17.8.06
monash anatomy museum.
a short piece on someone's view of the dissection room. i personally find the initial description a lil exaggerated. but the last part resonates with what i feel, hence it is up here for you guys to read.
death abounds. faces staring out through clear perspex, one set of eyelids removed, the other eye closed in a gruesome wink. stomachs opened, disemboweled, internal organs in eternal stasis. tufts of hair sprouting from yellow skin, above faces locked in an expression of perpetual anguish, bodies reduced to their composite parts. one face, with lips shriveled and pale as the rest of the face, appear to be trying to say something. a woman, lying face down, legs chopped at the thighs, staring down with her nose squashed against the plastic and grimacing, everywhere the pungent stench of death prevails. this is the monash anatomy museum, in the medical faculty, and it's enough to stir even the hardest of stomachs.
i went to the anatomy museum on an overcase and bitterly cold melbourne day. a chilly wind was blowing down from the dandenong mountains. i walked the 300-odd metres from the campus centre to the medical faculty not knowing what to expect. death is not something that confronts my everyday, ordinary reality. but, like all beings who exist on this mortal coil, it is an inevitability i will some day have to face.
one of the most difficult things i find when confronting death, as indeed i did upon entering the anatomy museum, is reconciling the opposing realms of life and death. as i beheld the body parts in their perspex boxes, it was difficult to imagine that they were once living, healthy organisms. i looked down at my own stomach, and shuddered to think that these bits of inanimate flesh floating in formaldehyde solution were once upon a time of the same mettle. and, likewise, i will some day be like them, whether i am left to slowly pickle up in preservative, am buried in a casket or go to the fires to have it all reduced to a pile of ashes.
for much of the time i was in the anatomy museum i was alone, i was however intruded upon in my private musings on death by a small cluster of students. one of them told me how, as a science student the year before, he had cut into the corpse of a foetus. asked whether this took an emotional toll, the young man replied that while at first he felt somewhat uncomfortable, once he had begun cutting he was able to detach himself from the task.
hearing the science student's experiences gave me a new appreciation for those who work intimately with death. doctors, cops, funeral directors and paramedics all face the old grim reaper on a daily basis. i'd assume that it would either break a person or give them a valuable insight into the impermanent nature of human existence. perhaps we should all take a little trip down to the anatomy meseum every now and then, so that we can be reminded how fleeting our existence really is, stop putting off happiness for another day and realign ourselves with those things in our lives that are truly important.
i must say that i couldnt stomach my lunch after my very 1st dissection prac, unfortunately. mainly cos i had packed bread with smoked salami (which tasted raw and smelt vaguely like formalin). din realise the psychological effects my motions had on me because i was so engrossed in the task of scapel-ling off the various layers of tissue. not to mention i was so into the groove and pleased with my supposedly efficient, skillful dissection procurements it din seem possible that i would be affected at all. but i was, somehow. just for that instant.
but yes, anw thats over. at least i havent developed some kinda phobia. speaking of which, i just read a list of interesting phobias. namely, agoraphobia which is the fear of placing oneself in situations where others have an opportunity to observe or judge one's behaviour. xenophobia which is the fear of strangers, biblophobia which is the fear of books (nods, anyone?), logophobia which is the fear of words in general, lalophobia which is the fear of speaking, onomatophobia which is the fear of CERTAIN words, algophobia which is the fear of pain, and finally philophobia which is the fear of falling in love.
hmmm.
i fluttered by;
11:59 AM
