A HUMAN IMAGE OF THE HUMAN-BEING - CHANGE IN THE IMAGE OF HUMANITY INANATOMY

When during the last three decades of the 19th century German clinical medicine was established as a natural science anatomy e.g. was referr ed to as a model on this way. At that time this discipline, however, w as delved into Richtungskampfe between evolutionary morphology on the one side and physiological and clinical orientated anatomy on the othe r, comprising a discussion on the Wissenschaftlichkeit of the differen t directions. In the end anatomy evolved as a medical discipline leavi ng evolutionary morphology to the zoologists. Concomitantly with this change in the self-conception of the discipline as a natural science a natomy was charged with the imprinting of the prospective physician an d his picture of the human being. This respective picture is analysed in the anatomical illustration from Vesalius up to nowadays considerin g the unity of art and anatomy in the visual media as well as in its d isjunction. In this context the dominance of science on art in the ser vice of anatomy is discussed with special reference to the neoclassica l influence on further development. The latter is characterized by an increasing abstraction and diagrammatic representation of the human fi gure referring to man as a reparable electrochemical machine without m ystery. This corresponds to a clinical medicine comprehending as a rep arative and mechanical profession. The restauration of a human picture of the human being may be achieved by an anatomy directed to life and an art extended to an anthropological conception.