A Semester of Reflection

Going into this class, I had a typical idea of what we'd be studying. I expected Frankenstein and Burke & Hare to be literary foci, as they were, but I had no idea I'd walk away with knowledge on things like revolutionary medical operations and discoveries of the 19th century. From having no interest whatsoever in a medicinal or medical science field before the semester, I honestly can say I found the majority of readings far from boring. Some were sometimes too descriptive for my reading tastes, but the material was usually always enlightening; it was also a great reminder of how grateful I am for living a healthy life in the 21st century. I'm glad I was introduced to such random (in my opinion) information and concepts. 

The first Unit, where we focused on early anatomical discovery and famous serial killers of the 19th century, was definitely some gruesome literature to analyze. I still found Burke & Hare to still be visually entertaining, but there were times where I'd stop reading and just ask myself, "Why am I spending so much time reading about death and corpses and brutality right now?" Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde I had read prior to this course, but analyzing Jekyll/Hyde's behavior and his battle with self duality highlighted the creepy yet genius talent of Stevenson. If I took away one last thing from the first unit it would be our discussion on the attitudes towards anatomy and cadavers. It was unnerving, even though in the past and no longer practiced in today's societies, to read how casually a body, a deceased life, was handled and mutilated for the betterment of medical advancement. A person dies in the late 1800s and instead of commemorating their presence, their body is stuffed in a bag (or dragged from 6 feet of dirt) and shipped off to some curious mind like Dr. Knox. What a nightmarish crossover between anatomical experimentation and criminology this time turned out to be. Thankfully, ethics and consciences evolved.

The Astonishing Life of Octavia Nothing, Vol. 1: The Pox Party in particular was a refreshing read. It still incorporated the focus on medical criminality yet left out the heinous subjects of suffocation, rusty tools, blood and pain. Mr. Gitney and co. illustrated how scientists no longer needed to be the men sawing limbs off in the privacy of their basement to be considered mad. Racial eugenics was an equally sick form of medical criminality. I found the Nazi Medical Experiments from Bad Medicine especially hard to fathom, for it boiled down to the ENORMOUS lack of empathy for other human beings and their rights to life on earth. The actionsof the German doctors involved in the experiments were (and forever will be) despicable. From learning more about the cases and the victims, I hold stronger regards for both ethical medical practices and patient consent. The Hippocratic Oath was a great supplement to this unit on ethical research and is a document that should touches on the ideas of medical respect and preservation that should still be abided by today.

I think our last unit of "Madness or Genius?"takes the cake for most interesting. There are a lot of people who consider modern medical research as potential when there are just as many that fear more discovery will threaten society and spiral our ethical limitations out of control. Stiff was what I enjoyed most from this course because it exposed all things taboo that are usually swept under the rug of science. I've read things in Stiff that I know I'll never forget for the rest of my life. Whether that is a good or bad thing, I don't know— what I do know is that Mary Roach taught me all I need to know concerning the life of a cadaver. It was interesting to read how some doctors tolerate working with lifeless bodies, and it prompted the idea of how dehumanization was just as prevalent in the 1860s as it is now in a morgue or dissection room.

Kendal Wronski

X files. "crazy" stuff

The X files episode we watched in class was a very interesting one. Largely due to how closely it echoed the quote in our Twelve monekys movie by brad pitt saying " Crazy is majority rule". In the close of this Episode the entire town was ready to murder the monster, and all stood behind the doctor. Then after simply hearing the monster talk they all suddenly changed their minds and instead arrested the doctor. This was after the monster literally confessed to all the crimes that they were accusing him of. The town went from trying to kill the monster to going to a cher concert because he confessed. It was an interesting plot twist to say the least. This episode also encompassed how doctors sometimes do things " because they can" and not always because they should or because it helps people. This showed a rather negative view of the purpose of some scientific exploration. The father also did what he did " because he can" but he did it to help his "monster" son. This shows how science that can be bad for some people can also be used for good for another which shows the how opinionated some scientific exploration can be.

on the X-files

The X-files have always had an exciting appeal.  With the retro looking black and white appeal, I found it very interesting. With the exception of older, modern film, not many productions or shows are done in black and white anymore. The only real exception would be horror films, and scary movies. The dark and eary look gives the perfecting setting for something to pop out at you, or clash with red blood. This is precisecly what the X-files were trying to do.

