The advance of science
Yesterday we heard that only 13 people in a million in the UK donate organs on their death and that Gordon Brown is urging more people to sign donor cards and to inform their relations so that lives of younger people may be saved. Today we read that scientists have successfully transplanted cells from the hearts of young rats and have created a beating heart. Bill Weldon, the head of Johnson & Johnson, says that there is huge scope for medical devices. He thinks that in the future a surgeon will be able to operate a medical device remotely so that you could be operated on in London by a surgeon in Edinburgh. It sounds rather alarming but I suppose Iraqis have been killed by drones being operated from Nevada. Maybe they could then operate on the people accidently wounded by the drones?
posted by Whispering Walls at 9:36 am
8 Comments:
Yes, WW, very alarming but I think we also need to worry about single use devices being re-used. A very big market.
More donors are needed but it is difficult to think of the mulitation of the body of a loved one. My Grandparents would hate this world if they could see it today. Wars and warmongering, so many people suffering as a result.
Hi ED - I'm not sure what that means. Are you saying that old devices are sold on to third world countries or are is your question one of hygiene?
Hail Mary/Hi Marina - I agree with you: mutilation of corpses is a horrible thought, particularly if time presses. Remember what trouble Leonardo da Vinci got into when he used to buy corpses from hospitals for research.
Not just in the third world.
Let the hospitals take all the organs they need from the dead, and then make it compulsory for everyone to be cremated. That way it won't matter what they look like; of course this comes with the caveat that the relatives get a good look at the body before its diced up. Furthermore, this will mean that are cities are not clogged up with graveyards full of people that are never visited. The surplus land can be used to solve the housing crisis. A house built on graveyard would be significantly devalued: imagine the ghosts! These low priced houses would allow first time buyers into the market.
Furthermore you ask, how would we remember the dead? Well instead of having to trek to the graveyard one can keep your loved one on the mantle piece and smoke their ashes on a rainy day; just like Mick Jagger did his father.
Hi Rob - I hope you are actually dead before the doctors start ripping out your organs. Not sure whether Mick was inspired by that experience. Herodotus talks about tribes whose custom it was to eat their forefathers.
rob - I think what you are referring to is Keith Richards snorting his dead father's ashes with some coke.
So apart from having the wrong bloke and the wrong activity...
Still why let the facts get in the way of a good story...
You never know - maybe they could, WW.
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