The placenta's second life
Name
567779304-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
2.69 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
041b5debc01905dbce1bcfa13dd4a8dc
Author(s)
Glausser, Anne O. (Anne O'Brien)
Advisor(s)
Alan Lightman.
Date Issued
2009
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
This thesis, written for a popular audience, explores the many facets of the placenta, an organ that facilitates the growth of the fetus during pregnancy. It looks at what happens when the placenta dodges the hospital incinerator-taking on a second purpose, a second life. Once the placenta is expelled during the third stage of labor, once it has served its role in the body and is facing retirement, it can take on whole new forms of usefulness. Humans, artful at manipulating the materials of life, have created new-and often controversial-purposes for this discard tissue after it has served its primary role: expelled placenta is used in eye surgery, in training dogs to sniff dead bodies, in toxicology research, in forensics, in cosmetics, and, most significantly, in an emerging field of stem cell research. From ritual use to research subject to health treatment, we have taken the placenta from the realm of the dead and given it new vigor.
Description
Thesis (S.M. in Science Writing)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2009.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 37-42).
Subjects
Graduate Program in Science Writing.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing
MIT Program in Writing & Humanistic Studies
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copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but
reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written
permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.
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