Re-member

This metaphysical flesh is the wooden phallus with which Isis re-members Osiris, it is ...

Eventually Isis manages to recover all but one of the pieces (the phallus, of course, being the missing part, but she magically fashions a replacement for it) and to re-member Osiris, who then becomes god of the afterworld.

To dismember is to tear apart; / To re-member is to put back together. / The old must be dismembered / So that which was prior to it / May be remembered. / Therefore, to re-mind is / To dismember and then re-member.

This scene re-members the Rembrandt painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp from 1632. The image honours the once famous Dutch physician, his contribution to medical science and a number of his contemporary surgeon colleagues who are also captured in the moment. It suggests that medicine has long depended on re-animating corpses for its own epistemological and legitimising ends.