The Evil Eye, Thanatology, and Other EssaysPark, Roswell
Religion
The Evil Eye, Thanatology, and Other Essays
Park, Roswell
Bruno, Giordano, 1548-1600; Evil eye; Knights of Malta; Medicine; Mythology; Religion; Students
This aspect of the subject will bear any amount of study and
elaboration, and its mention here should be sufficient for my purpose.
Accordingly as it is properly appreciated, it will be recognized as
having an important practical bearing, since, if we may foresee the
direction from which the final danger threatens, it may be the better
and the longer averted.
Another very important and practical subject is wrapped up in this
one, namely, the utilization of apparently dead, or at least of only
potentially living material (tissue) in the various methods of grafting
or transplantation, which are to-day a part of the surgeon's work. The
methods are themselves a transplantation of experiences gained by work
in the vegetable kingdom. What wonder that the marvels revealed in one
department should have incited work along parallel lines in the other?
That flowers and fruit of one kind may be made to grow on a tree of a
very different kind excites but a small amount of the astonishment it
deserves, mainly because it is now a common occurrence, though properly
regarded it might seem a miracle.
Differing only in minor respect is, for example, the removal of
thyroidal tissue from one human being and its implantation into
another, with functional success. One may ask just here, how is
this matter concerned with thanatology? And the reply is: If this
tissue were taken from a fresh corpse it would be by most people
regarded as dead tissue. If so, does the dead come to life? Without
violating the proper scientific use of the imagination one may
fancy something like the following: Let a healthy young woman meet
accidental and instantaneous death. It would be possible to use no
inconsiderable portion of her body for grafting or other justifiable
surgical procedures. The arteries and nerves could be used, both in
the fresh state, and the former even after preservation, for suitable
transplantation or repair work on the vascular and nervous systems
of a considerable number of other people. So also could the thyroid,
the cornea, the ovaries and especially the bones. All the teeth, if
healthy, could be reimplanted. With the thin bones, ribs especially,
plastic operations--particularly on the noses--of fifty people
could be made. And then the exterior of the body could be made to
supply any amount of normal integument with which to do heterologous
dermatoplastic operations, or would furnish an almost inexhaustible
supply of epidermis for Thiersch grafts, which latter material need not
be used in the fresh state, but could be preserved and made available
some days and even weeks later. A portion of the muscles might possibly
be made available for checking oozing from bleeding surfaces of others,
if used while still fresh and warm, and possibly portions of the
ureters or some other portion of the remains might be utilized for some
unusual purpose. Then what extracts or extractives might be prepared
from other parts of the body, pituitary, adrenals, bone-marrow, etc.?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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