh Crawford
Fig. 1. Titlepageof thesecondeditionof AndreasVesalius'sDe HumaniCor-
porisFabrica(1555).(Courtesyof the ClaudeMorrisLibraryHistoricalCol-
of
lection,University Virginia.)
violate but to master nature by following the dic-
tates of the truly natural. .... Science controls by
following the dictates of nature,but these dictates
include the requirement, even demand, for domi-
nation"(36-37). Keller and other feminist scholars
emphasizethe value-ladenframeworkwithin which
scientific observations are made. In analyzing the
sensuality of eighteenth-centuryanatomicalwaxes
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69
of women, Ludmilla Jordanova
argues that the epistemology of
medical knowledge involves un-
veiling and penetrating and that
medicine is thus imbued with a
masculine ideology (87-110). In
the biological sciences, the the-
ater of proof requires not just
domination but also violation,
as Sander Gilman concludes in
comparing the masculine author-
ity necessary to open bodies and
the aggression of Jack the Ripper
(108-11).
As Latour's term theater of
proof implies, an autopsy is not
simply a mechanism for seeing
into the human body but also a
device that instills a certain form
of knowledge in a certain audi-
ence. Like perspective in paint-
ing, it directs the audience's gaze
to a single significant object. Ste-
ven Shapin observes that in
seventeenth-centuryBritain"[t]he
physical and the symbolic siting
of experimental work was a way
of bounding and disciplining the
community of practitioners, it
was a way of policing experimen-
tal discourse, and it was a way
of publicly warranting that the
knowledge produced in such
places was reliable and authentic"
(373-74). Because the site in-
structs practitionersand observ-
ers to see the "proper"details, the
audience must have sufficient
expertise to evaluate the knowl-
edge being producedand to guar-
antee its acceptance.
Vesalius's anatomieswere attendedby respected
citizens of Padua, distinguished professors from
the university, and students eager for firsthand
knowledge of the human body. Vesalius may have
had some degree of control over the objects being
producedand over his audience's response, but the
knowledge produced at this site was the result of
70 ImagingtheHumanBody
collaboration. Even as he determined what was
viewed, Vesalius depended on the presence of ex-
perts who could attest to his technique and his
method. The theater constructed a clear hierarchy
of position; specific figures markedas dignitaries
by dress and bearingwere affordedclearerlines of
vision. Thus, the social aspect of the theater con-
tradictsa fundamentaltenet of objectivity.Vesalius
was able to lead Curtiusto a confrontationwith the
material world, but the very notion of the vein
without pair relies on a conception of the vascular
system, a map of the ebb and flow of blood, and a
practice of venesection that makes such a detail
significant.As Shapinnotes, "The simplest knowl-
edge-producing scene one can imagine in an em-
piricist scheme would not, strictly speaking, be a
social scene at all. It would consist of an individ-
ual, perceived as free and competent, confronting
natural reality outside the social system" (375).9
The epistemology of the theater of proof entails
simple, direct knowledge attained through pure,
untrammeledvision, but as a site that producesre-
liable scientific evidence, the theater depends on
the cultural context the audience creates. Curtius
may have been wrong in his interpretationof the
body, but he remaineda crucial collaboratorin the
operationof the theater.
The scene Vesalius chose to open the Fabrica,
the work on which his modernreputationdepends,
demonstratesthe myth of the "freeand competent"
observer. The illustration suggests that Vesalius's
theaterof proof was not particularlyefficient. The
audience is not united in rapt contemplation of
Vesalius'sactivities or of the viscera laid out before
it. Indeed,the observersseem more concernedwith
looking at one another.KatherineParkreportsthat
by Vesalius'stime public anatomieshad taken on a
carnivalesque quality, developing "into theatrical
events attractingan enthusiasticand often raucous
crowd"(14). To avoid inclusion among the charla-
tans and tricksters who preyed on the uneducated
with optical illusions,'1 Vesalius attemptedto cre-
ate an auraof objectivity surroundinghis presenta-
tion of biological fact.
