We take for granted some fundamental principles in medicine—for example, that anatomy underpins pathology and that pathology reveals the causes of clinical disorders. On reading Soul Made Flesh I was amazed to discover that such basic notions were developed only as recently as 350 years ago and that, before this revelation, physicians had been practising on their patients with a mindset of arrogant ignorance. This was a time when medicine was tethered to a set of principles first set out by Plato and Aristotle, 2000 years earlier. These principles …