Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

I read this immediately after [b:Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void 7237456 Packing for Mars The Curious Science of Life in the Void Mary Roach https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1290480157s/7237456.jpg 8159756] - high on a newly discovered favorite author. I think Reading the two quite so adjacently resulted in a less favorable view of Stiff - there is an almost completely replicated chapter between the two discussing the use of cadavers to simulate forces on an astronaut's body during spaceflight, and the voice and humor is nearly identical between the two books. That being said, Stiff was still quite good, perhaps objectively the superior book as Roach covers a very broad range of subjects. She again excels at covering all angles of a subject. For instance, when covering the history of medical cadavers, she comments on the setup of modern anatomy classes, ceremonies respecting cadaver donors, the history of graverobbing for the purpose of providing anatomic cadavers, the history surrounding specific graverobbers as well as specific professors using their services as well as the theories about human anatomy during each period and how these changed over time using knowledge learned through dissection.

As a med student and as someone who watched the whole of Six Feet Under series in under 6 days, in the recent past, I would characterize the first three chapters of this book as mildly interesting and the rest of it as sleep inducing - not curious, definitely not. No one suggested this book to me. I picked it as a random read. It is my fault that this terrible thing has happened. You see, the first image that came to my mind as I read the catching title of the book was that of a middle-aged introverted bespectacled pathologist elbow deep in a cadaver's body cavity standing in a dimly lit morgue in the basement with flickering lights and a buzzing refrigerator, walls painted green. I imagined some good soul coaxed this recluse to share her knowledge and the secrets of the dead she gleaned over decades of dedicated work. I hadn't heard of Mary Roach before. And I didn't this media-like person butting in while science people doing science. You could call me elitist. But I have seen the other books she wrote, there is an image of her in zero gravity simulation on Google. I don't really mind her writing this book, I'm just envious that she gets do all that without even a degree in science.

Over 11 chapters the author narrates an account of her visits to experts in various fields that make use of cadavers for different purposes. I went into the book with only the idea of medical and academic uses of cadavers in mind. It is true that 80% of cadavers end up in anatomy labs, but there are few other intriguing final resting places too. Like the compost or someone else's stomach. The author gets into all this in a really detailed fashion (only detailed not deep) and at times veering off to obscure history.

Humor is an essential part of the book. It's what makes this palatable. Though at times I felt that it was a little overdone, I have no complaints in that regard. It is a funny book. You get to read stuff like:
“Compost should not be ugly,” she is saying. “It should be lively, it should be romantic.”“There are ten fetuses here, all aborted this morning,” the Express reporter claims she was told...“Normally we doctors take them home to eat, Since you don't look well, you can take them.”

I have a new found appreciation for modern medicine and the people who contributed to it (alive and dead). Humor in a book about dead bodies does not come out as disrespectful. In fact how people, who have to shoot at cadavers, put them in cars and simulate head on collisions, everyday as part of their jobs is discussed multiple times, throughout the book. There are also chapters on beating hard cadavers (brain dead people for organ transplant) and cannibalism and early experiments on brain transplant.

Someone who is not acquainted to the topic and is not too squeamish might find this interesting.
“Because all the bacteria in the mouth chew through the palate,” explains Arpad. And because brains are soft and easy to eat. “The brain liquefies very quickly. It just pours out the ears and bubbles out the mouth”
If you are okay with that sentence, you may try this book. Happy reading!

p.s : you may skip the shroud of turin chapter, some guy trying to prove the shroud was real after crucifying recently dead cadavers. It adds nothing to the book.

Another great adventure into something with Mary Roach. Mary's real thoughts and humor mixed in with what could be quite dry science makes the subject matter oh-so-much more compelling.

Readers are in for a treat to learn about what our meatbags are like after our consciousness is gone from them. - note - she never refers to us as meatbags

In addition to shedding light on a subject most of us will never be able to learn first hand, she also humanizes the work - noting the names and appearances of each person she encounters in her reporting.

I recommend this one for sure.

I'm not sure why I didn't like this more. I liked the tone of the book, the author is quippy and flippant while still reporting on whatever the subject at hand is. And I thought the idea of the subject matter was interesting. I think the actual content that was focused on just didn't hold my attention. My digital loan from the library for this audiobook lapsed twice because I didn't finish it when I had taken it out, I just wasn't super compelled to listen to it for the most part.

I don't think this was a bad book, just not really for me.

A book about what happens to bodies donated to science and what we can learn from the dead. Probably not for those that are too squeamish. Somehow Mary Roach makes donating your body to science seem interesting, funny and almost cool. She easily tricks you into enjoying and laughing at a book that provides lots of (sometimes gross) facts and information about how dead bodies help the living more than we could imagine. Very clever and informative, Stiff makes you appreciate and admire those selfless enough to give their body to further science and help others even after they are no longer with us.