With an ugly, deformed, unnatural being in the mix, the show was sure to balance in the likes of a horror film.  Similar to that of Frankenstein, the creature was an outcast searching for human interaction. He did what many people viewed as terrible things, however in his mind he was trying to get his fix of physical interaction and human contact. With no intentions of harming anyone, the being really spoke to me that there was a soft side to this creature. This was confirmed at the end when he was getting his boogy on while Cher sang one of her sappy love songs. In one way many of us can relate to the creature in the sense that sometimes we just want some human interaction, and to be loved. Is it too much to want to feel loved?

by Bryan R.

Posted by Dr. R on Bryan R's behalf.

Chapter 10 "Eat Me"

Before reading this chapter I new very little about cannibalism. All I ever heard about was how Jeffrey Dahmer and how he used it for evil as he consumed his numerous victims. I was surprised to read about how the Chinese commonly used it as a medical treatment for ailments. People would eat certain body parts to help cure their ailments. The consumption of these body parts were considered to be quite beneficial and described as being rather tasty once you got over the fact that you were consuming human flesh. They compared the taste of this flesh with beefsteak and that the breast was the best tasting part of the body. I had a hard time accepting this because cannibalism nowadays is so taboo and is considered inhumane if practiced. This chapter opened my eyes to the broad use of the body and how far medicine has come from the days of using cannibalism as a medical treatment for ailments.

Frankenstein or Scooby Doo?

I have never been a huge X-files fan, finding the characters a little dull and plot lines predicting, and this episode wasn't anything new. But pertaining to class, I thought the main concept and storyline did thematically connect very well to the ideas that we have been discussing. The eerie black and white film, a hideous monster spawn from an experiment gone wrong, and an old crazy man trying to stump the detectives. A seemingly perfect blend between Frankenstein and Scooby-Doo. The horror style plot fit with an emotional ending along with the creation of life through experimentation mirrored Frankenstein well. While the detective sequence and mystery style storyline, with main characters with conflicting points of view seemed to be taken right from Scooby-Doo. Though the mad doctor in this episode I thought played his part very well, probably the best actor in the episode, his evilness and intelligence were both very prevelant. Even though I thought the ending was extremely corny, I thought it was a great watch for a medical madmen class.

X-Files

The first interesting thing that struck me about the X-Files episode is the black and white appearance. In this day and age when a show or film is in black and white they are directly making a statement. It is a deliberate choice to render a feeling. In this situation, the tone focuses on the horror aspect of the monster and the mystery. The monochrome picture is reminiscent of classic horror films. Psychological landscape plays a huge role in setting the tone and here it is mystery, fear, deformation and unnatural experimentation.
In addition to creating a feeling for the show, I was shocked by the first playing of Cher. When would a show play a peppy love song during the scene of an intrusion....and with a MONSTER? I was completely thrown off by this scene and kept me guessing the entire episode. It added humor to this modern take on Frankenstein. But why would humor be successful in this narrative of a classic tale? Is it to play up the idea of a hoax throughout the show? Or maybe to add to the humor of X-Files as a series?

