| Submit your comments on this article |
| Science & Technology |
| Bloodless autopsies can solve mysteries while honoring religious boundaries |
| 2005-11-29 |
| Posted by:Seafarious |
| #5 Hey, Barbara :) Dawg was thinking only in human terms, which speaks well of her/him. Adding in the subhumans, those who actually derive glee and entertainment in what most would call real desecration, was missing, I thought. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-11-29 16:35 |
| #4 Ouch, .com. Truth hurts, dudinit? |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2005-11-29 16:26 |
| #3 Give it to a crowd in Fallujah? |
| Posted by: .com 2005-11-29 16:10 |
| #2 An automated process is not as de-humanizing as it sounds, especially under the watchful eye of a technician. Moosey, to pic a nit w/youse exactally how do you de-humanize a corpse? |
| Posted by: Dawg 2005-11-29 16:06 |
| #1 A major problem with autopsies is the difficulty in getting the personnel, time and money to do them. I suspect that in the future, there will be three radically different forms of autopsy. The first will be the traditional autopsy, used especially of cases of extreme trauma and oddities of the body, where you just have to have a hands-on approach. The second type will be the virtual autopsy, with some fluid and tissue samples taken, and a much higher retention of data for medical, civil and criminal purposes. The third type is the general autopsy, used in cases of some mystery, but with no suspicion of criminal activity or malpractice. This is the vast majority of autopsies, and more and more, they are just not done because of the drain on resources. Even some private autopsy firms have been created to pick up the slack. However, what the general autopsy needs is a mechanized process. Under the direction of a technician, not a Medical Examiner, the body would be put on a conveyor belt. At first they would be C-T scanned and X-Rayed, then the machine would take all required (needle) tissue and fluid samples that properly packaged, would be shipped to pathology for analysis. Then, if invasive investigation is needed, the machine can do several time consuming and difficult procedures, such as cutting the skull for brain examination. Then the cadaver exits the machine, so that the ME can do his analysis quickly. On the surface this sounds gratuitous, until you see the alternative: not doing an autopsy at all. In past, by mandating autopsies for all unexplained deaths, medical science learned an enormous amount of useful, important, and life-saving information. Accident prevention, cluster illnesses, incompetant surgeons, and many new diseases were discovered this way. An automated process is not as de-humanizing as it sounds, especially under the watchful eye of a technician. And with several gigabytes of data from each cadaver, soon there could be a gigantic, searchable database for pathological conditions that we have only known about before from anecdotal and statistical information. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-11-29 09:46 |