A sample page from SCP-3484. Proven not to contain memetic hazards.

Item #: SCP-3484

Object Class: Safe Pending Explained, 5/5/2018

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-3484 and an English translation are kept in a standard anomalous item locker at Site-66 and require no special containment beyond standard lock and checkout procedures.

Study of SCP-3484 is limited to D-class personnel under the care of Dr. Roderick Argent, who are required to be quarantined from other personnel to prevent memetic knowledge spread.

Description: SCP-3484 is an anatomical handbook produced in 1862. It is written in German and was printed in Göttingen. The object shows wear consistent with a book of similar age kept in storage, with a slight discoloration on the cover from non-caustic chemical exposure. Page 87 shows handwritten in the margin the English word "REMOVED???" The object describes a process by which a human body can be disassembled and reassembled without use of any tools. After sufficient study time of SCP-3484, subjects are capable of demonstrating the skills described on themselves and others.

The method of disassembly involves palpation of specific markers described in SCP-3484, followed by application of pressure and/or twisting of the body part at the marker. Upon successful completion of the exact methods, the body part separates from the host body. Separated body parts maintain viability for up to 72 hours of separation from their host and show continued function and motility. However, they do not demonstrate continued neural connection to the host body, with the host unable to feel stimulation of the removed body part nor control its operation.

Separated body parts can be reattached through similar techniques described in SCP-3484. Neural connection is reestablished upon reattachment without signs of degradation or neuropathy, and the host can resume ordinary use of the body part.

SCP-3484 cautions that body parts from different humans should not be combined. Testing confirms that prolonged attaching of foreign body parts results in extensive tissue rejection in most cases at the site of reattachment eventually causing severe and potentially fatal inflammation and ulceration of the liver, skin, and mucosa. These symptoms can be lessened through the use of histocompatible donors and recipients, and immunosuppressive therapy.

Despite the risks of tissue rejection, the methods described allow for attachment of extra body parts from donors to a fully intact recipient. The recipient will demonstrate the ability to control the extra body parts, although addition of donor brains to the recipient causes competition of movement between brains.

Update 12/4/2017: Under test conditions, D-51174 demonstrated the techniques to D-43922. With practice, D-43922 proved capable of body part separation, despite never having viewed SCP-3484. SCP-3484 identified as a memetic hazard and has been sent to the Cognitohazard Department for further study.

Head Researcher's Note: I examined the tapes of the memetic test after the fact and wondered if I could palpate the markers myself. It's surprisingly easy to replicate, once you know what you're looking for. After ten minutes of taking my left thumb off and putting it back on, I figured out how to peel back my hand at the wrist and slide my ulna out cleanly. It took a little shake to snap it back into place, but I've put my arm back together and I'm not the worse for it. - R. Argent

Update 12/13/2017: See Cognitohazard Report 3484-CH1 for details. No anomalous physical or mental alterations have been found as a result of studying the material. Furthermore, casual perusal of the materials is not sufficient to transmit the anomalous effect. Of note is that SCP-3484-affected subjects are capable of removing and reattaching body parts of other subjects with no SCP-3484 exposure. This suggests that the anomalous memetic effect does not result in any physical modifications to subjects after study of SCP-3484. Continued study of the anomalous effect is recÐ µæ&LØ£á ¤BT˜d1¶

FURTHER REPORTING - L4 ACCESS AND ABOVE ONLY

ACCESS GRANTED

O5 MEETING MINUTES DECLASSIFIED FOR SITE DIRECTORS - POTENTIAL EVIDENCE OF LETHE EVENT

ALL O5 IDENTIFIERS HAVE BEEN REDACTED PER SCP-001 PROTOCOL

Proposal Date: 5/5/2018

Update Proposal: Review of SCP-3484 Memetic Effects

Dialog:

Why are we talking about this object? It's classified Safe, we understand the memetic hazard, and it's easily controlled.

Perhaps too easily. Viewing or handling the text does not transfer any anomalous effect. The text, for itself, does not shift or alter in any way to accommodate the reader. Only by careful study and practice can a subject demonstrate the anomalous effects. I'm not concerned that this book is too hard to contain. I'm worried that it's just a non-anomalous book.

