STIFF: THE CURIOUS LIVES OF HUMAN CADAVERS

STIFF: THE CURIOUS LIVES OF HUMAN CADAVERS
Author: Mary Roach
Copyright 2003
W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0-393-05093-9
Hardcover $23.95
303 pages
Non-fiction
As a child, we were told there are certain subjects that are “taboo”, Besides race, religion, and politics, nice people don’t talk about cadavers. At least that was what I had been told.
Apparently, many people are in the same situation in that during their life, they have had questions about dead bodies and were told that it was wrong even to think such thoughts.
This book is for those of us who never received answers, but still had the questions.
STIFF: THE CURIOUS LIVES OF HUMAN CADAVERS is a light and frequently humorous non-fiction work about dead bodies and what people do with them.
Most of us have heard about grave robbers and body snatchers. However, have you considered the training of the doctors during that time? Would you want a doctor who had actually operated on a real, albeit, dead human or one that had just read about a particular procedure or observed from a gallery?
When is someone dead? Is it when their heart stops beating? What about if a person is on life support? If their body is still alive, what about their brain? STIFF actually discusses these issues with the medical experts and tells the facts from their viewpoints.
I always felt that there were three choices upon my death: burial, cremation, or donating my body to science. Now there are also a view other choices, donating your brain to science, freezing in liquid nitrogen and becoming a part of the cycle of life, or plasticizing your body.
I was fascinated on the contributions to science outside the medical field from the donations of a human body. It makes sense but I did not know that the automotive industry and the military frequently use bodies for tests the lead to everyday safety. Besides the crash-test dummies, human bodies are needed for truly understanding the amount of damage with a side impact of a vehicle. How much force is needed to break the rib cage? Also, the advancement of airbags was from the use of real human bodies in the test studies. For the military, to discover the best body armor, required real human dead bodies, not just test dummies.
The only criticism was that the books did not bring up the subject of cryogenics, which financially is not realistic for most of us. It did consider the revised version of this that is not currently available in this country.
Mary Roach grew up in New Hampshire with an elderly father. Through her eclectic background has assisted in her freelance writing career. STIFF was her first book which began as a story for Salon.com. She has also written SPOOK: SCIENCE TACKLES THE AFTERLIFE and BONK: THE CURIOUS COUPLING OF SCIENCE AND SEX.
After reading this book, I feel more informed and intend to change my choice for my earthly remains when the time comes. I also plan to read SPOOK and BONK. There are so many questions that I have on these subjects.
　
　
　
By: Teri Davis July 7, 2009
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