Essay On The Body Farm Or Death's Acre

There’s More That Meets the Eye The dead speak to the living in various forms. Humans are gifted with experts who translate the clues of the deceased including psychics, medical examiners, forensic pathologists, and forensic anthropologists. Anthropologists study bones, pathologists examine the “cause and development of disease,” and merging into forensics skews their missions (“Career”). For instance, forensic anthropologists study any causes of death available in the bones and aid the identification process with confirmations of age, race, and height while forensic pathologists study the causes of death “for legal purposes, one of which is deciding cause of death” (“Career”). Dr. Bill Bass, the author of Death’s Acre, is an expert in the

Bass created The Body Farm, or Death’s Acre, to clear the scientific uncertainties regarding decomposition. With the help of his students and the University of Tennessee, he built The University of Tennessee Anthropological Research Facility. This acre of land would be better known as The Body Farm and used to scientifically research bodies decaying in certain controlled situations to report on processes that affect decomposition. For instance, decomposition in water, heat, cold, and mud was observed; the activity of maggots was observed; bodies decaying in fire was observed; bodies being moved was observed. The Body Farm could finally tell the world how nature affected decomposition

Due to the accomplishment of that book, Dr. Bass’s facility became an overnight curiosity. His secretary would field hundreds of calls for pictures or tours of the facility, and Dr. Bass had to learn to decline these too curious onlookers. He was overwhelmed with the response to The Body Farm but he had a duty to protect the bodies’ last dignities. They were providing vast intelligence to the scientific community but they were originally human beings; he did not have their consent and would not purposely put them in the media