Religious and philosophical ideas about the body and its position in the chain of being, compared to the soul, were replaced in the 19th century by practical concerns about the bodies - and especially about the health - of the working classes. At about the same time, ethnographic information about the treatment of bodies among non-European societies gave rise to the understanding of different treatments of the body. Classical sociology paid attention to the body but did not develop a sociology of the body per se. However, Simmel’s, Freud’s and Foucault’s ideas led to the development of the modern sociology of the body. Postmodern conditions created a situation where individuality is thought to be maintained by and through the public presentation of the body, and in hypermodernity the ‘virtual body’ was made possible by the spread of digital technology.
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