Title: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Author: Mary Roach
Genre: Journalism
Trigger Warnings: Death, gore, blood, corpses, medical procedures, autopsies, dissection, cannibalism
Back Cover:
Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand years, cadavers—some willingly, some unwittingly—have been involved in science’s boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. In this fascinating account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries and tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them.
Review:
You wouldn’t think a book about dead bodies and the various gross and gory things done to them would be funny. Yet somehow I found myself chuckling out loud at Mary Roach’s humorous phrasing and dry wit.
This book is not for the weak of stomach, as Mary does not shy away from the graphic and gory nature of what happens to dead bodies when they’re used for science. In fact, proclaiming herself curious and not squeamish at all, she provides all of the details. And if you’re not squeamish and are curious about what happened to some bodies in the past or what might happen to you if you donate your body to science, you’ll learn a lot.
Mary talks about how cadavers are used to give surgery practice to future doctors, to ensure vehicle safety measures are safe for actual human bodies, to test military weapons, to assist in solving crimes, and more. There’s a remarkable amount of uses for dead bodies, many of which I never would have considered. It almost made me want to donate my body to science when I die – almost. She also talks about past uses of cadavers in medical study and the history of grave-robbing to supply corpses before “donating your body to science” was a thing you could do.
This book also touches on ethical issues – the extent of informed consent and the consent of the deceased versus their family, treating a body with respect regardless of what it’s used for, and the considerations of donating your body to science when you don’t know if you’ll be used to help a future surgeon learn to save lives or for the military to test the effectiveness of new bullets and might be willing for your body to be used for one but not the other. There’s a large number of ethical issues involved in using dead humans for your research.
This was a really interesting book. Definitely not for the squeamish, and even if you’re not squeamish don’t read it while you’re eating, but I learned a lot about the scientific uses of corpses and found it an entertaining, surprisingly funny read.
Bluejay Reads 