Stiff (Ch. 10-12)

Chapter 10 is titled, “Eat Me”, and discusses the uses and history of medicinal cannibalism. Roach starts off by talking about 12^th century Arabian process which involved “mellifying” a man so that his body can be used 100 years later to “cure complaints”.  She then discusses the history of cannibalism in China and how ill people would often eat body parts or excrement to help heal their ailments. Before reading this, the only cannibalism I had heard of was from the movies “Silence of the Lambs” and “American Psycho”. For this reason, I never assumed that cannibalism had been used for medicinal purposes. In the chapter, the taste of human flesh is described as being “as good as any beefsteak”. To go into further detail, supposedly the breasts of men were considered “the sweetest meat”. Although this chapter was very disgusting to read, I learned the different perspectives that existed in the past of human consumption. In old Chinese practices, human bodies were considered beneficial if consumed. Nowadays, cannibalism is a social stigma and illegal in many countries. Chapter 11 spoke of another way bodies are often consumed, through cremation, composting, water-reduction, and tissue digestion. When cremation first gained attention, it was looked down upon as method to replace the traditional funeral. However, over time, it has become more popular and is gaining momentum even today. Roach also discusses new methods of disposing of a dead body. These methods involve either reducing a dead body to just 3% of it’s remains and disposing of it or breaking down a body into powder using ultrasound and then disposing it. Although these newer methods are not currently popular, just as cremation was when it was introduced, I can them becoming gaining popularity especially since they are environmental friendlier than older methods.

Prateek Prasad

Stiff 10-12

To me cannibalism is associated with ancient tribes and Hannibal. Chapter ten looks to show how cannibalism can be seen as more than just tribes with wood coming from their nose or a crazy man wearing a mask. Medical use and the use of cadavers were utilized for curing of the sick. Roach explains also how the Chinese were among the first to practice the use of cannibalism in order to cure illnesses. This is in contrast to how Western culture now looks at the term cannibalism. Western culture sees it as taboo and only for those who are crazy or have a fetish. Similar to the current event of a NYC police officer taking bids of nearly $20,000 online for kidnapping and the transportation of a female in order to be used for cannibalism. Cremation and blood transfusion are two topics that are seen as ordinary in todays world. Yet both are extremely new in practice comparatively to the medical history. Cremation began in the 19th century and now is used as an accepted form of burial. Blood transfusion started out as drinking the blood and now is something that is widely publicized by company such as the Red Cross with donation centers set up nationwide. 

Stiff Chapters 10-12

If someone mentions cannibalism, medicinal use is not an association I make. In chapter 10, "Eat Me", cannibalism was discussed and it was not just a group of crazy people who lived in the woods with a diet of strangers who wandered too closely to their village, as that is the association I have always come up with. Cannibalism was explained through medicinal uses and the way that cadavers were utilized for  the curing of the living sick. Some of the examples given were still difficult for me to read and imagine those scenarios occurring. For instance, some of the uses for body parts and wastes used for illness such as "diabetics were to be treated with 'a cup of urine from a public latrine'" or human fat used to treat rheumatism and joint pain is a process that makes me uneasy. Yet, a good point is brought up on page 229, "We see nothing distasteful in injections of human blood, yet the thought of soaking in it makes us cringe"To me this makes sense, while some of the treatments seem outlandish, and downright gross, if unorthodox methods are still useful and working, maybe it is, in a matter of medical history, just a way of life when further technology was lacking. Also, it is interesting that we do use blood transfusions and see no harm in it, yet a medicinal use of bathing in blood or drinking it, as in the first attempt at a blood transfusion, is something we wouldn't dream of doing now.

Stiff: Chapters 10-12

I found the chapter on cannibalism the most interesting in the assigned reading. The act of cannibalism is a topic many people are not comfortable with. Unless they are referencing the movie series "Hannibal," many do not know or would want to know about human cannibalism. Roach explains how the Chinese practiced various forms of consuming human flesh for centuries in the pursuit of curing illnesses. Americans associate cannibalism with criminals such as Jeffrey Dahmer among many others. I believe it is interesting to view the contrasting views on the matter from the Chinese perspective and the American perspective. Cremation was another topic I found interesting in that I was unaware of how new a practice it is. Cremation beginning in the 19th century was surprising to me just because I know many families choose to cremate their loved ones rather then bury them. While cremation has become a widely accepted method for handling those who have passed away, only two centuries ago cremation was not a widely accepted burial alternative. Chapters 10-12 really contained great material and educated me on subjects I rarely examined on my own.