The title page, which frames the text, calls at-
tention to the absence of physical evidence in the
Fabricaandto the work'sdependenceon wordsand
images. Vesalius's authorityrests on several repre-
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sentational systems; the page invites the readerto
interpret the numerous symbolic and textual in-
scriptions, as well as the composition of the audi-
ence and the curious presence of a monkey in the
corner.What exactly is being presentedon the dis-
section table? Later in the Fabrica, while discuss-
ing an image closely resemblingthe cadaveron the
title page, Vesalius describes what the audience
is observing:
Theperitoneum, togetherwiththeabdominalmuscles,
hasbeenopenedand(asoccursduringdissection)has
beenpulledto thesides.Thenwe haveresectedall the
intestinesfromthe mesentery,leavingthe rectumin
the body as well as the whole of the mesentery,the
membranes of whichwe haveseparatedto someex-
tentso thatits natureis exposedto view.
(SaundersandO'Malley170)
Vesalius showed the truth of human anatomy
throughhis public demonstrationsand then through
the illustrations in the Fabrica, but these visual
displays were potentially contaminatedby words,
which the theaterof proof is designed to obviate."
The textual depiction of the theaterof proof de-
pends on precise, reproduciblerepresentationsof
biological phenomena,includingnotjust accurately
drawnimages but also graphs,tables, andplain lan-
guage, which are both quasi objects and quasi texts.
The circulationof biological knowledgebeyondthe
confines of the anatomicaltheaterdependson such
representations,yet the texts must invoke the same
rhetoric of objectivity as the theater of proof. In
Experiments and Observations, William Beaumont,
a nineteenth-centuryAmerican physician famous
for his research on digestive processes, addresses
the problem of representingquasi objects and the
crucialrole of plain language in pursuingobjectiv-
ity and truth.Beaumontbegan his studyof the inner
workings of the human body after treating Alexis
St. Martin for a shotgun wound that did not heal
properly.St. Martin'sstomach developed an aper-
turethatremainedfor the rest of his days, although
it did not prevent him from leading an essentially
healthy life. Through the opening, Beaumont ob-
served the actions of the stomachand the effects of
what the eighteenth-centuryphysiologist Lazzaro
Spallanzanicalled "gastricjuice."
 T. Hugh Crawford
Beaumont's medical peer, Andrew Combe,
praised Beaumont as an ideal researcher and an
exemplaryproducerof biological knowledge:
It wouldbe difficultto pointout any observerwho
excels him in devotionto truth,and freedomfrom
the trammelsof theoryor prejudice.He tells plainly
whathe saw and leaves everyoneto drawhis own
inferences,or wherehe lays down conclusionshe
does so with a degree of modestyand fairnessof
whichfew perhapsin his circumstances wouldhave
beencapable. (Beaumontxxiii)
A key for producing assent in the absence of the
object lies in establishingthe credibilityof the del-
egated observer. Combe assumes that clear sight
and devotionto truthare synonymousand thattruth
is thereto be revealed to the patient,passive eye of
a modest and fair observer.2Ideal vision is ahistor-
ical and naive-free of theory or prejudice. The
ideal observer must be able to communicate find-
ings in a language free from cant, rhetoric,or met-
aphor,plain language that enables readersto "see"
and to drawtheir own conclusions.
Like Combe, Beaumont equates simple lan-
guage with truth:"we ought not to allow ourselves
to be seduced by the ingenuity of argumentor the
blandishments of style. Truth, like beauty, when
'unadornedis adornedthe most'" (101). He voices
disdainfor imprecise language:
[Hunger]has beenattributed to the "foresightof the
vitalprinciple,"
a phrasethatmeansanything,every
thing,or nothing,accordingto theconstructionwhich
each may put upon it. Such explanations conduce
nothing to the promotion of science. They are mere
sounds and words, which ingeniously convey a tacit
acknowledgmentof their author'signorance. (55)
Far from being a naive observer,Beaumontis self-
consciouslywritingwithina particularphysiological
tradition that values precise definitions, descrip-
tions, and protocols. He admires certain scientists
(the physicians Thomas Sydenham and Robley
Dunglison, the anatomistand surgeonJohn Hunter,
and the physiologist Spallanzani)and wishes to at-
tack the work of others.He exploits the reputations
of scientists outside his field to supporthis theory
of digestion and marshals his allies carefully to
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71
prove the accuracyof his claims, even as his rheto-
ric denies the need for such alliances: "At the in-
stance of Professor Silliman, I committed to the
care of Mr. Gahn, Consul of his Swedish Majesty
in New-York,a bottle, containing one pint, of gas-
tric juice, to be transmitted by him to Professor
Berzelius, of Stockholm, one of the most eminent
chemists of the age, with a request that he would
favour me with an analysis" (81). The desire for
plain language and the drive to purify the body of
occluding matter in the theater of proof are twin
manifestations-one textual, the other material-
of what Latourcalls the modernconstitution(We).
