[Why teach anthropology of the body?]

Man is not only a body. It is relevant to reiterate that task of medicine is to relieve man's suffering and not to repair a mechanism. If medicine is a science concerning human body, it is not a human science. Anthropology of the body studies perceptions, representations and values concerning the body in human societies. Its point of view is cultural, not biologic. To understand the cultural representations of the body allows us to understand and better cure man. Yet, medical and anthropological knowledge are bound together.