On The Visible Human Project

It's the 7th of March, 1981. Joseph Paul Jernigan is a mechanic from Kane, Illinois. He is not a particularly significant man, nor is he particularly smart or compassionate. The fact that he failed to efficiently steal a microwave oven from 75-year-old Edward Hale is evidence that he lacked brains. The fact that he stabbed Hale with a kitchen knife before shooting him thrice (cite{texas}) with a shotgun is evidence of his lack of compassion footnote{originally he left with the microwave, scott-free - but later he returned because he thought Hale would be able to identify him (cite{rothman}). Really not a smart guy}.\

For his crimes, he was sentenced to death by lethal injection. He spent 12 years on death row. . During this time, medical imaging modalities such as MR had become wildly popular in medicine, and the microwave oven has become inexpensive and common in households. After a series of failed appeals, it's thought that Jernigan was convinced to donate his body to medical science by a prison chaplain, who said it would get him a free funeral (cite{murderpedia}). Little did he know that his decision would make make him one of the most famous cadavers in history. \

A team at the National Library of Medicine, led by Michael J. Ackerman, had been assigned to develop a method of accurately imaging a complete human body in 3 dimensions. They had spent the past 2 years looking for a suitable cadaver - and Jernigan was now their best hope. He was of average weight, height and build, and his body had not been damaged by illness or accident.

His last meal was hamburgers and fries, which he refused. He spoke no last words. But on August the 5th, 1993, Joseph Paul Jernigan became immortal.

section{Imaging the Cadaver}

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...t from the knowledge gained in these pictures is absurd'}, which commits the mortal sin in angry-letter-writing of equating facts to beliefs. Regardless of your own personal view on the death penalty, it is a fallacy to imply that the use of executed cadavers in medical research supports that practice in some distant way. A cadaver is a cadaver, and if it is not used it will rot away all the same. And yet, in the eyes of some, it is more respectful to throw the cadaver in the ground than to honour a man's dying request. \

On that note, cite{rothman} seems to suggest that Jernigan did, in fact, hope that he would become famous. It was alleged by a former cellmate that he emph{'wanted his family to be able to sell his life story for a true-crime book'}. Whilst I doubt that Jernigan had medical imaging in mind, in some roundabout way, he did become famous after all.