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May 2, 2005
Rene Descartes describing the body using the machine metaphor:
"I must describe to you first the body by itself ... I assume the body is nothing else than a statue or machine ... indeed, the nerves of the machine I am describing to you may very well be compared to the pipes of the machinery of fountains, its muscles and its tendons to various other engines and devices which serve to move them ... its heart is the spring ... Moreover, respiration and other such functions of a clock or a mill."
The roots of biomedicine are in the 17th century ideal of Cartesian dualism, in which there is a separation of mind and body. The body is a part of the physical world, and diseases are bounded disorders that must be treated within this realm. This assumption was reinforced when discoveries in bacteriology by Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch led to the development of the germ theory of disease. These along with other advances in areas like biochemistry and surgery were sufficient to bind physician allegiance to scientific, clinical medicine
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