The Eye of the Surgeon: Bodily Images from the Collection of the Royal Academy of Surgery of Paris, 1731ʹ93 Jérôme Van Wijland (Académie Nationale de Médecine, Paris) Keywords: Royal Academy of Surgery of Paris, history of medicine, history of surgery, scientific illustration, art in science, scientific drawings. Abstract: This article examines the ways in which the human body was represented in eighteenth‐century France, using a range of surgical drawings. While trying to enhance the scientific status of pictures of the human body, which endows them with their own epistemological value, these drawings remain rooted in academic artistic conventions as well as in the Christian iconographic tradition. The Royal Academy of Surgery, created in 1731, gathered, read and edited observations submitted by surgeons or physicians and suggested ideas for scientific prizes. The historical aspects of the development of surgical practice were also one of its prime centres of interest. The Academy published five in quarto volumes of Memoirs, starting from 1743, in connection with the Royal edict that confirmed the distinction between barbers and surgeons, and continuing up until 1774. These volumes included a variety of works received by the Academy: memoirs, written observations, records, etc. Surgical knowledge in the eighteenth century is quintessentially contained in these Memoirs. George Neale, who translated the Memoirs into English, wrote: ,Žǁ ŵƵĐŚ ŝƐ ŝƚ ƚŽ ďĞ ǁŝƐŚĞĚ ĨŽƌ ƚŚĂƚ ǁĞ ŚĂĚ ĂŵŽŶŐ ƵƐ ƐŽŵĞ ƐƵĐŚ ŝŶƐƚŝ tution as that of the Royal Academy of Surgery, lately erected at Paris; an institution so worthy the imitation of ŽƚŚĞƌ ŶĂƚŝŽŶƐ ;MEMOIRS, vol. 3, p. V) Eighteenth-Century Archives of the Body Page 6