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Continuing to educate us of cadavers and their uses, Mary Roach includes plenty of factual evidence combined with her non-stop humor and use of imagery. Throughout this chunk of Stiff, Roach discusses the multiple uses of cadavers in medicine and science such as, crucification experiments, beating heart cadavers, live burials, decapitation, reanimation, and the human head transplant. Within this chunk, Roach raises a question in the reader's mind, what excatly determines whether a person is still alive or not? Do we consider a brain dead person living, knowing they still have a heartbeat, or not? She also explains the research of many scientist conducted to prove the authenticity of "Shroud of Turin", and the early research projects from the first head transplants performed by doctors and scientist. Mary Roach includes plenty of humor while presenting plenty of useful information, for example while she looked on as doctors took part in the harvesting of organs, she refers to the abdomn filled with blood and crushed ice as a "Cherry Sno-Kone". Another instance of this, was shown when Roach said "But whenever it is that I am however I feel about it, I know that all cheek cells belonging to me within fifty miles of here feel the same way". She also bring up the good point of how live patients are wheeled down hallways with a sense of urgency, rather than cadavers,or the dead, which aren't in any type of rush. I never thought about how true she actually is, I appreciate how Roach sparks new points of view for me, while simply presenting facts and backing it up with proven research.
Clarification:
Why excatly were scientist going around doing head transplants on dogs? I didn't understand why Guthrie grafted one dog's head to another, making the first manmade two-headed dog, what was the purpose?
Application:
Would you ever consider donating your body to science if that meant being apart of experients such as studying the effects of decapitation, or being the main attraction at the next organ harvest?
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Clarification:
ReplyDeleteI believe that the scientist were doing head transplants on dogs because, as with anything else, they needed to practice on something. They probably found animals like dogs as a good start before proceeding to humans.
Application:
I doubt that I would donate my body to science because I believe that once I leave this earth I want my body to be in peace along with my spirit.
Clarification:
ReplyDeleteI really didn't understand it either, =/
I know that doesnt really help, but its the truth. Now that i've read Ash's response, it makes a little sense, but its still weird.
Application:
I do belive I would like to be an organ donor, but at the rate its going, by the end of this book I probably won't lol.
1. Well science is built up from curiosity, scientists test what they want to know because they are just curios about it and becase they want to examine if two heads can fucntion well on a one whole body. Also they do need to practice on something else before trying to do it on a human head. Like everybody usually says "practice makes perfect".
ReplyDeleteEven though I'm against animal cruelty they will still practice on animals for as long as they can before testing on people. :(
2. Well I'm just completely lost because I just wanted to stay with my whole body, but then when Mary Roach started talking about human decay I was just like wtf! :0 Ahhh grose. Maggots (puke). So I'm just a little lost boy about my decision of becoming a donor now. :(