I recently started working at the local vet school where there are all sorts of interesting comings and goings. Although it is only loosely related to the work I am doing, I was invited to a tortoise necropsy--that's the same thing as autopsy but they use the prefix necro- for nonhuman animals. I opted to attend although I was feeling queasy and apprehensive.

This tortoise looked just about exactly the same as a human on the inside, the GI tract, the lungs, the kidneys, the liver, the spleen, it was unreal. Just like us! It was eerie. We had to remove samples of tissues for processing from the various organs and body parts. These will be examined under the microscope for clues as to the cause of death, with some tissues to be sent to labs around the country for specific assays such as arsenic, and to forward the state of knowledge about the turtle histology, much of which remains undescribed.

Another thing that was unreal--as I walked in the necropsy room there was a horse hanging from a hook. It was a "disposal." It's what they do when a person discovers that his horse or cow is dead in the field but the cause of death is not wished to be known. In this case a full necropsy is not performed but the animal is broken down into components that are then taken to the rendering plant to be used as soap, pet food, etc.

Well, these two men with hacksaws and gigantic pruning shears went to work on this dead horse and after 45 minutes of very demanding manual labor and hacking and chopping there were four barrels full of horse guts with the limbs sticking out of one. That was absolutely incredibly, horrible to behold. No part is wasted. They dump out the contents of the intestines, rinse them out with a hose, and use the rinsed intestines, too.

Then they brought in a beautiful pit bull corpse, freshly killed from the pound, a very handsome animal in the prime of life, maybe 3 years old. This woman wanted only his heart, or to be more specific the heartworms that had clogged up his heart. She sliced through him, removed his heart, and pulled out all the worms--some of them were over 3 feet long. Her groups is working on developing a vaccine for heartworms.

The last thing I saw was a rat necropsy, it had died of squamous cell cancer. That one had the most observers, the equivalent of a classroom full.

O.M.G.

grisly but fascinating. i might have been able to watch but maybe not.

You never know what you can stomach.

I was previously the sort of person who avoided the meat section of the grocery store by a good 5 yards at all times.

But I wanted to learn.

The turtle part wasn't so bad on the one hand, because it was interesting to see all these organs, the way they are put together, the way the protective membranes cover them, and so forth, especially after all the pictures and readings. On the other hand, it was so human-like. It only reinforced my beliefs, these creatures are worthy of the utmost respect because under the skin we are so very nearly the same. Even humans and reptiles!

The horse and dog, I can't believe I stood through that. They were occurring at the same time in the same room and there really wasn't any way to avoid getting glimpses, especially with all the noise from the hacksaws and pruners. I thought for sure that I would pass out. But I didn't pass out--I passed.

WOW....not sure if i could`ve done that. i applaud you for having strength.
patty

there is this movie with jennifer lopez where she goes into people's dreams, sort of like a therapist, one scene has a horse cut into thin sheets of horse. it's freaky but very very cool. in fact, the visuals in that movie are incredible.

still, horse legs sticking up out of a bin? *shudder*

Coco, I saw that movie and I remember that scene, was deeply disturbed by it.

This real life experience was several orders of magnitude more disturbing.

And yet, I feel somehow that I am a better person for having gone through it.

This brings back memories of 7th grade science class when we disected frogs.
Anyone else have memories of that.?
I can still smell the formaldehyde.And remember those dissecting trays with the black wax inside to push the pins in.

Brian

Crazy experience!

When I was 9 my horse died just several months after I got it. We weren't even finished making payments on it and my mom had a necropsy done. The vet came out to our pasture and performed it right on the side of the road. I watched the whole thing. It was fascinating. I wanted to be a vet back then. What had killed him was a tiny part of a poisenous bug in his alfalfa cube, a Blister Beatle.

oh, that's so sad pakd4fun! horses are such lovely creatures. it's easy to make friends with them.

i failed 10th grade biology because i couldn't disect that rat. we had one at home as a pet at the time and way back then there was no provision for an alternative for vegetarian students. i spent every period in the bathroom trying not to throw up. that formaldyhide smell will haunt me forever.

hey arugula

ummm.... geeez

yeah... awful

and they have stories of how people are abducted by aliens and are "studied"
like on some surgical table or cot

well... maybe that is karmic retribution or something

both are very scary though

but in one , the person is still alive

go figure