Monday, September 5, 1988/The Battalion/Page 9
S Old church makes home
for plastered face masks
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DALLAS (AP) — Inside an old,
disused church - on Edinburgh’s
Royal Mile, a strange, even macabre
spectacle draws a steady line
throughout the day.
Upon a narrow wooden platform
around three of the walls, the faces
of 45 famous and infamous men are
displayed in a dozen glass cases.
The plaster casts were made ei
ther in their lifetime or after death,
and not seen in public since 1886.
They start with a cheerful-looking
Sir Isaac Newton, greatest of scien
tists, who died in 1717, and end with
expressionless George Bryce.
Bryce murdered a nursemaid in
1864 and was the last man to be pub
licly hanged in Edinburgh, the Scot
tish capital.
In between are such historic fig
ures as Prime Minister William Pitt
the Younger, composer Felix Men
delssohn and the poets Friedrich
Schiller and John Keats.
Novelist Sir Walter Scott, who
died of a stroke, has a mask with a
line across the forehead, showing it
was made after the top of the skull
was removed at the autopsy into the
stroke.
There is baby-faced John Any
Bird Bell, hanged in Kent in 1831
before a crowd of 10,000 for cutting
the throat of another youth.
“Lord have mercy upon us, all
people before me take warning from
me,” he cried before the gallows trap
was sprung beneath his feet.
Visitors pay 50 pence (85 cents) to
enter.
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Candidates
use $750,000
for advertising
HOUSTON (AP) — The U.S.
Senate race in Texas thus far has
been a battle of television titans as
Democratic incumbent Lloyd
Bentsen and Republican Beau
Boulter spent more than
$750,000 in advertising during
August.
Bentsen, a Houstonian who
also is campaigning nationally as
Michael Dukakis’ running mate,
spent about $575,000 on TV
spots during August, according
to Jack Martih, director of Bent-
sen’s Senate race.
Boulter, a congressman from
Amarillo, spent about $220,000
on television ads in the same pe
riod, spokesman Joe Fleming told
the Houston Post.
As much as three-fourths of
the money was poured into the
state’s two largest markets, Dallas-
Fort Worth and Houston.
Martin and Fleming said their
candidates are sure to resume
their advertising blitzes before
long, but neither would offer spe
cifics.
“I don’t think we want to let
them know of our strategy
through the press,” Martin said.
“We found the masks covered in grime in the cellars
and an attic of the university anatomy department. It
seems ludicrous that they were hidden away for so
long. ”
Matthew Kaufman
professor
They tend to lapse into a strange
silence, indicative of funeral-goers,
as they gaze at the masks.
“I think visitors find it so fascinat
ing because we aren’t exposed to this
sort of material any more,” said Dr.
Matthew Kaufman, professor of
anatomy at Edinburgh University,
who organized the exhibition.
“To see the real features of the fa
mous in three dimensions when they
are long dead is fairly startling. If
you are looking at a painted portrait
you can never be absolutely sure that
the image is lifelike, but about these
there can be no doubt,” Kaufman,
45, said in an interview.
Of the 45 masks on display, nine
were made in life and 24 in death.
The others could be either.
Those of the poet Samuel Taylor
Coleridge and playwright Richard
Brinsley Sheridan are far from
peaceful and clearly show the final
spasm of death.
Kaufman said life masks were
common before photography was
invented.
They were made of plaster with
quills through which to breathe, and
moulds were then made from the
hollow plaster casts.
“We found the masks covered in
grime in the cellars and an attic of
the university anatomy depart
ment,” Kaufman said. “It seems lu
dicrous that they were hidden away
for so long.”
The collection of 300 masks is one
of the world’s largest and was once
double that number.
Damaged masks and duplicates
were disposed of years ago and
many were smashed in the late 1950s
when their shelves collapsed.
The masks include that of John
James Audubon, the American artist
and naturalist who died in 1851.
French artist Jacques-Louis David
is there, and so is Jean-Paul Marat,
the French revolutionary agitator
murdered in his bath by Charlotte
Corday in 1793.
David’s painting of Marat dead in
the bath was a high point of Euro
pean painting of that time.
Medical therapy
conquers stress
from tension jobs
AUSTIN (AP) — If you’re ever in
a hospital, keep an eye out for the
“night riders” because they’ve
stopped watching out for them
selves.
They’re doctors who work long
hours at unusual times of the night,
often winning the admiration of
their peers. But they are really out of
control, overly dedicated, obsessed.
Dr. Charles Boren, medical direc
tor of The Institute of Living, a re
nowned psychiatric hospital, is las
soing night riders and other
professionals who are running on
empty, becoming inefficient and iso
lating themselves from their col
leagues.
The institute, one of the nation’s
oldest and largest private psychiatric
hospitals, has established a program
called “The Retreat” to treat the doc
tors, lawyers, priests and others who
are losing their ability to function be
cause of the stress of their careers.
The program allows up to 28 pro
fessionals at a time to live together,
talk to each other, share their com
mon problems and put their lives
oack together.