What about that memetic transmission of the anomalous effect?

We transmit memetic information every day. It's called knowledge. I teach you how to read, you can read. I teach you how to cook a turkey, you can cook a turkey. I teach you how to disassemble a person's ribcage, and you can disassemble ribcages.

But the effect must be anomalous! If it were as simple as reading a book and studying, or through simple instruction, we'd be teaching this everywhere in medical school around the world! Surgery as we know it would be a thing of the past. Why bother with chemotherapy if you can just open up a patient and pick out the tumor? Tumors, even, if it's metastasized? Or even plastic surgery? Couldn't someone just sit in front of a mirror and rearrange their parts and get a new face?

Perhaps the book is not anomalous, then, and we can call it Explained.

Is that why you've overridden protocol and allowed Dr. Argent to continue his work without labeling him E-class?

Yes. I have my suspicions that SCP-3484 is nothing more than a normal instruction manual. And after all, all knowledge has to be discovered somewhere for the first time, right?

True, but this most definitely is not the first time. The book is 150 years old, and for most of that time, it was outside our purview. There's no way it could have been kept secret for that long. It's too bloody useful.

It's a printed book, right? There must have been hundreds printed. Have we searched for any more of these?

We've looked for the books, haven't found any. We've looked for the printing house, found it, but they had no records of ever having printed the book.

Where did we find this book?

It was in a Marshall, Carter, & Dark production house located near Cape Fear. A boutique biochemical and electronic craft house, apparently involving programmable mnestics. The owner collected antique books in bulk. A cardboard box of them was found by a hastily abandoned workstation.

Mnestics? Are you sure?

That's what the folks down in Pharmacology said. Why, you think it's important?

Could the anomalous disassembly be knowledge we've forgotten?

Forgotten? What, you mean all of humanity just woke up one day and didn't know about taking ourselves apart anymore?

Maybe not in so dramatic a turn, but it has happened before. The native Tasmanians did not know how to make a bow and arrow, despite being common Aboriginal tools, and apparently never learned how again for thousands of years. In Europe, sailors knew how to cure scurvy in the 1200s, then forgot all about it and had to rediscover methods all over again 500 years later. We're only now able to reproduce Damascus steel. Maybe. Whole populations forget things. It happens.

Yes, but this isn't some technique that is passed down by word of mouth. This is written down in a book. Actually, not even written. Printed. Bound. Someone assembled plates with these words and pictures and ran this book through a printing press. Probably at least a hundred such books were made and disseminated into places of learning. And it's such a fascinating skill that people would be compelled to look it up. Try it out. Make a business out of it. But what do we see in our history? Nothing. Heck, if this is not anomalous, what does that mean for SCP-291? SCP-418? Are they not anomalous? Just using some technique we forgot?

Well, perhaps Page 87 can shed some light on this.

How so?

Page 87 describes palpation markers for the disassembly of the human brain. Of note is a diagram that purports to show how to detach the "Augenlappen." The literal translation of this word is eye-lobe, and the diagram shows a human brain with an additional cerebral lobe, located directly posterior to the ocular orbit. This lobe does not exist.

Wait, are you insinuating that everyone around the world just decided to open their heads up, remove a section of their brains that just so happened to contain the knowledge of how to open people up and put them back together, then, while no longer knowing how to reassemble people, since that part was just removed, still somehow put ourselves back together and forgot about the event in its entirety? No, sorry, I can't believe that. We deal with the impossible daily, and that still makes no sense. If we're going with this forgetting hypothesis, then we can accomplish these effects with good old fashioned amnestics.

Amnestics? For the whole world?

We've done it before, you know.

And we keep records of it, yes. We've only dosed the world a handful of times, and we specifically keep records of each time on purpose. Because it's that risky to lose information. If we dosed the world, we, of all people, would know it.

Unless we're not the people dosing.

Conclusion: SCP-3484 is to remain Safe for now and not updated to Explained. No update to SCP-001 is to be made at this time. O5 directs MTF Alpha-1 ("Red Right Hand") to be placed on LETHE protocol alert.