[HN Gopher] Who is the skeleton buried by a secret society under...
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Who is the skeleton buried by a secret society under this Baltimore
bar?
Author : classichasclass
Score : 28 points
Date : 2024-10-26 15:19 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.baltimoresun.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.baltimoresun.com)
| pmdulaney wrote:
| Improved title: "Whose skeleton was buried by a secret society
| under this Baltimore bar?"
| qup wrote:
| In the new title, the skeleton has gone from person to
| property.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I would say the skeleton is a property of the body. I
| wouldn't say I'm my skeleton - I'm just a flesh automaton
| animated by neurotransmitters...
| cameroncooper wrote:
| "flesh automaton" reminds me of this great short story by
| Terry Bisson I came across in an issue of MIT's Twelve
| Tomorrows
|
| https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/thin
| k...
| cheeseomlit wrote:
| Time to go back to the archon grid for that sweet divine
| light
| Strang wrote:
| Grammatical possession does not imply property. "My
| grandmother," "my hometown," "my skeleton," etc.
| drhagen wrote:
| In Chapter 21 of the Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis discusses
| the dangers of interchanging of the various flavors of
| "my". (Well, a fictional demon monologues about the utility
| of confusing "my" in the mind of humans, but that's the
| Screwtape Letters for you.)
| fluoridation wrote:
| No skeleton has ever been a person.
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> The skeleton's bones are held together by wire, like you would
| see in a school biology set, and he suspects the IORM ordered the
| body through a catalog._
|
| Kind of buried the lede there.
|
| _> He and Hatem believe The Bluebird's skeleton could be that of
| a woman, based on its small stature and broad hips. Benkert said
| a historian he consulted in 2017 guessed the skeleton may have
| been a young man, possibly from India._
|
| Given the timing, India or the dead body of an unclaimed indigent
| were my first guesses.
| GJim wrote:
| In the late 19th and early 20th century it was commonplace for
| educational skeletons to be made from real bodies, frequently
| sold by poor Indian families. This only stopped when plastic
| became a practical option.
|
| And before somebody cries foul; education is very important,
| and real bodies were once the only source of durable
| anatomically correct teaching skeletons.
| giarc wrote:
| A colleague of mine studied physiology and anatomy at McGill
| University likely in the 1970s. She said the cadavers were
| mainly unclaimed bodies of homeless people from the city of
| Montreal. The rule was that all work was to be done in the
| university labs, but she said students often snuck body parts
| out to conduct dissection work after hours in their dorm
| rooms. A lot has changed in the field, but it wasn't that
| long ago that we treated the dead like a tool.
| wslh wrote:
| Medical schools in countries like Argentina use cadavers as
| an essential tool for teaching anatomy, allowing students
| to gain hands-on experience and a deeper understanding of
| human anatomy.
| bhickey wrote:
| You may have misunderstood the above comment. While using
| cadavers in medical education is commonplace, _taking
| body parts home_ is no longer the norm.
| chasil wrote:
| However, cadaver parts are now surgically implanted in
| patients for a variety of reasons, and those are
| certainly taken home.
|
| A quick search results in "allograft bone."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_grafting
| fluoridation wrote:
| How is that related to medical students taking body parts
| out of a lab and dissecting them at home?
| chasil wrote:
| The body parts are going home.
|
| In some contexts, this is forbidden, unorthodox, or
| expected.
| throw_pm23 wrote:
| Times have changed, now the living are treated no better. I
| kid, I kid.
| lemonberry wrote:
| In Michael Crichton's, "Travels", he discusses his
| experience dissecting a human body while in med school. The
| two most memorable bits: 1) the dissection triggered a
| hunger response in people and 2) they kept the hands
| covered to help the students dehumanize the body. I don't
| mean "dehumanize" in the sense of removing their dignity,
| but the hands apparently can make it more difficult to
| study the body as a subject and not a dead human.
|
| I read it years ago, but remember really enjoying it.
| pstrateman wrote:
| >the dissection triggered a hunger response in people
|
| this is supposedly from the formaldehyde
| mncharity wrote:
| In 18th to early 19th century US/England, body snatching aka
| grave robbing was a common activity of medical students. And
| in England, it was a profession. As was guarding the freshly
| buried against such. When New York Hospital and Columbia
| didn't limit themselves to blacks, you got the 1788 Doctors'
| Riot and several deaths. A riot at Yale in 1824.
|
| I wonder if you could teach history by emphasizing "surprises
| for the time traveler"?
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Why would be a man from India based on the timing. An Indian
| man buried under a Baltimore bar is weird irrespective of time.
|
| Edit: Ah I see, it's because Indian skeletons were frequently
| sold as educational tools.
| lordfrito wrote:
| > Given the timing, India or the dead body of an unclaimed
| indigent
|
| International treaty, all skeletons come from India. [0]
|
| At least this is what was claimed in The Return of the Living
| Dead.
|
| [0] https://clip.cafe/videos/international-treaty.mp4
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| https://archive.ph/QYhl4
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Ah thanks that link worked for me in Europe.
| bell-cot wrote:
| > Because of the skeleton's age, The Bluebird [bar] said it did
| not contact Baltimore Police to look into the discovery. The
| department's policy is ...
|
| WARNING: This sort of policy varies by municipality. If you'd
| prefer to minimize unpleasant interactions with your local law
| enforcement, do _not_ make assumptions.
| standeven wrote:
| When I was a young teen, I volunteered at the local YMCA to help
| set up a "haunted house" (actually a squash court) for Halloween.
| One of the decorations I pulled out of a storage closet was a
| display skeleton. I set it up and was having fun playing around
| with it when I noticed it had some metal fillings in the
| teeth...and everything was a bit TOO realistic.
|
| I still get the heebie-jeebies thinking about it.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| It's happened before, see Elmer McCurdy who they discovered
| wasn't actually a wax figure while filming a TV show
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_McCurdy
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| The TV show was The Six Million Dollar Man.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| My dad, during med school, had to purchase a human skeleton.
|
| We're not quite sure what to do with it now. I'd like to give
| it a respectful burial, without causing a police response.
| fluoridation wrote:
| Immure it and leave it as a surprise for the future to find.
| Bonus points for leaving confusing clues around the house.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Maybe give the local DA a call and ask for advice?
| artie_effim wrote:
| Dang - that's like 4 blocks from my house!
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| This is the kind of reason I pay for good journalism. Not to get
| some endorsement for an election. I can make up my own mind. I
| want someone to do the searching and write up.
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(page generated 2024-10-29 23:00 UTC)