A stay can be as short as one week
ar as long as six months, but the av
erage stay is about 62 days, said Dr.
Walter A. Kekich, the institute’s di
rector of the acute, specialty and am
bulatory services unit.
During that period, the profes
sionals receive individual counseling
and group therapy. They also have
free time for reflection, travel and
other recreation.
One participant in the program
who has spoken publicly about his
experience is Archbishop John
Quinn, who tenders to 375,000 Ro
man Catholic parishoners in the San
Francisco area. Quinn, 59, spent
four months at the retreat earlier
this year, before returning to his job
in April.
“I was finding I wasn’t measuring
up and wishing I could do better
dealing with the problems of people
around me,” Quinn said when he re
turned to work.
Biologist fascinated with rare hawk
EL PASO (AP) — They’re choco-
^ late-brown winged hunters with yel-
— low landing gear and weapons sys
tems, trained in the latest search-
j and-destroy maneuvers — the flush
and ambush, the surprise pounce
t and the relay tactic.
They scan the tan sand dunes, the
rolling desert hills dotted with mes-
quite, shinnery oak and patches of
creosote brush.
They look for their victims — per-
|K haps a jackrabbit or a cottontail — at
Los Medanos, the dunes, 30 miles
! east of Carlsbad in southeastern
5 New Mexico.
Biologist Jim Bednarz, after years
of research, is fascinated with these
unusual birds, called Harris’ hawks.
A full-size female hawk, with a
wingspan of almost 4 feet, is 1 Vz feet
long from head to tail and weighs
about 2 pounds, while an adult jack-
rabbit can weigh more than 4 1 /2
pounds, Bednarz says.
“It’s very risky,” he says. “There
are not very many predators that will
take prey three times their size.”
But these birds of prey are not sol
itary hunters like other raptors, Bed
narz says. They hunt in groups and,
like humans, are very social animals.
Bednarz, now director of higher
education and research at the Hawk
Mountain Sanctuary Association
north of Kempton, Pa., says, “Both
behaviors are rare.”
Predators such as wolves, lions
and African wild dogs cooperate
when they hunt, he says, “but with
birds, it’s debatable.”
“As far as the Harris’ hawk goes,
what we’ve seen may be similar to an
elementary step in the development
of a complex human-like social sys
tem,” he said in a telephone inter
view.
“What the research suggests, at
least with this one species, is that co
operation per se is the reason why
these birds are social and that indi
viduals do indeed get benefits by
working with other individuals.
“Also, it shows the birds have lev
els of sophistication that a lot of men
haven’t attributed to them.”
The Harris’ hawk is generally un
common in the United States, Bed
narz says, but one area of concentra
tion is Los Medanos, 162 square
miles of desert proposed to the U.S.
Bureau of Land Management as the
Los Medanos Raptor Area.
While studying birds of prey for
his doctorate at the University of
New Mexico from 1981 through
1985, Bednarz was prodded by a
professor to investigate Harris’
hawks.
“The key question was, ‘Are these
birds social and why are they social,”’
Bednarz says.
Donna Sayers/Sharon Storey
Welcome Back Ag’s!
HAIR PRO S
style shop
located in the University Inn
formerly Ramada
call 846-1843 for appt.
walk-in’s always welcome
T exas ASM
Flying Club
^Teaching the ‘Best to ‘Jiy the Best
Interested people are urged to attend our meeting
September 6, 1988 at the Airport Clubhouse
For information
Call Julie Scott 846-1279
7:00 p.m
•Nutritional &
Instructional
Consultation
•Flex, Nautilus &
•Olympic Weights
Dumbells
•Sontegra Tanning
Beds
•Specialized Aerobic
Floor
•Whirlpool/Sauna
•lifefitness®
lifecycles
Ucensee of Golds Gym Ent.,lnc.
We Give
Great R
)lympic Weights & Aeipbics only$49 FulEVFacil
(weight* & Aerobics^
Call dr Come b
1308 HdiVey Rd.
764-8000
The new—
tri-state
SPORTING GOODS
we now carry—
•Athletic Shoes •Re-Stringing
•Baseball •Running
•Basketball •Ski Wear
•Exercise Equip. •Snorkling
•Billiard Equip. •Soccer
•Football •Softball
•Golf •Team Uniforms
•Handball •Volleyball
•Raquetball •Weight Lifting
September Special
Raquet <f>coo
Stringing + stnn g
3600 Old College Road
Across from The Farm Patch
846-1947 Mon-Sat 9-6
Call Battalion
Classified 845-2611
Happy Hour
7:00 @ Zephyr Club
For more information call
The House (409) 846-5053
Swallow It Whole
Wed., Sept. 7, 9:00 @ The House
Delta Chi Smoker*
Thurs., Sept. 8, 7:00-9:00 @ The House
(Coat & Tie Required)
Open Party
Fri., Sept. 9, 9:00 @ The House
Barbeque*
Sat., Sept. 10, 1:00 @ The House
Lake Party*
Sun., Sept. 11, 2:00 @ Welch Park,
Lake Somerville
RUSH