Art by Ondine Mitchell Henrietta Lacks died on October 4, 1951. Her autopsy report, though disturbing, contained an eerily glamorous description of her innards: every organ, beginning with her cervix, was dotted with glimmering pearls. However, to the dismay of Henrietta and her family, these were pearls of death…but not for scientists.  Henrietta’s cells were lesioned from her cervix months prior to her death. She had been receiving treatment at Johns Hopkins “colored ward”