• Question: have you ever dicected anything?

    Asked by to Andrew, Elaine, Emma, Michael, Nancy on 18 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Michael Kelly

      Michael Kelly answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      During my ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels I was expected to dissect a fly’s salivary glands, the intestines of a worm, the reproductive organs of a rat, the abdomen of a rabbit, the ears of a dogfish. At university I worked with the heart of a rabbit and the legs and nerves of frog. I don’t think students do this much animal work now, it was a bit excessive looking back.

    • Photo: Andrew French

      Andrew French answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      Nope!
      I’ve taken a computer apart, but that’s it!

    • Photo: Nancy Carlisle

      Nancy Carlisle answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      OOOH! I LOVE dissection! When I was at University I took a course called ‘Comparative Anatomy of Vertebrates’ and we dissected lots of different types of species and made comparisons between them to see how they had evolved differently. I liked it so much that for two years after I took the course, I helped out teaching! It was really neat to see how complex the inner workings of animals are, and it made me appreciate my own body much more!

    • Photo: Emma Reid

      Emma Reid answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      Hi Hazel!
      Yes! I do it almost everyday because dissection and surgery is a big part of my research. At the moment I mainly dissect mouse eyes but at uni I got to dissect human brains as part of my Neuroscience degree. It was amazing to learn about the human brain by dissecting different parts of it and having a closer look at it. We were very grateful to the people who had donated their body to be used for medical research after they passed away and we treated their brains with a lot of respect. I’m sure they would have been happy that they helped us learn about how the body works. 🙂
      Emma

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