Manṣūr ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Yūsuf ibn Ilyās.

14th century physician from Shiraz in what was then called Persia. Now, of course, Iran.

I look at this image and realize that, in a way, we really haven't learned that much more about humans than we knew then. Sure we have made many technological advances and can, in many cases, prevent and even cure disease. But in all of the intervening years the only thing we can say about each other for sure is that we know where our livers are, where our bowels are, our hearts, our brains. These very things that make us all equal, equally bound to an inescapable humanity...yet go unseen and therefore forgotten.

Maybe I'm not quite ready to put this train of thought into words, though.

I was just struck when I looked at this image from so long ago...how long we have known the simple truths about human biological form and function, yet have remained so unequivocally enchanted with our external differences. There's something to that, I think.