The Enlightenment, as concept and time period, was haunted by ambiguities about the relationships between mind and body, humans and the natural world, and reason and imagination. The 18th century was inherently contradictory, particularly when it came to ideas about medicine and the body. The growing optimism that medicine and science could control nature and disease was counterbalanced by the hierarchies of gender, race and class being fixed on the body. Enlightenment ideals emphasized rationalism and expertise, but they existed alongside religious belief and everyday authority....