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

world of anthropology and created his career in forensic anthropology. Throughout his lifetime, Bass told the harrowing stories relayed by complex clues left by the deceased, and described these in his book: Death’s Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab The Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales.
In Lexington, Kentucky, Bass was pursuing a counseling master’s degree at the University of Kentucky when he got a glimpse of the forensic anthropology spectrum. He took an anthropology class under Dr. Charles E. Snow and assisted him in identifying another death from a vehicular accident. This experience changed his career path completely, and he began to pursue a forensic anthropology career. The problem-solving and puzzles involved with deciphering bones would be the challenge that Bass loved; he would rack his brain for hours translating how tall the female was, what the notches in femurs meant or what the fused sutures in the skull said about age.
Even with Dr. Bass’s depth of knowledge, the world of forensics did not have a complete understanding of decomposition. It was a clever opponent because decomposition was never controlled; every variable of the body’s environment would affect decomposition. This is what stumped Dr. Bass frequently. In one specific case, embalming fooled Dr. Bass into thinking the body was dead no longer then a couple months when the actual death date was over a hundred years ago. While being embarrassed to the core, he became interested in finding out the signs a body goes through while decomposing because forensic professionals couldn’t accurately gauge death dates. Factors like maggots, heat, or embalmed added to, subtracted from, or predicted the death date, so how could experts configure accurate death dates?
Because of unknown variables, Dr.

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

accurately.
Many of his graduate students would do their graduate research at The Body Farm and move on to be esteemed experts in specialized fields like maggots, fire, and power tools’ effects on decaying bodies. He frequently would consult them throughout his career on different variables nature tested decomposition with.
Esteemed author, Patricia Cornwell, visited The Body Farm to prepare for her fifth book, The Body Farm.

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

spotlight.
Dr. Bill Bass’s career has reached thousands of households with his abilities. Moving from state to state, he has taught young adults the mysteries behind the human body. He has pulled the curious ones into the career of forensic anthropology and was influenced many more. Police departments across the country have called on his expertise to consult mind-boggling cases. Dr. Bill Bass gives closure to those who are grieving and facts to those who need solace.