Roach: Stiff
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Current revision as of 01:21, 15 April 2009
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Mary Roach, Stiff : The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. New York : W.W.Norton & Company, 2003. 303 pages.
This book answers a question that you may not have realized you had: What happens to your body after death if you donate it to science?
The answers are multiple, actually. No doubt because of superstitions and squeamishness about human bodies, much of what Ms. Roach reveals about the "life of human cadavers" will come as a surprise, and yet seem perfectly sensible. As one would expect, some cadavers are dissected by medical students to learn about human anatomy, but rather few of the bodies donated to science end up in that service. Scientists and engineers use human cadavers -- or parts thereof -- to get data in automobile crash tests, to discover the effects of military weapons on the body, to learn about decay after death for use in forensics, and a number of other ways, because in many cases nothing simulates the human body quite so well as the human body itself.
Ms. Roach touches on all these postmortem careers, and others. She also discusses the surprisingly challenging question of "how to know if you're dead", which is of critical importance to those who choose to be organ donors and to those who might receive an organ from a donor; harvesting the organ as soon as the donor is dead is obviously important, but avoiding doing so prematurely is obviously more important.
The blurbs that accompany the book suggest that reviewers worry that potential readers might be put off by the subject, but it would be a shame since Ms. Roach approaches her topic seriously, albeit most definitely not solemnly. I found her writing verging on the breezy for my taste, but far from irritating about it. It's a fun and enlightening book, and I suspect that many people would like to know the answer to the question so they can make an informed decision about their own body's disposition, too.
-- Notes by JNS
