Blood Work

Blood Work
Denis was among the few individuals that was born into a lower class family and with hard work and dedication broke through the class system and became a successful doctor. He is described as a hard worker, driven, and intelligent, all characteristics that a doctor should possess.  Mauroy was described as ?slow, timid, and does not express himself? and somewhat of a mad man. Unfortunately for him was selected to be the one that Denis performed his experiment on. One thing I found to be disturbing was the fact that even though Mauroy came from a lot of money, he was still chosen to be the one guinea pig of the experiment. I feel like maybe during the time this took place it was okay to do this because Mauroy was mentally handicap, but in my opinion, in today?s society this would never happen for several reasons.  One reason is the fact that if someone has money, they have power as well and would not be taken advantage of so easily.
On to the actual experiment; Denis was going to perform a blood transfusion pumping a calf?s blood into the madman, Mauroy. To me this sounds completely insane and unnecessary, but maybe back in the day doctors thought animal blood could be used in humans. The experiment was being performed in an unsanitary room with a crowd of curious people and doctors watching. The transfusion itself was quick, just took a very small amount of the calf?s blood and injected it into Mauroy. When I was reading this, I was shocked at how fast Mauroy reacted to the injection of foreign blood. I would have thought it would take awhile for the blood to work its way into ones system before having any effects. However, it was suspected that his immune system immediately began trying to fight off the calf?s blood. After observing his reaction they concluded that the transfusion of an animals blood into a human was not capable or effective. What I found shocking was the fact that Denis and others had no idea what would happen or how it could help Mauroy, but they proceeded to do the experiment not just once either, which I am a little disturbed by.
In the end, Mauroy dies from the transfusions and Denis is accused with murder. I think this charge fits the crime. Denis did not take a willing subject to be experimented on, rather told Mauroy that he was going to be the victim. Also, Denis saw how Mauroy reacted to the foreign calf?s blood the first time and continued to try more transfusions.  I feel like Denis performed this experiment solely to impress people, which is not a good enough reason to take an innocent persons life.

Emily K's post, posted by Dr. Renzi on her behalf