This desire to purify and thus to produceobjectiv-
ity ignores the social, historical,visual, and techni-
cal networkson which all quasi objects depend.'3
Beaumont's illustration of the "window" that
renderedSt. Martin'sbody transparentboth reveals
and conceals (fig. 2). Because of the singularityof
St. Martin'sinjury,the image is accompaniedby a
description of the treatment and of the odd out-
come. As the illustration shows, Beaumont found
it necessary to use textual landmarks to help the
reader comprehend an image-a technique that
underminesthe notion of a free, untrammeledeye
capableof directlyapprehendingthe materialworld
or, in this case, an "accurate"depiction of that
world. One could argue that etching, a relatively
primitive representationaltechnology, makes the
explanatory text necessary, but "more-precise"
technologies such as photographyare also difficult
to purify of unnecessary or extraneous details.
Medical texts still supplementpotentially confus-
ing photographswith schematicdrawings.
In his text, Beaumont relies on other sensory
evidence to make his argument. Combe praises
Beaumontfor "tell[ing]plainly what he saw,"even
though Beaumont not only used imprecise lan-
guage but also resortedto the sense of taste, which
was becoming an outmodedform of biological ev-
idence: "The mucus of the stomach is less fluid,
more viscid or albuminous, semi-opaque, some-
times a little saltish, and does not possess the
slightest characterof acidity."In Beaumont's per-
sonal theater of proof, the appeal to taste renders
virtually every other researcher's data obsolete:
"On applying the tongue to the mucous coat of the
stomach, in its empty, unirritated state, no acid
72 ImagingtheHumanBody
This engravingrepresentsthe appearanceof the
aperturewith the valvedepressed.
A A A Edges of the aperturethroughthe integ-
umentsand intercostals,on the inside and around
whichis the unionof the laceratededges of the per-
foratedcoats of the stomachwith the intercostals
andskin.
B The cavityof the stomach,when the valve is
tdepressed.
C Valve,depressedwithin the cavityof the sto-
mach.
E E E E Cicatriceoftle originla.wound
r The nipple.
Fig. 2. Page27 fromWilliamBeaumont'sExperiments
and Observations.
(Courtesyof SpecialCollectionsand not
Archives,Tompkins-McCaw Library, VirginiaCommon-
wealthUniversity,Richmond,
VA.)
taste can be perceived" (104). Few will ever have
the opportunityto apply the tongue to the mucous
coat of an empty,unirritatedstomachto test the so-
phisticationof Beaumont'staste buds.
Above all, Beaumont upholds the image of a
patient, truthfulscientist in a remarkablyeloquent
diatribe against the digestive theories of other
physiologists:
It is unfortunate for the interests of physiological sci- without violating its surface. Wilhelm Conrad
ence, that it generally falls to the lot of men of vivid Rontgen'sdiscovery of X rays markeda clear shift
imaginations, and great powers of mind, to become
restive under the restraints of a tedious and routine
mode of thinking, and to strike out into bold and origi- unique problem with his discovery. He had devel-
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nalhypothesesto elucidatetheoperationsof nature,or
to accountforthephenomena thatareconstantlysub-
mittedto theirinspection.Theprocessof developing
truth,by patientandperseveringinvestigation,
exper-
imentandresearch,is incompatible withtheirnotions
of unrestrainedgenius.Thedrudgeryof science,they
leaveto humbler,moreuncontending contributors.
