Visualizing the Fiber-Woven Body: Emergence of the Fiber Body

Abstract

This chapter concerns the emergence of the fiber-woven body in the latter half of the seventeenth century. The idea of fiber as the fundamental building unit of the body emerged from the investigations of the micro-structure of the body made by mid-seventeenth-century natural philosophers and anatomists. Their discoveries of the hitherto unseen vessels culminated in the idea of the body’s vascularity and texture and brought about a new understanding of the body as entirely woven of elementary fibers. In The Anatomy of Plants, Nehemiah Grew visualized the complete fibrosity of the body and exploited the metaphor of textiles to describe the hidden fabric of the inner body. In so doing, Grew paved the way for the emergence of fiber theory and the fiber body.