Responses to Week 3 Deadly Feasts

http://tracybioap.blogspot.com/2012/10/week-3-deadly-feasts-time-master.html
Tracy's timeline is accurate and shows exactly what happens from the time the disease begins to display its effects to the examinations of the corpses after death. Each disease has a timeline and most of them follow the way her timeline looks.


http://anqilao123.blogspot.com/2012/10/week-3-discussion-masterresponses.html
1. Bertha Elschker showed that she had physical damage in her brain. She would scream uncontrollably, giggle randomly, walk unsteadily, etc.


2. Creutzfeldt found extensive brain damage without inflammation and that millions of brain cells were killed and replaced by glial cells.
3. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a degenerative brain disorder that leads to dementia and, ultimately, death. 
4. The CJD is different from other diseases because it occurs more rapidly and that it is pretty rare.
5. Epidemiology is the study of distributions and it is used to gain more knowledge about an epidemic.
6. Both the CJD and kuru had an absence of inflammation.
7. The cerebellum is the part of the brain that CJD and kuru affect. It affects it by making holes of spongiform change.
8. Bill Hadlow was a man who was on loan to the British from an outpost NIH lab. He was qualified to explore animal and human pathology. He was studying scrapie and scrapie affected the nervous systems of goats and sheeps. It was discovered that scrapie could be transmitted experimentally and since it was similar to kuru, it was believed that kuru could also be transmitted experimentally.
9. They took tissue from a sheep that had scrapie, homogenized it, and then injected it into healthy animals. After waiting for a period of time, the French veterinarians found out that the healthy animals began to show symptoms of scrapie and eventually died.
10. They both made the brain of the organism spongy and also made holes in the brain.

Vocabulary Words for Chapter 3 of Deadly Feasts (Week 3)

Emaciated (47)- abnormally/very thin, especially from disease or hunger or cold

Languished (48)- to lose or diminish in strength or energy

Stupor (48)- A state of reduced or suspended sensibility.

Status epilepticus (48)- Status epilepticus (SE) is a common, life-threatening neurologic disorder. It is essentially an acute, prolonged epileptic crisis. SE can represent an exacerbation of a pre-existing seizure disorder, the initial manifestation of a seizure disorder, or an insult other than a seizure disorder.  (http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1164462-overview)

Glial cells (49)- Glial cells are non-neural cells that perform "housekeeper" functions such as clearing out debris and excess materials

Dementia (49)- a group of symptoms affecting intellectual and social abilities severely enough to interfere with daily functioning. (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/dementia/DS01131)

Creutzfeldt- Jakob disease (49)- a degenerative brain disorder that leads to dementia and, ultimately, death. (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/creutzfeldt-jakob-disease/DS00531)

Epidemiology (51)- Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events in specified populations, and the application of this study to the control of health problems.

Postmortem (57)- an examination and dissection of a dead body to determine cause of death or the changes produced by disease

Scrapie (57/58)- a fatal infectious disease that affects the central nervous system of sheep and goats.

Louping ill (59)- an acute viral disease of sheep affecting the nervous system, transmitted by a tick.

Virologist (61)- a specialist in virology(study of viruses).

Astrogliosis (61)- inflammation of the astroglia; proliferation of astrocytes and their processes.

Inoculation (64)- The act or an instance of inoculating, especially the introduction of an antigenic substance or vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.

Any suggestions?

Sketch for Chapter 2 of Deadly Feasts (Week 2)

Around the middle of page 28, Zigas describes Gajdusek when he firsts sees him. Gajdusek is compared to "a hippie" and is said to be wearing "much-worn shorts, an unbuttoned brownish-plaid shirt revealing a dirty T-shirt, and tattered sneakers"(28). Apparently, "he was just plain shabby"(28). I used this part of the book to create a sketch because it reminds me of the saying, "Don't judge a book by its cover". You cannot tell if a book is going to be good or not by simply looking at the cover. Similarly, you never know how a person really is unless you know them. Zigas is basically judging Gajdusek when he doesn't even know him yet. This connects me to the story (in a way) because like Zigas and everyone else, even I judge people without knowing them. It isn't right to do so because you don't even know the person's story/background, but almost everyone does it. However, looking at someone's outer appearance doesn't really give you an idea of how they really are. In order to find out what type of person they are, you need to get to know them. People judging others occurs anywhere and everywhere and this section of the book reinforces the fact that it's true.

Quotes from Chapter 1 of Deadly Feasts (Week 1)

1. Micronesians canoe-wrecked anywhere [near] [New Guinea] swam the other way" (21).
     -The significance of this quote is that it shows how fearful everyone was of the place where the cannibals lived. No matter what, almost everyone would try to avoid meeting the cannibals and risking their lives.

2. "Even the feces would be eaten, mixed with edible ferns and cooked in banana leaves" (22).
     -I believe this is significant because it shows that the cannibals would pretty much eat anything that was part of a human's body and find a way to make anything "appetizing" to them.

3. "One of the daughters doing the butchering cut around the neck...(and) the other daughter skinned back the scalp skillfully" (23).
     -This is significant because it demonstrates how well the cannibals know how to prepare humans as food (the word skillfully) and that they have experience cutting up the humans and eating them.

4. "'Here is good food and we have neglected to eat it...Why should we throw away good meat? It is not right!'" (25).
     -This quote is significant because it is quoting Fore women and their opinions on human flesh. It shows that they believe it is "good food" and what they're doing(eating human flesh) is proper/right.

5. "They did not eat lepers or those who died of diarrhea, but the flesh of women killed by sorcery they considered clean" (25).
     -The quote here is significant because it shows that the cannibals didn't eat just anyone. They were, in a way, picky with the people they ate. If the person died of something bad, they wouldn't eat that person.