(99-100)
Beaumont's book describes experimentscompris-
ing patient and persevering investigations that
lasted many years yet at the same time presentsit-
self as the definitivetreatiseon "gastricjuice."Thus
Beaumont was not so much a "humbler,more un-
contending"contributoras an active participantin
constructing rules for producing digestive quasi
objects. He based his authenticityon his status as
sole witness to St. Martin'sdigestion, an assertion
that recalls those made by earlier scientists. As
Peter Dear has argued,in seventeenth-centurysci-
ence "authenticity ... devolve[d] from the witness-
ing of an event, not from the authorship of an
authoritativetext" (161). Beaumont'sobservations
appearto be the unmediatedproductionof a hum-
ble toiler after the truthand thus to be beyond the
interpretivedifficultiesgeneratedby rhetoric.'4But
his argument is fundamentally contradictory. He
compares truth to beauty and insists that truth is
best presented without accompanying details, yet
he also claims that good science is the "processof
developing truth"(100). If truthis developed and
revealed, it is the product of multiple senses
and systems of signification-the accumulationof
data over time. As JonathanCrarynotes, "If it can
be said there is an observer specific to the nine-
teenth century,or to any period, it is only as an ef-
fect of an irreducibly heterogenous system of
discursive, social, technological, and institutional
relations. There is no observing subject prior to
this continuallyshifting field"(6).
By the end of the nineteenthcentury,physics and
biomedicine had combinedin a startlingnew way to
renderthe opaquetransparent,to open up the body
away from invasive imaging of the human body.
But R6ntgen, a German physicist, encountered a
 T. Hugh Crawford 73

oped a machinethatcould renderthe invisible visi- the knowledge R6ntgen developed depended on
ble, but the machine's actions were not visible. To others' re-creatinghis experimentsaccuratelyand
prove the existence of X rays, which the audience, witnessing the phenomena he described,15 events
however well-trained, would be unable to see, he made possible by the reproducibilityof the appara-
used anothernineteenth-centurytechnological in- tus (Hittorf-Crookestubes were widely available)
novation-photography. Photographscould be re- and, more important,of the photographs.R6ntgen's
produced and circulated immediately, not as developmentof X-ray technology markeda subtle
representations of a presentation that had passed but significantshift in the rhetoricof the theaterof
but as the presentation itself. Because the data proof.16 Beaumont's and Vesalius's texts gained
were revealed only by the picture, the photograph authorityby invoking a moment in the past when
no longer re-presentedan absent object; it was the the body was seen in all its plentitude.But afterthe
object or, more properly,the quasi object. introductionof photography,X rays, and cinema,
Rontgenemphasizedthe significanceof this new body imaging came to rely on the quality,methods,
form of proof in an 1896 lecture, one of the few he gestures, and protocols surrounding those tech-
delivered immediately after making his discovery: nologies. Photographs enabled the circulation of
"I found by accident that the rays also penetrated heretofore unrecognized rays that could miracu-
black paper.I then used wood, paper,books, but I lously open bodies without pain. Instead of pene-
still believed I was the victim of deception.Finally tratingthe body, one merely took a picture from a
I used Photography,and the experiment was suc- safe (lead-shielded) location. Nevertheless, the
cessfully culminated"(Glaser64-65). He admitted problems R6ntgen confronted were similar to
that the unsupported eye could not be trusted to Vesalius's and Beaumont's. All three invoked the
understandthe phenomenon,and he was certainno theaterof proof-the display of the body-to con-
one would believe him until he could produce in- fer authorityon their representationsof biological
controvertible ocular proof. Even though his dis- truth.The primarydifferencebetween R6ntgenand
covery met with skepticism,his results,which were his precursorsis that with X rays the truth is per-
quickly and widely reproduced,effectively silenced ceived only when the film is developed. Beaumont
all criticsexcept those who wished to claim priority. and Vesalius could still argue that their represen-
The prose style in "PreliminaryCommunication: tations were based on direct observations, even
On a New Kind of Rays" echoes the stark, mute though they ignored or suppressedthe technology
purity of X-ray photographs. Rontgen adopts the and ideology of representation embedded in the
momentof observation.
