Furthermore: Where the Headlines Take You

Medical Miracle

Last week, the world learned the identity of the person who received the first successful face transplant performed in the U.S. – Connie Culp of Ohio underwent a 22-hour operation last December during which doctors replaced about 80% of her face with tissue from a donor. Amazing, right?

Connie Culp's groundbreaking procedure sounds like science fiction, but other transplant surgeries have proven so sucessful that they don't get much comment from the public. Curious about how we got this far? Check out Transplant: From Myth to Reality. In a straightforward but engaging style, author Nicholas L. Tilney traces the history of organ transplantation from ancient times to the present, with an especial focus on the development of kidney and heart transplants during the middle of the 20th century.  If you're still curious, you can find more current information and facts about organ transplants at the National Library of Medicine's health information website MedlinePlus.

In order for people to receive organ transplants, someone has to donate their organs. Some organs are donated from living donors – often family members or other loved ones. But there are organs, like the heart and corneas, that no one wants to do without. These are gifts from beyond the grave, given by with the consent of the donor or their family (in Oregon and Washington, you can register as an organ donor at Donate Life Northwest). In her book Body Brokers, Annie Cheney explores a related, but much shadier world, in which "body brokers" buy and sell human remains for medical research and training, commercial use by medical gadget companies, and for use in military bomb tests. Horrific! But fascinating.

Lesley A. Sharp discusses some of the same questions in her book Bodies, Commodities, and Biotechnologies, but she takes more of a sociological angle. What is the value we place on a donor's body, and how do we memorialize the people who donate their organs? What does it mean for human body parts to function as commodities, with monetary value placed on their transfer and use? Can we manage the ethcial challenges of transplants between species? These are lofty questions, and Sharp's analysis is probing and intelligent, but eminently accessible.

On a lighter, more ironic note, transplants, transplant surgery, and transplant patients have always been fodder for fiction, of the human drama sort and the more speculative, science fiction sort. And sometimes these stories are, as they say, ripped from the headlines. When convicted killer Gary Gilmore was executed by the state of Utah in 1977, he asked that his organs be donated for transplant. The British punk rock group the Adverts wrote a hit song, "Gary Gilmore's Eyes," in which the singer wakes up more than a little startled to realize that he's been given the gift of a murderer's sight. Here are the Adverts performing the song on Top of the Pops in August, 1977:

(You can also get "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" on CD at the library. It's on Crossing the Red Sea With The Adverts, and on disc two of No Thanks!: The 70s Punk Rebellion.)