Book Review·Book Review｜Transplanted Organs and Their “Second Memory”

The title of this book review was originally "After reading this book, I decided to donate my organs🫀". Later, I felt that it was too headline-grabbing, and I didn't know where the card for donating my organs was, so I changed it to a gentle one. point topic. Halloween has just passed, 🎃I will continue with a suspense book review in November, as promised last time. However, this time, the discussion is about " science ".

This book is called "The Gift", and it happens to be a book that my best friend left for me before immigrating. The "gift" mentioned in the title of the book is a donated heart🫀, and the whole book revolves around a concept called "Second Memory".

The plot of the book is not particularly twisty. It mainly tells that after a girl received a heart transplant, she began to see, hear, and recall some fragments, which had nothing to do with her original living environment and circle. Therefore, the girl thought that the "second memory" of the transplanted heart should be brought to her. After all, she was worried after she had just received a heart transplant because getting a healthy heart meant that someone would die. Therefore, she went back to her heart donor family, going against the rules of psychiatrists and organ transplants. It turned out that a girl died in a car accident and donated her heart. She contacted the family of the deceased girl as a recipient, but she did not expect that... Falling into a mysterious and bizarre case, it was discovered that the girl did not die in a car accident, but that the girl's parents had something to hide. So, relying on the "second memory" of the dead girl's heart, she solved the mystery... [I won't go into details, because I object to spoilers under any circumstances]

After reading the story, the concept of "second memory" still lingers. It turns out that "Second Memory" was not fabricated by the British author, but actually happened——

In 2011 , "Namah: Journal of New Approaches to Medicine and Health" published a very creepy article, citing many real cases of "second memory", for example:

1. A book about cardiac memory published in 1999 documented a foundry shop worker's strange behavior after receiving a heart transplant - he began to like classical music. The worker felt that this strange change had nothing to do with heart transplantation, because his heart donor came from a 17-year-old African-American man. The stereotype should be that this African-American man likes rap music. Unexpectedly, it was later learned that the man loved classical music and actually died on his way to violin lessons while holding his violin case.

2. Another case was recorded in an article on " cellular memories" in 2005. An 8-year-old girl receives a heart transplant from a deceased 10-year-old girl. An 8-year-old girl began having recurring nightmares about murders, and after her mother took her to see a psychiatrist, she discovered that she had indeed "witnessed" the murders. After calling the police, the police brought the murderer of the 10-year-old girl to justice based on the clues provided by the 8-year-old girl, including the time, location, murder weapon, and clothing of the perpetrator.

This article cited many examples, including examples of live harvesting. I will not list them all here. However, so many examples of "second memory" reminded me of a book of poetry I once read , "American Melancholy" , in which, There are two poems about China, one about female infanticide and one about the organ trade. If the body's "second memory" is true, then in many "organ sales" and "organ transplants", if after transplantation, the recipient is affected by the previous body's "second memory", it will change interests and changes like in the example. Lifestyle habits, or seeing the memory of the organ once carried? If so, it’s a bit scary to think about it. I remember seeing a recorded video in which experts talked about the default organ donation of China's death row prisoners. I don't know if other organs are transplanted. If it is a heart transplant, will it enter another person's body with "second memory" and "interference" "What about her/his memory or behavior or decision-making? 🤔At least, that’s what happened in those instances cited in weird medical articles⋯⋯

After reading the book, I started chatting with my husband about what happens after we die. I always say that I will die before my husband so that he can water my grave. He didn't take it seriously, saying that if he died first, the organs might live on in another person's body. However, both the book and reality seem to talk about the protection of donor information, and this may be the consideration.

This book is not particularly creepy, and the author's writing style is not what I like. I chose to write a book review because I thought the subject matter was interesting and I have never written about it.

"Second memory" also reminds me of the feeling that "second-hand books" give me. I have picked up a lot of second-hand books that I like, and I also buy second-hand books. I am often lucky enough to find bookmarks, notes, congratulations, comments, etc. from the previous owners, contained in the books. I treasure them all❤️. Holding it in your hands, it feels like you have not only the joy of reading the book, but also the true history of the book.