History of beliefs about the human body much on discourse about bodies, rather than on material bodies themselves. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin's 1965 "Rabelais and His World", they promoted a more materially orientated direction in the history of the body. The Ebers Papyrus is an Egyptian medical text and is the oldest known record of the human body, dating back to 3000 BC. The Ebers Papyrus describes the body by physical examination and what can be felt. Clinical investigations such as the Pulse, percussion of the body, the recognition of diseased or disordered states. “If thou examinst a swelling of the covering of his belly’s horns above
The Description of the Human Body soul. A sick or injured body does not do what we want or moves in ways we do not want. He believed the death of the body stopped it from being fit to bring about movement. This did not necessarily happen because the soul left the body. René Descartes believed the body could exist through mechanical means alone. This included digestion, blood circulation, muscle movement and some brain function. He felt we all know what the human body is like because animals have similar bodies and we have all seen them opened up. He saw the body as a machine.