Talk:The Cremation of Sam McGee

[Untitled]
Add pictures! --(some anonymous individual)

This page states that the poem is based on the discovery and cremation of a corpse by the roommate of the poet, but one of the links at the foot of the page is to a report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (apparently legitimate as far as I can tell at a glance) which would appear to contradict that; as far as I can see, the contents of the report are not mentioned in any way in the article itself. How does one go about investigating the validity of such conflicting sources?

For what it is worth, there is a PDF version of the same report, hosted on the CMAJ's own Website:

http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/reprint/159/12/1485.pdf.

--The Wanderer (talk) 03:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The best way to investigate the validity of such conflicting sources, I suspect, would be to read the sources. The 'legitimate' medical report in the CMAJ you're referring to (with a nice cartoon of a man poking his head out of a boiler that is sitting on a psychiatrist's couch) also states that:

"His voice was gruff and rapport was poor, as the interview was conducted by shouting in the midst of a roaring fire... I, on the other hand, was unable to sustain the interview in his milieu because of the extreme heat. This man appears to suffer from a delusional disorder related to his misperception of the ambient temperature... Because Mr. McGee is placing himself at risk for tissue damage by virtue of his refusal to accept a reasonable thermal environment, I recommend that he be apprehended... On arrival, thyroid studies should be undertaken, the cold intolerance being suggestive of hypothyroidism."

I have concluded that this article was intended as a joke. As was the original poem.

Wikipedia defines humour as, "the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement."

Refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humor

76.67.120.239 (talk) 03:36, 18 October 2008 (UTC)Keep on laughing.


 * I did read the CMJ source, yes. I did not notice the cartoon (and - having now gone back to dig the deleted link out of the edit history and look - wouldn't have identified it as what you say it is, though I can't categorically refute that either), and I don't see anything else about the report which looks like a joke. The content of the report alone, such as the passage you cite, certainly cannot justify that judgement; the events described seem to me to be self-consistent and in that sense not entirely implausible, just not consistent with known science.
 * Which is not to say that it is *not* a joke, of course, just that I don't think the article alone is enough to justify concluding that it is. I am therefore inclined to take that article as seriously as it presents itself unless given reason to do otherwise.
 * (I am also familiar with the concept of humor, yes.)
 * -- The Wanderer (talk) 15:25, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * (I am also familiar with the concept of humor, yes.)
 * -- The Wanderer (talk) 15:25, 25 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I'm not too sure that you are clear on the concept of humour. This is fine if English is not your first language, I suppose. However, there is just too much that I could point out about the CMAJ "article" that makes it abundantly clear that it is indeed humour -- irony, in fact. Even some cursory research into some of the "facts" presented in the "consultation report" reveals that this is obviously not a contemporary report due to glaring historical inaccuracies, and I suspect that someone with a medical background (which I do not have) would probably recognise anachronisms.


 * I point this out now, more than two years after the fact, as a guide to others who come across this discussion, not for any other reason.


 * --Craig (t|c) 22:41, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Effects of cremation
A German friend, to whom I showed the poem, told me that there have been reports of corpses sitting up in crematories, not from revival, but from some physiological effect of the heat on the muscles. She also said there were tales about it in German folklore, but I haven't been able to trace any. If any such tales can be located, I suggest they be mentioned in the article as possible source. Dynzmoar (talk) 11:49, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * In fact my wife has an amusing personal anecdote about a corpse with a kyphosis sitting up in the morgue of a hospital while she was working there as a young nurse during the 1970s, so it can happen. A decent source could be tricky though. -- Derek Ross &#124; Talk'' 04:36, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Original source NOT 'anecdotal'
I'm surprised more hasn't been mentioned about this, but...

The account here says Service got the idea in 1904, and published the poem in 1907.

A famous collection of humor by Thomas W. Jackson, "On a Slow Train Through Arkansaw" ('Funny Railroad Stories, Sayings of the Southern Darkies, All the Latest and Best Minstrel Jokes of the Day') is copyrighted 1903. (My copy was found via Google Books.) In it, on p.93, we find this tidbit:

"While I was in Dawson City there was a man froze to death. They decided they would cremate him.  They fired up the crematory.  When it got red hot they put him in the oven.  After he had been in there for several hours they supposed he had been thoroughly cremated.  They opened the door.  When they did they saw him sitting up in one corner of the oven with his coat on.  He said, "Shut that door. This is the first time I have been warm since I have been in Alaska."

While Service clearly gets the credit for making this story into a great work of poetry -- at least, of its kind -- he equally clearly lifted the idea and the punchline (upon which so much of the humor of the poem depends) from a previous source, without attribution that I can find documented.

Robert M. Ellsworth r.m.ellsworth@att.net — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.242.188.254 (talk) 12:02, 7 August 2015 (UTC)