English, Department of
Date of this Version
9-2012
Citation
Capuano, Peter. “On Sir Charles Bell’s The Hand, 1833.” BRANCH: Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century History. Ed. Dino Franco Felluga. Extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net. Web: http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=peter-capuano-on-sir-charles-bells-the-hand-1833
Abstract
This essay explores the cultural context in which Sir Charles Bell’s 1833 Bridgewater Treatise was published by focusing on the work as a culmination of his deep religious faith, his Edinburgh anatomical training, and his occupation as a surgeon at the Leeds Infirmary. It argues that The Handwas not merely an extension of Paleyan natural theology but also an important response to the era’s struggle with the grim physical reality of the supersession of manual labor by automatic manufacture.
Included in
Cultural History Commons, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons
Comments
Published under a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY 3.0).