The Science of Monsters

Every day thousands of people are the recipients of donated organs. In the United States in 2017 more than 34,000 people received organs such as corneas, kidneys, and hearts. Although that number is impressive, there are more than 114,000 people on waiting lists for organs, and twenty or more die each day by not receiving one in time. This need has led to an increase in the black market for organs. Illegally harvesting organs is a dark reality that several horror movies have focused on, including Turistas (2006) in which a group of friends on vacation in Brazil get caught in an organ harvesting trap. How can organs possibly be harvested? Some “organ brokers” may have connections with funeral homes in order to get organs before a body is embalmed or cremated. Some people are willing to part with their own organs for financial compensation while others may have organs taken from them against their will. According to the World Health Organization, approximately seven thousand kidneys are illegally harvested annually by traffickers worldwide with the average buyer paying $150,000. Several cases over the past decade prove how the black market for organs is alive and well. In China, a missing six-year-old boy was found alone in a field. Both of his eyes had been removed, presumably for the corneas. In 2012, a young African girl was kidnapped and brought to the UK for the sole purpose of harvesting her organs. She was rescued before any procedure was performed. Kendrick Johnson, a Georgia teen, died at school in January of 2013 under mysterious circumstances. After his parents obtained a court order to have the body exhumed for an independent autopsy, the pathologist found the corpse stuffed with newspaper and the brain, heart, lungs, and liver missing, leading some to believe he was murdered and his organs sold on the black market.

Organ transplants occur every day.

There are plenty of horror movies that portray organ transplants gone wrong. The Eye (2002) and Body Parts (1991) each explore what happens when a person receives more than just the organ after surgery. In The Eye, a blind woman receives a cornea transplant and regains her sense of sight. She also gains the ability to see the dead and deaths foretold around her. It makes for an unsettling and creepy plot. The writers said they were inspired by a report they had seen in a Hong Kong newspaper about a sixteen-year-old girl who had received a corneal transplant and committed suicide soon after. “We’d always wondered what the girl saw when she regained her eyesight finally and what actually made her want to end her life.”⁴ In Wes Craven’s movie, Body Parts, a detective is given the arm of a convicted serial killer who was sentenced to death. He begins to envision the murders the other man committed and begins to act violently himself. Art hit a little too close to home at the time of the film’s release in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Paramount Pictures pulled ads for Body Parts after police found dismembered bodies in Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment.

Recipients of limbs may experience phantom limb pain after losing their own body parts. How is this possible? Doctors still have no clear consensus as to its cause, but many think it results from changes in the peripheral nervous system. There are different sensations that amputees may feel after their amputation. A person experiencing “telescoping” has the feeling their missing limb is still there, but that it has shrunk to a very small size, similar to a collapsed telescope. It may not be painful but it is unnerving. Phantom pain has amputees reporting a physical sensation of pain in their missing limb. Even though amputations have occurred throughout history, phantom pain became more prevalent, or documented, during the Civil War. A physician during that time noted that 90 percent of amputees reported phantom limb pain. Can anything be done for this condition? One of the most effective therapies is mirror box therapy. The patient watches in a mirror while receiving physical therapy in order to remap the brain’s neural pathways to register that the limb is no longer there. Other treatments include medication or injections to help alleviate the pain.

Although modern day scientists may not be putting together Frankenstein-like creatures in their labs, we are closer than ever to seeing the science fiction aspects from Mary Shelley’s novel become a scientific reality.

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE MUMMY

Year of Release: 1932

Director: Karl Freund

Writer: John L. Balderston

Starring: Boris Karloff, Zita Johann

Budget: $196,000

Box Office: $3 million