Do I See Dead People??

Snow's stopped. The sky is china-blue and laced with wisps of cloud. Lovely. We've had a bit warmer weather, but it doesn't seem to matter -- I'm still cold, regardless of what's going on around me. Seems like this flu is still working its way out.

Million Dollar Journey has some helpful approaches for tax-time:

http://www.milliondollarjourney.com/ways-i-reduced-my-taxes-last-year.htm

And Yes-to-Me not only has a lot of encouragement to people who have been laid off...or fear it's coming...but some excellent resume tips:

http://yes-to-me.com/2008/12/28/job-loss/

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The latest issue of Popular Science (Jan 2009) talks about a new approach for cardiac arrest victims: induced hypothermia. Put them in deep freeze to minimize any damage to the heart --and body -- until treatment has had a chance to stabilize and begin healing. (See "Cold Relief" pp. 55-59.) Science has seen any number of patients who've been left outside in freezing temperatures, or rescued from the icy backside of a pond after being underwater for a half hour. And they've been successfully revived, due to their body cores -- and functions -- slowing to a near-crawl. Amazing that this can be applied to heart attacks, too!

This news makes me wonder. Could the same treatment be applied to stroke victims? Could it be extended to other organ treatments, to make them more effective? The possibilities seem endless.

WARNING WARNING WARNING...the next two stories are not for the squeamish.

It also makes me think about one of the more gruesome stories in one of my folk tales book: a supposedly true account of a doctor who visited a small village just after harvest-time. (I'm thinking it was set in Vermont or New Hampshire. Could have been Maine.) According to him, a number of people were stripped of their clothing, then left to freeze solid outdoors, then stacked like cordwood off to the side.

He was told to come back in the spring, "because then we'll need our people for planting time." He watched as the human popsicles were soaked in tubs full of warm water, laced with hemlock boughs. The thawing bodies were rubbed vigorously, and after some time, the people came back to life.

Tell that to one of Hemingway's buddies, who mentioned a nearby farmer in Austria, where Hem and his wife were on a skiing vacation (A Moveable Feast). The farmer's wife died in wintertime, when he was unable to bury her properly. So he stood her body up in the toolshed, until springtime came and the ground thawed. The really gross part? Her mouth was partly open -- so the farmer hung his lantern from it every night when he went in to do chores.