Twice Dead: Organ Transplants and the Reinvention of Death Margaret Lock

摘要

The requirement for sustained perfusion of cadaveric donor organs occurred adecade after the introduction of kidney transplantation in order to preserveheart and liver grafts. It resulted in controversy regarding the diagnosis of deaththat was resolved by thoughtful consensus. The western concept of death had,from ancient times, been formed by the means of its diagnosis, best codified byMaimonides in the twelfth century as cessation of the heartbeat and ventilationwith cooling of the body. It would be tempting thirty years after the introductionof brain death criteria, to examine changes it may have wrought in our conceptof death. Margaret Lock, a Professor of Anthropology at McGill University, resiststhis temptation here and instead re-opens old wounds of the brain death debate.Lock uses sources unusual in medical ethics including "[personal] observation,second-hand accounts, professional journals, the media, books aimed at the generalpublic, novels.. . personal communications" (52), TV shows, and cartoonsto develop postmodern sus~icionso f organ transplantation itself by appealing tothe instinctive fear of misdiagnosis of death. Given that this is a reprise of the olddebate it is not surprising that these sources are relatively dated. A sample of 131items, bibliography A-D, shows an average age of 17.5 years.