Bodily Functions

I just read "Body Snatchers" [Data, April]. In light of the evidence about the Sujiatun detention camp in China, where witnesses have reported the removal of organs from live victims, we do indeed have to ask, as Laogai Research Foundation executive director Harry Wu suggested, "How and where did they get these bodies?" The Chinese Communist Party's response will be, as in the past, deny, deny, deny, followed by empty promises to clean up their misdeeds. As for our response, so cautiously focused on fear and greed, it is pathetic. Isn't it time we showed some backbone and resolve in dealing with this regime?

Kathy Gillis
Ottawa, Ontario

Perhaps you provided us with the story and pictures of Bodies . . . the Exhibition to stimulate thought and discussion, but this exhibition is disgusting and sad. It does not deserve the coverage you gave it. The "stars" of the exhibition were and still are people and deserve the respect that is due all human beings. Why do you think that we cover people when they die? To recognize their humanity even in death and to protect them from curious eyes. This exhibition and your pictures of it turn these people into things, invade the privacy of the dead, and dehumanize all of us.

Nancy Hoar
Professor of communication, Western New England College Springfield, Massachusetts

In her article on the ethics of Bodies . . . the Exhibition, a traveling anatomical show, Yasmine Mohseni writes, "In 2004, news reports confirmed that bullet holes were found in the heads of two specimens" presented by Gunther von Hagens. The report Mohseni refers to is an article in Der Spiegel, which alleged that Dr. von Hagens used the bodies of executed Chinese prisoners in his Body Worlds exhibition. Dr. von Hagens took Der Spiegel to court and won an interim injunction against the publication for making the allegation. Der Spiegel is now restricted from claiming that Gunther von Hagens is exhibiting the corpses of executed Chinese in Body Worlds exhibitions. Body Worlds has never used the bodies of executed Chinese prisoners, or unclaimed or found bodies, in its exhibitions. Exclusive of a small number of dissected specimens and fetuses acquired from established morphological institutes, such as anatomy and pathology programs and historical anatomical collections, all specimens in Body Worlds exhibitions stem from our Institute for Plastination's body donation program, established in Germany in 1982.

Gail Vida Hamburg
Media and public liaison, Gunther von Hagens and Body Worlds, Heidelberg, Germany

Yasmine Mohseni replies:

While reporting the article on Bodies . . . the Exhibition, Discover requested an interview with Von Hagens through his representative in Philadelphia. Von Hagens declined to be interviewed for the piece.

Trials of the Telegraph

Bruno Maddox writes in his essay on the telegraph ["When First We Clicked," Blinded by Science, April] that "terrible things happened" when laying the Atlantic cable: "They'd be halfway across and the cable would snap or suddenly unspool into some undersea trench along with hundreds of thousands of dollars in hard-won seed capital. In one particularly heartbreaking attempt, two ships met mid-Atlantic, each having laid half the cable, only to find that they'd put down cable sheathing from different manufacturers and that the two halves of the link wouldn't, as we say, interface." The cable did snap several times during the five attempts to lay it, once when the ship was more than two-thirds of the way across the Atlantic. But I am aware of no instance where any considerable length of cable unspooled into an uncharted trench. The paying-out gear would not have allowed the cable to do so. As for the mismatched sheathing, this problem was discovered long before the cable was spliced in mid-Atlantic, and a means of dealing with the situation was devised. Nor did the splicing of the cable take place after the two ships had laid their shares of the cable from opposite shores. The ships met in the mid-Atlantic, spliced, and then headed for the two continents.

John Steele Gordon
North Salem, New York

Erratum

In "20 Things You Didn't Know About Space Disasters" [Data, April], we stated that Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 capsule sank after splashdown in the Pacific. The capsule landed in the Atlantic Ocean.