DISSECTING SURGERY - FORMS OF LIFE DEPERSONALIZED

When surgeons drape human bodies in green or blue cloths, when they er ect a barrier between their eyes and the patient's face, when they nar row their gaze to that small portion of the body into which the scalpe l is to penetrate, when they surround their activities with antiseptic walls, what are they doing? Are they 'objectifying' and 'depersonaliz ing' the body? How might one tell? What method might one use to find o ut? What might such a claim mean? This paper explores these methodolog ical and philosophical issues, comparing surgery and other assaults on the body in a variety of contexts. The conclusion is that existing tr eatments of the problem fail to understand the surgeon's world as rout ine. Much of the drama and ritual that analysts read into the operatin g theatre results from transference of the naive observer's viewpoint to the world of the surgeon.