It Alive! (Again) or: Please help me, I'm in way over my head. :)

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Passions in Prose

It Alive! (Again) or: Please help me, I'm in way over my head. :)

hush
Senior Member

since 2001-05-27

Posts 1653
Ohio, USA

0 posted 2007-07-24 11:24 PM

Okay, so here's the deal. I was with my English major fiancee, we were visiting our friend, who is an English prof. at the college I went to. I adored Holly (having some sort of creative outlet in nursing school was the only reason I didn't drop out and go to a different school) and four years later, we are still friends. So, anyway, she shows David some information for a conference she was going to send a proposal to, called Monsters and the Monstrous. Basically, exploring monsters and horror themes throughout different aspects of culture. It's a multidisciplinary conference, so she suggested I send a proposal in as well. So I did, and I'm accepted, and here I am trying to write this paper. Here's the deal... I am 23 years old... and I'm a nurse. I know I can write... but I'm not a writer by trade... I'm a little rusty, been out of school over a year and haven't written a research paper in a couple years. So. Oh, and did I mention that these are people with their PhD's? I'm a little scareed. And. I was wondering, I know it's a lot to ask, as I don't really post here, but if you guys might take a look at the (very rough) beginning I have and tell me what you think? Be brutal (Please!!!) because there will be a question and answer session after I present my paper, and Holly has told me that people at these conferences can be pretty brutal and I really am not feeling the whole breaking down and crying in front of a bunch of my intellectual (or, at least, education) superiors thing.

For more infor on the conference:
http://www.wickedness.net/Monsters/monsters.htm

The abstract, which I (unfortunately) had to write before the paper:

It’s Alive! (Again): The Rise of Reanimation in Science and Modern Medicine

Tales of reanimation have become a pervasive part of popular culture. From religious lore, as in Jesus’ resurrection of Lazarus, to the Vodoun ritual of zombification; from literary classics such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘Herbert West- Reanimator’ (and their cinematic permutations) to modern pop-culture portrayals, such as George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead series, these stories and myths explore the notion of corporeal existence after death.
In these fictional accounts, there is typically a catalyst that causes expired flesh to live once again, whether miraculous, occult, natural, or medical. Analogs to the fictional origins of reanimated flesh can be found throughout science and modern medicine. With the advent of surgical techniques, electrical defibrillation, and various medications, scientists and surgeons have been reanimating flesh for years. From medieval experiments to the 20th century genesis of organ transplants, from the reversal of cardiac arrest to miraculous patient recoveries, this paper explores the means by which modern Dr. Frankensteins raise the dead.

And, here is my start... my underlinings and italics are there in word, but they are for citation purposes- so, my titles are italicized appropriately, there are just too many to go through and UBB code here, and the numbers are where I'm going to put my citation superscripts whenever David actually shows me how to do them.

43 And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. 44 And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.

-The Gospel According to John, from the King James Bible(1)

The Oxford English dictionary defines reanimation simply as the act of “restor[ing] to life or consciousness.” (2) It is obvious, then, that reanimation has existed as a myth in the Western world since ancient times. The Bible, which exists as a foundation for the Judeo-Christian belief system, provides one of the earliest examples of a long-standing tradition of reanimation myths and stories. These stories have persevered as religious canon, as shown in the miracles of the gospels; as fiction (and science fiction) now regarded as classic literature, with such obvious examples as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and H. P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West: Reanimator, as well as Juliet’s temporary demise in Romeo and Juliet; as cultural myths, particularly in the case of the Haitian zombie; and as an enduring inspiration for ongoing series such as George Romero’s Dead movies and graphic novels such as Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead.

As with so many other enduring myths in science fiction and horror, stories dealing with reanimation pose questions and create parallels for our own reality. Morality comes into play; to quote Steven Spielberg’s film Jurassic Park, “your scientists were so concerned about whether they could, they never stopped to think about whether they should.(3)” Indeed, most examples of reanimation involve somebody “playing god,” whether it be the archetypal mad scientist, the Vodoun bokor, the human race and its new innovation in technology and biology, or the fabled Son of God himself. And, with the exception of true divine intervention, playing with life and death has traditionally brought about untoward consequences, from the creation of individual flesh-hungry monsters to the destruction of an entire society.

However, as is often the case, real life is painted in shades of grey. The reanimation of human flesh occurs as a matter of policy in modern hospitals, and the recipients of these life saving treatments are more likely to thank their doctors than try to eat them. Modern medical technologies are often met with resistance due to the fear of doctor’s “playing god.” Cloning and stem-cell research are two recent examples. However, when the words “code blue” are announced over a hospital PA system, few people are in a rush to stop hospital staff from reviving a clinically dead patient.

Modern science and medicine provide many avenues for the reanimation of inanimate flesh, whether the flesh in question is an entire functioning organism or a select set of tissues or organs. The best known methods of doing so include cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR), defibrillation, and the use of intravenous and inhaled medications. Organ transplantation is an increasingly common procedure involving the reanimation of one’s body part in the body of another; in fact, several doctors and scientists have attempted to perform head transplants, with varying degrees of success(4). Some cases of miraculous recovery from an apparent state of death have also been reported, both as Vodoun zombie lore(5) and as medical phenomena in the United States(6). In short, Frankenstein’s monster is, to some extent, a medical reality.

A discussion of reanimation necessitates, first, a discussion of death. Death was once considered the cessation of the vital function of the body; breathing, heartbeat, circulation. However, with the advent of newer medical technology and organ transplantation in recent decades, a new definition was needed, and it emerged as brain death. (7,8) Brain death is defined as the permanent and irreversible cessation of brain function, while a person who has suffered a cardiac arrest is considered clinically dead. A person can be both brain dead and clinically dead, but a clinically dead person can sometimes be revived using some of the methods described above, and a brain dead patient may be clinically alive, maintained on a ventilator and life support. The latter are sometimes referred to as “beating-heart cadavers.” (9)

The difference between the two becomes very important in regard to the reality of human reanimation. Louis Pasteur’s experiments showed that the spontaneous generation of life from non-living material does not occur. (10) The potential for the clinically dead patient’s revival, or reanimation, proves that the patient’s tissues, while inert, are not actually dead yet- several minutes of hypoxia are needed to cause tissue death, including brain death. So while the clinically dead patient is not initially brain dead, they quickly become so without intervention. And while the brain dead patient may be clinically alive, once removed from life support, they will clinically die, because respiration will not continue without brain function. Brain death is irreversible, and after a matter of minutes so too is clinical death. The amount of time passing between cardiac arrest and irreversible death will differ based on individual variances; hypothermia, for example, is noted to extend this time considerably by lowering the body’s metabolic demands (11).

The reason it is so important to make this distinction between brain death and clinical death is that, in light of Pasteur’s experiments, when a person’s body is truly dead, it is irreversible. A person who is revived with medical interventions was never actually dead, their body’s vital functions simply were not continuing on their own accord. Common sense dictates that once death has set in, it is impossible to cause the body to rise and live again as Viktor Frankenstein did.

This is where the case of Richard Selzer becomes of interest. Selzer is a surgeon and a writer who recounts his own death an return to life. Selzer was pronounced dead after a cardiac arrest, during which efforts at resuscitation were unsuccessful. A nurse observes Selzer’s body for ten minutes after his death is called, noting “the fixity that is incontrovertible.”(12) Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, Selzer takes a breath, followed by a return of electrical activity on his EKG monitor and regular breathing. While the accuracy of the determination of his death is questioned, nurses who were present insist that his EKG was flat and they could not get a pulse of a blood pressure on him.

Thank you so much anybody who has taken the time to read this!

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