Cabinet of curiosities: who are the medical ghosts?

You might think of a nightmarish version of Daft Punk masks. Or to the incarnation physical of certain paintings by Francis Bacon. In any case, what is certain is that dental ghosts do not leave you indifferent. If the robots the most realistic still barely manage to extricate themselves from theuncanny valley, it is disturbing how much a simple mask of metal with realistic teeth can confuse our senses and give rise to a deep sense of unease. But before we talk about them, let’s take a quick (and not exhaustive) tour of the history of corpses and ghosts in medicine.

Breaking free from taboos in favor of progress?

The human body is a machine of a complexity as formidable as it is formidable, the vessel of thousands of chemical, electrical and biological processes, the entire subtlety of which still escapes us; and to cope with its ailments and dysfunctions, medicine has had to refine and specialize over the centuries. It is a practice that is built on experience, but for which the trial-and-error method can sometimes prove to be costly. Try a new treatment on a patient, and you risk seeing him or her perish in your hands rather than at the hands of the disease afflicting them. Cut off the wrong organ, and what was meant to be a minor surgery could quickly turn into unintentional murder.

That is why from Greek Antiquity, we find traces of the first dissections on cadavers for training purposes, followed by the introduction of experimental surgery, with the Arab scientist Avenzoar, at the beginning of the second millennium. Not insignificant progress for our societies because in addition to possible technical constraints, it also had to overcome a much more important obstacle: the cultural and religious taboo which requires that we respect the bodies of the deceased. The possibility for barbers surgeons, then surgeons, to practice their art on remains revolutionizes the practice and makes it possible to gradually reduce charlatanism in favor of a body of know-how always more proven and more sure.

The human body: a rare currency

But as universities multiply and train new armies of doctors and surgeons, the question of body availability arises more and more urgently. If dissection is now authorized, the sacrilegious feeling which accompanies it remains strong, and it is generally reserved to the remains of criminals that public opinion has already taken on the task of dehumanizing. Faced with these restrictions and the rapid rotting of the flesh of their subjects, surgeons were forced to call on the services of traffickers of corpses, bearing the nickname of resurrectionists. From burials are raped in the shadow of the night. The human body is becoming more than ever a coveted, precious and controversial resource.

The passage of many laws on body and organ donation in the mid-20th century^e century has allowed this crisis situation to be greatly regularized, even if certain events like the coronavirus pandemic can still today destabilize this fragile system. On the other hand, thanks to the development of new virtual reality technologies, providing medical students with visual feedback and haptic during simulated operations, schools hope to gradually overcome the need to resort to real corpses. As for other fields requiring the use of human bodies for experimental purposes such as imaging, ballistics or even dentistry, they gradually saw themselves invaded by ghosts with exotic…

Ghosts in medicine

Let us get to the heart of the subject that interests us, and start with a definition in order to eliminate any ambiguity. A medical phantom is an object designed to mimic the properties of part or all of the human body. Hyperrealistic torsos used to study the impact of guns fire on internal organs in the boxes of plastic – more like children’s toys – intended to help technicians calibrate their deviceMRI, there are all kinds and for all areas. General practitioner, ballistics, imagery, crash test, first aid, you have most likely encountered a ghost in your life.

Dental ghosts for their part seem to have been the first to appear in the medical world. It was Oswald Fergus, a Scottish dentist and poet in his spare time who created the first “training jaw” in 1894: a simple vertical bar on which two rows of teeth are mounted, all forming a rudimentary mouth. The tool is rapidly democratizing and soon develops the outline of a skull allowing aspiring dentists to train in conditions more faithful to reality. Some ghosts are even adorned with a torso.

In the valley of the strange

In general, the craftsman is not particularly concerned with the appearance of the face which he puts on these heads. From the 1920s to the 1960s, a metal helmet vaguely hinting at the outline of a pair ofeyes and a nose overhangs a bared jaw. Fans ofHellboy Perhaps there will find a resemblance to the terrifying Karl Ruprect in it, while others will see it as a air family with the Terminator. These nightmarish skulls were given cheeks in the late 1960s and finally acquired their current most widespread form: the lower face to the nose is reproduced with a skin in rubber surrounding the jaw, and its upper part is made of a plastic shell.

Ghosts continue to cast a bright light in academic and research circles, and thanks to the latest advances in the3d printing, researchers hope to create ever more realistic substitutes from real cells or cartilage. It should be noted, however, that the donation of bodies and organs remains crucial to save lives, whether in laboratories or in hospitals. So if you want to continue supporting science beyond your existence on Earth, do not hesitate to inquire. on the Public Service website and report your wish to the donation center of your choice. In the meantime, I hope we meet in the flesh in January, for future Cabinets of curiosities.