pose and prose of the disinterestedscientist whose
quest for truthis humble, methodical, precise, and
devoid of speculation. "PreliminaryCommunica- Since R6ntgen, scientists have developed in-
tion"provides what seems to be a transparentsum- creasingly sophisticated technologies for visually
mary of the careful procedures he followed to representing the body. Today's cybermedical de-
stabilize and display his quasi object. The personal vices-scanners used in sonography, computed
appearsto intrudeonly nearthe end: tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and
positron-emissiontomography,for example-pre-
I mustconfessthatduringthecourseof investigations sent biological evidence that seems quite different
I havefavoredthisthought[thatthenewraysmightbe from that produced by earlier imaging technolo-
dueto longitudinalvibrationsin the ether]moreand gies. The operatorsof these machines are the new
more,andI therefore takethelibertyof expressingthis anatomistsof the increasinglydetailedhumanland-
theoryhere,althoughI am perfectlyawarethatthe scape revealed through sophisticated techniques
explanation offeredrequiresfurtherconfirmation. for renderingthree-dimensionalobjects.17Not only
(Glaser52) is the human body unveiled by these machines; it
is also made mobile. Ratherthanrely on the lengthy
Like others before him, however, R6ntgen consid- lists of datarecordedat differenttimes (Beaumont's
ered visibility the arbiterof proof. Acceptance of primary method of accounting for the passage of

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74 theHumanBody
Imnaging
time), physiologists now use digital technologies
to model dynamic systems.18Yet these imaging
technologies are fraught with the same epistemo-
logical problems as earlier efforts at imaging the
body were. They represent a cautious blending of
technology,inscription,and presentation.
JackGladneydescribescybermedicineas a "net-
work of symbols [that]has been introduced,an en-
tire, awesome technology wrested from the gods"
(DeLillo 142). One such "awesome technology"is
the Digisonics Echo Reading Station, a state-of-
the-artmachine that superimposes data on images
to constitutequasi objects. The opening cliche of a
1993 Digisonics advertising brochure'9-"Poetry
in motion"-calls attentionto the difficultiesinher-
ent in interpreting dynamic systems but still im-
plies the possibility of doing so, particularlywith
such a beautifulmachine(fig. 3). Although directly
relatedto Etienne-JulesMarey'suse of mechanical
inscription and photographyto depict physiology
dynamically,the Digisonics Echo Reading Station
is a far cry from Marey'shemodrometer,"a hollow
metal tube a few centimeterslong, and the same in
diameter,to act as partof a vessel, and a needle at-
tached to it whose movement across a graduated
dial would give the exact speed of the blood" (Da-
gognet 26-27). The system also goes beyond the
techniques of anotherfamous physiologist, Louis
Lumiere, who studied human movement through
cinematic representation.20The Digisonics unit is
part of a generation of medical-imaging technolo-
gies that use real-time digital imaging ratherthan
traditionalcine film. Because the device is digital
ratherthan analog, it produces "more-precise"ob-
jects even though digital conversion distances the
representationsit produces from the materialpres-
ence of the objects that would be displayed in a
traditionaltheaterof proof.2'
Unlike the texts of Vesalius, Beaumont, and
Rontgen, the advertisement does not attempt to
produce the illusion of clarity; instead, it fore-
grounds the problem of interpretation. The text
suggests that the machine allows its operator to
begin "[m]astering the art of interpretation."The
machine accomplishes this goal by displaying on a
computerscreen informationthat defines and lim-
its possible meaning production. Instead of iso-
lating and purifying a single detail, this machine
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juxtaposes inscriptionwith inscription,stacks layer
of data on layer.The advertisementshows two of a
numberof screens that draw together information
and help determine the possible meanings of the
echocardiogram, which remains a fuzzy black-
and-white smear for the uninitiatedobserver. Un-
like traditionaltheatersof proof, which requirethe
physical presence of both the object and the audi-
ence, the Digisonics system can act at a distance.It
includes, as the advertisementnotes, a fiber optics
link for downloading measurements, comments,
and patient identification numbers and offers
word-processingcapabilities,the potentialfor net-
working, and diagnosis and procedure coding for
provider reimbursement.22The real-time digital
image moving on the screen is clearly not a heart,
but it is also clearly not a text. Like the otherinfor-
mation contained on the screen, the image is a
quasi object and, inversely,a quasi text. The image
and the informationcirculateand, throughtechnol-
ogy, mutuallysupporteach otherto produceassent
among trainedobservers.