This book is probably one of the most unique books I will ever read. Writers spend most of their careers on writing about the living, both real and fictional - so reading about cadavers (the scientific term for corpses) was an eye-opening experience, in more ways than one.
Cadavers have been awkward to read and write about - understandably, people don't want to think about what happens to people after they're dead, because that inevitably leads to the sometimes distressing thought of one's own mortality.
But this book breaks all such inhibitions and throws them out of the window. If you're squeamish, don't expect this to be a clean and cheerful ride. Mary Roach makes you realise, by the end of the book, about how cadavers are used everywhere - ranging from good (crash testing) and neutral (bullet impact testing), to the controversial (testing if Jesus was really crucified, by crucifying cadavers). The descriptions are, to put it diplomatically, anatomically accurate.
‘Tis not a completely nihilistic ride though. The author's tales of embarrassment and mortification are laugh-out-loud (a phrase which I would never imagine saying for a book about the deceased), and the author makes you think about topics which you would normally never think about - such as dissection, who should be given responsibility over the remains, and human head transplants.
TL;DR - a unique and immensely readable work, describing the heavy topic of the deceased with the depth and breadth it deserves - sometimes morbid, sometimes hilarious, but always entertaining. A must read if you have a strong stomach, and can think about your own mortality without dissolving into a mess.

A little bit much as an audiobook - some of the grosser chapters were pretty rough going, and it's a lot harder to skim in an audiobook. I don't think I'm especially squeamish, but the chapter about grafting live puppy heads onto living dogs was making me sick, which isn't great for driving. That was one chapter of 12, though, and I love Mary Roach's style otherwise.

It takes a skilled hand to write about death and bodies without being either so respectful as to be boring or just morbid. Luckily, Mary Roach has just such a hand and her book, Stiff, is an interesting and wide-ranging look at what happens to us when we die. Well, no one really knows what happens to the soul/spirit/whatever it is that animates us (she does devote a chapter to this, which she develops into a book in its own right, Spook), but our bodies. There's the usual burial/cremation, but Roach is more interested in the options we don't usually consider: donating one's body to science for medical students to practice anatomy on, chemical cremation, even allowing for the use of one's body in automobile crash testing (the dummies aren't nearly realistic enough). Some people even want to be composted. It turns out there are a lot of things your body can get up to!

Death may be a part of life, but it's still a part of life that there are a lot of deep, unprocessed feelings about. This book only works because of the way Roach just nails the tone: there's a deep undercurrent of honest curiosity that's present as she explores her subject. She recounts her own experience sitting with her mother's body after her death and how it made her feel, and doesn't forget that the bodies she sees in her explorations were once someone else's loved one too. She's honest about the ugly side of things...to the point where I found one of the chapters, about using bodies to do research about how the body decomposes under various scenarios (to help law enforcement and pathologists/coroners better estimate how long bodies have been in the elements after death) a little icky. But it never feels gratuitous. She doesn't say something irreverent or gross just for the shock factor. If you've ever wondered what happens to the outside of you when you die, or if you're curious now that you've thought about it, this is an intriguing book and I highly recommend it.

This review is also featured at Behind the Pages: Stiff

When we think of death, we think of the sadness attached to the person who has died. What we don't often think about is how their body could help others in the field of science. Mary Roach approaches the subject of death in a way that allows readers to understand how cadavers have evolved the world around us. Hear stories from doctors, forensic scientists and more about the life of bodies after death. Each chapter dives into different ways cadavers have been used after death. Some stories may horrify you, while others may fascinate you.

I highly suggest having a strong stomach before starting this book. There is no holding back on the details as you read about surgeons slicing into cadavers, honing their craft on dead bodies before working on live ones. And this one section is only the begging. Mary Roach does insert humor to lighten the mood and to soothe the reader at some of the grislier parts.

But surgeons aren't the only ones who use cadavers. You'll find that many fields you never thought studied the dead use them to solve crimes and prevent death. Stiff also gives readers an overview of how studying cadavers began, and the more unsavory ways people used them as experiments before laws and regulations came into effect.

I will admit the hardest part for me to read was the use of animals in experiments. This ties into some of the history before cadavers were used, and I had to disassociate and take breaks to make it through the chapter. Dead bodies are one thing, live animals are another. I applaud Mary Roach for being able to put what she did down on paper for the public eye to see.

I was fascinated and horrified by this book. If the writing style had been more scientific, I most likely would not have made it through. But Mary Roach has tact when speaking of the dead, and won me over with her curiosity and character.