ABSTRACT
Ancient Mexican culture is full of contrasts and, unfortunately, best remem bered by accounts of endless Aztec wars, human sacrifice, and ritual cannibalism. While much academic debate has been produced around the accuracy of human sacrificial descriptions, the mainstream indicates that it was practiced as part of a religious renovation.1 Two aspects o f this relate to us dwellers of the modern medical age. The first has to do with surgical technical skills required to obtain a beating organ to offer the gods; the second is the meaning of it all. Since these offerings were done during critical moments which coincided with cyclic changes in nature, the ultimate purpose was that of restoring the dangerously maladjusted “cosmic en ergy.” Not at all very different from the purposes we pursue today with organ trans plantation; although the targets are different (society well-being versus individual health), the outcome remains similar.
