The Description of the Human Body The Description of the Human Body The Description of the Human Body () is an unfinished treatise written in 1647 by René Descartes (1596-1650). Descartes felt knowing oneself was particularly useful. This for him included medical knowledge. He hoped to cure and prevent disease, even to slow down aging. René Descartes believed the soul caused conscious thought. The body caused automatic functions like the beating of the heart and digestion he felt. The body was necessary for voluntary movement as well as the will. However, he believed the power to move the body was wrongly imagined to come from the
History of beliefs about the human body muscular and focuses on the exterior of the body, what can be see and felt. This was the standard of beauty of humans and continues to be the ideal body of European traditions. There is no Vitruvian women. Eastern ideologies of the body explain what can be detected, not only felt and examined. This comes from the idea that there is not only what can be physically seen and touched but what can't be. Energy or more aptly the means by which your body can manifest itself in the world can't be seen but, was thought to be able to