Paradoxically,perhaps,the advertisementquotes
the thirdstanzaof WilliamWordsworth's"Solitary
Reaper,"a text that also foregroundsthe difficulty
of interpretation.Wordsworth'snarrator(presum-
ably a man) directs his analytical attention to a
woman, strainingafter sounds, gestures, and tones
that will unlock the meaningof the song she sings.
He must marshal evidence to gain an intuitive
grasp of the scene he encounters. Though clearly
not in an amphitheater,he reenactsthe raptcontem-
plation of the observing scientist, the ardent stu-
dent watchingand listening at Vesalius'sanatomy:
I sawhersingingat herwork,
Ando'erthesicklebending:-
I listened,motionlessandstill.... (27-29)
Wordsworth's narratormust not only isolate his
object of inquiry to make direct observations but
also contextualize what he is witnessing within a
range of possibilities. He may createa situationfor
using the eye and ear freely and objectively,but the
meaning of the song, or his treatmentof the song
as a quasi object and quasi text, depends on juxta-
posing objective observationwith historicallycon-
stitutedconcerns, themes, and ideas. In an attempt
 T. Hugh Crawford 75

:D ISONICS
l
344-E4
-U6,:5
2~&'#tc:?,'% ,

i 77': 3'; t ,t4a 0N .

Fig. 3. Froma 1993advertisingbrochurefortheDigisonicsEchoReadingStation.(Courtesyof Digisonics.)

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76 ImagingtheHumanBody
to master the situation, the narratorfirst creates a
point of view ("[b]eholdher,single in the field" [1])
and then tries placing his object "[a]mongArabian
sands"or in "thefarthestHebrides"(12, 16). But to
know the truthof the heartof his "HighlandLass"
(2), he must be bothVesaliusand Curtius.Only then
can he come away from his experience with the
music imprintedon his heart.
The brochure carefully contrasts Digisonics's
imaging technology with the method of Words-
worth's narrator.The emphasis on poetry enables
the advertisementto raise the problem of interpre-
tation and, at the same time, to separateitself sym-
bolically fromthe traditionalsocial codes necessary
for making interpretations.Wordsworthserves as
an emblem of the old days (the days of Vesalius or
Beaumont),when embeddedmetaphorsand socially
constructedhabits of perception mitigated against
direct apprehensionof the thing. However, the ad-
vertisementis not an appeal to a singularclarity;it
rejects the moder regime of purification(the drive
to uncover the single determining detail) and in-
stead emphasizes its mediationof a numberof rep-
resentations of the material world. Thus it refuses
what BarbaraStafford has called "the nihilism of
postmodernismwith its text-based epistemology"
(Science xxiv-xxv). In Latour's terminology, the
Digisonics approach is neither modern nor post-
modern but "amodern."The device embodies La-
tour's argument in We Have Never Been Modern
thatknowledge is attainednot by purificationor re-
ductionbut only by following quasi objectsthrough
their mediationsand translations.
As if to emphasizethis notion,the backgroundof
the advertisement'sfirstpage depictsan antiquepen
and faint script that simulates the poem's original
manuscript.The illustration clearly distinguishes
the new technology from its precursor,emphasizing
the capacities of the Echo Reading Station'sword-
processing capability and other methods of pro-
ducing displays, but it also links problems of
interpretationto language. Insteadof locating am-
biguity solely in words and thus either appealingto
simple language or rejectingwords in favor of im-
ages, the advertisementforegroundsthe interpretive
nature of all forms of representation:text, graph,
table,and image.Unlike many early anatomistsand
physiologists, the brochure'sauthoror authors(ei-
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ther consciously or unconsciously) recognize that
no form of representationcan adequatelyproduce
biological knowledge, that biological evidence is
to be had not by suppressing "fallible" forms of
representation but ratherby superimposing them
over one another.Even the "purification"of a digi-
tal image does not lead to direct knowledge: in-
stead, it adds or eliminates yet another layer of
data. Biological truthis an effect of such activities
and does not exist prior to them. To keep from re-
hearsingthe same argumentas Vesaliusand Curtius
yet again in the late twentieth century, those who
producebiological images must begin to recognize
thatneithera textualnor a visual hermeneuticalone
can produceknowledge of the quasi object.
