The Body in Question is a British-based, internationally co-produced medical television series first aired in the UK in November 1978.

可參考You Tube / 有書出版

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Pimlico; New Ed edition (2000)

The Body In Question

Jonathan Miller

2 Reviews

Random House, Mar 31, 2011 - 240 pages

In this remarkable book Jonathan Miller considers the functioning of the body as a subject of private experience. He explores our attitudes towards the body, our astonishing ignorance about certain parts of it and our inability to read its signals. Taking as his starting point the experience of pain, Dr Miller explores the elaborate social process of 'falling ill', considers the physical foundations of 'dis-ease' and looks at the types of individuals man has historically attributed with the power of healing.

His explanations are so lucid, so wide-ranging and so whole-heartedly entertaining it is often hard to believe one is reading about the facts of one's own body and what can go wrong with it. His use of metaphor and suggestive models, particularly when tracing the historical development of certain leading ideas in human physiology, is highly stimulating. Above all, there is the keen originality and sheer enthusiasm of Dr Miller's approach to his subject which makes The Body in Question such an outstanding book.

This is a 13-part series (1 hour episodes) on all aspects of medicine and health science, written and presented by Dr Jonathan Miller. 

Miller considers the functioning of the body as a subject of private experience. He explores our attitudes towards our bodies, our ignorance of them, and our inability to read our body's signals. The first episode starts with vox populi asking where various organs in the body are located. By the final episode we are left in no doubt, as the show became the first in television history to depict the dissection of a human cadaver (i.e. post-mortem orautopsy).

Taking as his starting point the experience of pain, Dr. Miller analyses the elaborate social process of "falling ill", considers the physical foundations of "disease" and looks at the types of individuals humankind has historically attributed with the power of healing. The series was nominated for two 1979 BAFTAs: Best Factual Television Series and Most Original Programme/Series.^[1]

 

 

List of episodes

1. Naming of Parts
2. Try a Little Tenderness
3. How Do You Feel?
4. Breathless
5. Blood Relations
6. Heart of the Matter
7. Shaping the Future
8. Sleight of Hand
9. Native Medicine
10. Balancing Act
11. Brute Machine
12. Heads and Tails
13. Perishable Goods