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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 new 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 5: The Living and the Dead - Opening up the body

In the city of Alexandria, in the 3rd century BCE, physicians were allowed to do something that had been completely out of bounds for centuries before and would then be outlawed for centuries afterwards - dissect human bodies. The handiwork of two Alexandrian pioneers – Herophilus and Erasistratus – went on to form the basis for the theories for perhaps the most influential anatomist of all time, a Roman called Galen. Although he never dissected a human body himself, his theories of anatomy shaped Western thinking for more than a thousand years.

Presenter: Professor Alice Roberts
Actor: Jonathan Kydd

A Made in Manchester production for ±«Óãtv Radio 4