It is of some significancethat a 1994 Digisonics
brochurereplaces the Wordsworthquotation with
one fromThomasMann:"musicdivides, measures,
articulatestime, and can shortenit, yet enhance its
value, both at once." The Digisonics unit marks
time, though in a different way, to model dynamic
systems, and the metaphor of music emphasizes
the role of sound waves in producing the images
on the screen. The advertisement goes on to note
that "[g]reat music relies on control, calculation
and management of the finest details, as well as
pure genius." This assertion clearly invokes the
theme of authority and control, which marks the
history of objectivity, and points to the Foucauld-
ian implications of networkedbiological informa-
tion. As Foucault claims in Discipline and Punish,
A meticulousobservationof detail,andat the same
timea politicalawarenessof these smallthings,for
the controlanduse of men,emergethroughthe clas-
sicalagebearingwiththema wholesetof techniques,
a wholecorpusof methodsandknowledge,descrip-
tions,plansanddata.Andfromsuchtrifles,no doubt,
themanof modemhumanism wasborn. (141)
And yet there is an alternativeto this history of
objectivity that is perhaps less chilling. As Digi-
sonics's use of ultrasoundimplies, modem science's
empireof the visible is not the only form of knowl-
edge. Emily Martin,for example, arguesfor a new
objectivitybasedprimarilyon listening(69-71), and
Stafford examines the role of digitality in knowl-
edge production (Science 195-215). Moreover,
 T Hugh Crawford
Donna Haraway redefines the boundaries between
the human and the nonhuman through her politi-
cally subversive cyborg: "The body . .. ceases to
be a stable spatial map of normalized functions and
instead emerges as a highly mobile field of strate-
gic differences" (211). And Latour concludes, "We
must learn to ignore the definitive shapes of hu-
mans, and of the nonhumans with which we share
more and more of our existence. The blur that we
would then perceive, the swapping of properties, is
a characteristic of our premodern past" ("Media-
tion" 42). Foucault's modern man of humanism is
a product less of the technologies developed to de-
fine and discipline him than of his consciousness of
a history of sociotechnical mediation that predates
the classical era. Foucault's nostalgia for an age
prior to this disciplining depends on acknowledg-
ing the complete success of the regime of purifica-
tion, whereas Latour's "nostalgia" for a premodern
self is a recognition that purification is but one of a
range of resources used to produce knowledge.23
The Digisonics machine demonstrates that evi-
dence in medical imaging always already consti-
tutes a composite of quasi objects and quasi texts,
none of which alone grants privileged access to the
truth of the body but which produce an effect of re-
ality when superimposed. Earlier theaters of proof-
those of Vesalius, Beaumont, R6ntgen-exhibit an
ongoing rhetoric of objectivity that invokes an ab-
sent (but once present) biological detail, even as
they demonstrate the necessity of delegating ob-
servers, disciplining audiences, mastering objects,
and purifying both images and texts. The theater of
proof shows how building objectivity relies on sup-
pressing awareness that the objects produced there
are quasi objects. The purpose of its rhetoric is to
assert the secure firsthand knowledge that
The music in my heartI bore,
Long afterit was heardno more.
(Wordsworth30-31)
Notes
IFleck's point still obtains today. R. C. Lewontin notes,
"Whatever popularity of notions about 'normal science' and
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77
'paradigm shifts,' the ideal of the 'critical experiment' and
'strong inference' remain the chief epistemological commit-
ments of scientific ideology" (142).
2This trend is particularlyevident in studies of science; see,
for example, Cartwright;Cartwrightand Goldfarb;Dagognet;
Jordanova;Rudwick. See in particularStafford, "Voyeur"and
Science xxi-xxix.
3Shapin and Schaffer trace the seventeenth-century emer-
gence of this form of evidence among members of the Royal
Society of London.
4Many critics have discussed Vesalius's ideologically "dis-
torted"vision; see, for example, Tuana,"Seed" 161, and Craw-
ford, Modernism33-34.
5Forfeminist critiquesof scientific objectivity,see Haraway;
Hubbard;Keller; Tuana, "Seed." For a discussion of alterna-
tives to objectivity as visuality,see Martin70-71.
