The body in time.

This paper considers what light historical controversies cast on the way we view the human body and its relationship to medicine and science. I suggest that the past has lessons for the regulation of modern innovation and technology. Science has moved on; attachment to the dead bodies of those we love persists and debates in medieval times about burial intact and dissection remain relevant. I examine why and how the bodies of the long dead still command our attention. Moving to the living body, re-visiting the ancient crime of maim, I explore how the human body was perceived as belonging as much to the community as to the individual who inhabited that body. Finally, I consider touch on how gender affected the legal as well as the physical body examining how contested theories of reproduction influenced English law and may pose warnings about we should approach reproductive technologies today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]