基本説明
Centers on the developments that have occurred in the field of organ transplantation during the 1980s and early 1990s, and on the rise and fall of tha Jarvik-7 artificial heart in that period.
Full Description
Spare Parts centres on the developments that have occurred in the field of organ transplantation during the 1980s and early 1990s, and on the rise and fall of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart in that period. It is vividly written in a narrative ethnographic style. The interconnected stories of organ transplantation and the artificial heart are recounted in an interpretive framework that attributes their most enduring significance to the triple themes of uncertainty, gift exchange, and the allocation of scarce material and non-material resources, and to the way that they open questions of life and death, identity and solidarity.
Contents
Introduction: Rebuilding people; PART I: ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION: Patterns and issues in the 1980s; Of wonder drugs, the transplant boom, and moratoria; Organ transplantation as gift exchange; Alterations in the theme of the gift; Transplantation and the medical commons; PART II: THE JARVIK-7 ARTIFICIAL HEART EXPERIMENT: Desperate Appliance: A short history of the development and use of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart; "Made in the U.S.A.": American features in the rise and fall of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart; Who shall guard the guardians?; PART III: THE PARTICIPANT OBSERVERS: Final Journeys; Leaving the field; Notes; Bibliography; Index.