6Staffordraises a similar point in Body Criticism; she notes
the "fundamentallink between geometryand pedagogy,and the
exaggerated intellectualization of images as rarefiedschemata
in Enlightenmentmanualsof all sorts. By its virulentpurity,the
absolutenessof its divisions into black and white, the detached
and unentangleddiagramperformeda mental and optical disin-
fection" (148).
70n the relation between violence and realism in medical
painting,see Fried 65; on HenryBaker's microscopic studies of
flayed frogs, see Stafford,"Voyeur"107-09.
8Parknotes that resistance to public anatomy primarily re-
flected not religious belief or superstitionbut objections to the
family's potentialfor humiliation,which was particularlygreatif
the corpsewas a woman's(13), as in the title page scene (fig.1).
90n the historical relation of testimony,class, and civility to
British science, see Shapin. On expert testimony and the Royal
Society, see Schaffer;Shapinand Schaffer;Dear.
10Onthe tension between scientific demonstrationand visual
duping, see Stafford,Science 133-215.
"Foucaultarguesthatin nineteenth-centuryFrenchmedicine,
"clinical experience represents a moment of balance between
speech and spectacle. A precariousbalance,for it rests on a for-
midable postulate:that all that is visible is expressible,and that
it is wholly visible because it is wholly expressible"(Clinic 115).
The medical gaze does not reject language in the productionof
"objectivity"; rather,it seeks to limit the role of language to
plain and clear accompaniment.
12AsFoucaultwrites in The Birth of the Clinic, "Rationaldis-
courseis based less on the geometryof light thanon the insistent,
impenetrabledensity of the object, for prior to all knowledge,
the source, the domain,and the boundariesof experiencecan be
found in its darkpresence.The gaze is linked to the primarypas-
sivity that dedicates it to the endless task of absorbingexperi-
ence in its entirety,and of masteringit" (xiii-xiv).
13SeeLatour,We13-46, as well as Bordo75-95 andCrawford,
Modernism28-45. This purificationgesturecan also be linkedto
the rather primitive conditions in the frontier hospital where
Beaumontworked:he traveledto meet with St. Martinby canoe.
14Thisstrategywas by no means new to scientific practicein
Beaumont's time. John Wilkens, an early fellow of the Royal
Society, advocated the famous "plain style" for reporting the
78 ImagingtheHumanBodj
results of experiments in the society's journal, Philosophical
Transactions(Dear 159). See also Bazermanon the Philosophi-
cal Transactionsand Gross on Newton's rhetoric.
'5Fora discussion of the medicolegal implications of X-ray
evidence, see Daston and Galison 111-13.
16R6ntgen's work must be coupled with the research of his
contemporaries in physiology, such as Etienne-Jules Marey.
Marey, who made significant contributions to the emerging
field of dynamic representation,devoted his career to develop-
ing inscriptiondevices thatwould recordmovementby produc-
ing marks subject to statistical and graphic representationand
thus prove a physiological truthin the absence of direct appre-
hension. "There is no doubt," he claimed, "that graphical ex-
pressionwill soon replace all otherswhenever one has at hand a
movement or change of state-in a word, any phenomenon.
Born before science, language is often inappropriateto express
exact measuresor definite relations"(Daston and Galison 81).
17SeeCartwrightand Goldfarb on the development of com-
putedtomography.
18Onthe epistemological implications of the presentationof
dynamic systems, see Crary137-50.
19Thisadvertising brochure is directed toward a range of
health-care professionals: physicians, hospital administrators,
and technicians. In many ways, the machine embodies the cur-
rent shifting of authorityin healthcare. The single physiciandi-
rectly confronting the patient or symptom is being replaced by
networks of health consultants-medical, ethical, administra-
tive, technical, and economic.
2?On film and the representation of anatomy, see Cart-
wright;Bruno.
21Theprecision of a digital image is an illusion that results
from sophisticated filtering devices. Because such images are
based on binarycode and consequently are easily manipulated,
they may have sharperdifferentialsthan analog images do. For
an extended discussion of the epistemological problems digital
images present,see Mitchell.
22Eventhough health-insurancepaymentsare not obvious el-
ements in the productionof biological knowledge, this device is
clearly designed to integrate what would traditionallybe seen
as peripheraldata.
23Fora discussion of Latour and humanism, see Crawford,
"Networks."
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