As gruesome and as awful as his demise was, I can't help but to feel that it was appropriate for him. Though he was destroyed by one of his most prized possessions, he finally became a member of the scientific community (even if it was in the form of a specimen).
I like that Gould describes the skull's i.d. number as also functioning as Lempriere's epitaph (248). I think its appropriate for a scientist because it is straight and to the point; it identifies the specimen and doesn't give any information not needed for analysis or study. It reminds me a lot of a lab report. Lab reports function only to provide other scientists with a template for recreating experiments and an analysis of results and sources of error that occurred during data collection. They are devoid of feeling, rhetorical devices, and are quite robotic in their construction. The goal is to be as concise as possible when summarizing procedures and other information; the fewer words it takes to describe something the better (and it really helps out your grade). This is the way that the Surgeon lived his life: he based everything around him on science and rarely talked about how things made him feel. Even the way that Gould presents his speech in all caps is very concise and robotic. All of the feeling and descriptive words that make sentences interesting are removed so that only the basic information is left.
Though it is sad a tragic, I can't think of a better way for a scientist to be remembered.
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