HW 50 - First Third of Care-of-the-Dead Book Post

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

Precis:

Many people will find this book disrespectful or otherwise offensive. In fact, when I was writing it, I often wondered if people were questioning my sanity. However, I find the subject fascinating, and worth sharing. Cadavers are often disassembled, and the different parts are used for medical students to practice various procedures on - for instance, heads are used to practice face lifts. Only until recently did the people dissecting or otherwise using cadavers begin to feel guilty about what they were doing - one woman told me about her disgrace when she unwrapped a pair of hands to find the fingernails painted with nail polish. Historically, a deficiency in cadavers has caused anatomists to go to extreme lengths to find dead bodies to dissect - including paying people to dig up recently buried bodies. The University of Tennessee Medical Center is the only one in the world dedicated to studying how humans decay - they leave dead bodies outside, and study them throughout various stages of decomposition. When a body is embalmed, it is preserved only temporarily, long enough that it will look presentable for an open casket memorial service. Cadavers are also used to study what can happen to a person in a car crash, which can help car manufacturers build cars that are safer to drive.

Quotes:

"The problem with cadavers is that they look so much like people. It's the reason most of us prefer a pork chop to a slice of whole suckling pig. It's the reason we say "pork" and "beef" instead of "pig" and "cow." Dissection and surgical instruction, like meat-eating, require a carefully maintained set of illusions and denial. Physicians and anatomy students must learn to think of cadavers as wholly unrelated to the people they once were." (21)

 "It is tempting to believe that the author's impersonal references to the corpses belie some sense of discomfort with his activities. He does not dwell upon their looks or muse about their sorry fate. He cannot bring himself to refer to the dead as anything other than a size or gender. Only occasionally do the bodies merit a noun." (45)

"Life contains these things: leakage and wickage and discharge, pus and snot and slime and gleet. We are biology. We are reminded of this at the beginning and the end, at birth and at death. In between we do what we can to forget." (84)

Analysis:

I was oddly undisturbed by anything in the book so far. I thought I would be; however, it seems more enthralling than disgusting. But I realize to many, the book would be very disturbing; as the author said, there will be people who think that to do anything to a dead person other then bury or cremate them is wrong. This is understandable once one reads about the many things that are done to cadavers when they are "donated to science" - they could be used for plastic surgeons to practice on, or as a dummy in a car-crash test. Some people would initially think of donating one's body to science as an altruistic act, imagining a scientist finding the cure to an infectious disease as a result of dissecting it - but they might change their mind if they found out people were instead using it to practice doing nose jobs. Maybe there will one day be a way in which someone could get to choose what happened to them if they decided to donate their body to science. On the other hand, if that happened, there would be far fewer cadavers for plastic surgeons to practice on, which could lead to increased risks for people undergoing cosmetic surgery (including people having necessary reconstructive surgery).