Stiff
The Curious Lives Of Cadavers
Mary Roach
There have been points in the reading of this book that I thought about putting it down and never picking it up again. Not because it is a bad book but the subject manner at times is just too much. Stiff is a very well written book, one that handles its subject manner with compassion. I chose to read this book because my husband and I were talking about what was to be done when we no longer needed these bodies and what our final arrangement should be. Surgery has a way of making you think that way when one of you already has some very serious health issues.
Donated cadavers allow surgeons to “practice” before they use a procedure on a live patient. Not many medical students are given the chance to work on donated cadavers. Instead they are taught technique by watching and then at some point given the chance to operate under the supervision of an experienced surgeon. Donating your body for research is a fairly new concept. In the 1700 and 1800’s the threat of dissection was used in some areas as a deterrent, if you stole a pig you were hung but if you killed a man you were hung and then dissected. In Paris the unclaimed poor could be used for dissection. And in some cases it was known that family members were taken for dissection before being brought to the churchyard for burial. This lack of donations leads to early surgeons turning to grave robbers for the cadavers that they needed for research. There was money to be made by robbing graves.
There are many areas of research in which cadavers are and can be used to make life better for those left behind. One of those is in the study of human decay which helps the police to better understand crime scenes. Cadavers are also used in tests to see what the human tolerance limits are in vehicle collisions. This is the best way to see how the body reacts to injury. This type of study also takes place in the study of victims in airplane crashes. The types of injury tell what happened at the moment of the crash. Often in ways that the black box in the airplane may not be able to show. The use of cadavers takes place to help researchers understand how bullets and bombs work. How to protect someone from more serious injury because of the battles fought in war. There is also the donation of organs that are used to help the living. This may be the ultimate choice because it is done while the organs still work but the brain no longer functions.
The use of cadavers also is used in the research for alternatives to burial and cremations which are being studied around the world. One of these is known as a mortuary tissue digester which in a few hours would dissolve the tissues of a corpse and reduce it to 2 or 3% of its body weight. This only leaves behind a pile of decollagenated bones that can be crumbled. Everything else has been turned into a sterile brown liquid but some may have trouble with the issue that the main ingredient in the procedure is lye. There is also the process of Freeze-drying by using liquid nitrogen but the body would need to broken down into small pieces and would take about a year. There is also the idea of composting human beings as an option for third world countries such as Haiti, parts of rural China. Where burial is often expensive and bodies are often cremated in mass. Most of these ideas have been passed over for differing reasons. Most often the cause is that people cannot deal with the loss of someone in these unusual ways.
How has this book affected me? Tried talking with hubby about some of this but the discussion was too much for him. At times this book was an informative read but very difficult, only for the strong at heart or the oddly curious. I think that I am now going to go read a nice novel, something light and easy on the brain.
Donated cadavers allow surgeons to “practice” before they use a procedure on a live patient. Not many medical students are given the chance to work on donated cadavers. Instead they are taught technique by watching and then at some point given the chance to operate under the supervision of an experienced surgeon. Donating your body for research is a fairly new concept. In the 1700 and 1800’s the threat of dissection was used in some areas as a deterrent, if you stole a pig you were hung but if you killed a man you were hung and then dissected. In Paris the unclaimed poor could be used for dissection. And in some cases it was known that family members were taken for dissection before being brought to the churchyard for burial. This lack of donations leads to early surgeons turning to grave robbers for the cadavers that they needed for research. There was money to be made by robbing graves.
There are many areas of research in which cadavers are and can be used to make life better for those left behind. One of those is in the study of human decay which helps the police to better understand crime scenes. Cadavers are also used in tests to see what the human tolerance limits are in vehicle collisions. This is the best way to see how the body reacts to injury. This type of study also takes place in the study of victims in airplane crashes. The types of injury tell what happened at the moment of the crash. Often in ways that the black box in the airplane may not be able to show. The use of cadavers takes place to help researchers understand how bullets and bombs work. How to protect someone from more serious injury because of the battles fought in war. There is also the donation of organs that are used to help the living. This may be the ultimate choice because it is done while the organs still work but the brain no longer functions.
The use of cadavers also is used in the research for alternatives to burial and cremations which are being studied around the world. One of these is known as a mortuary tissue digester which in a few hours would dissolve the tissues of a corpse and reduce it to 2 or 3% of its body weight. This only leaves behind a pile of decollagenated bones that can be crumbled. Everything else has been turned into a sterile brown liquid but some may have trouble with the issue that the main ingredient in the procedure is lye. There is also the process of Freeze-drying by using liquid nitrogen but the body would need to broken down into small pieces and would take about a year. There is also the idea of composting human beings as an option for third world countries such as Haiti, parts of rural China. Where burial is often expensive and bodies are often cremated in mass. Most of these ideas have been passed over for differing reasons. Most often the cause is that people cannot deal with the loss of someone in these unusual ways.
How has this book affected me? Tried talking with hubby about some of this but the discussion was too much for him. At times this book was an informative read but very difficult, only for the strong at heart or the oddly curious. I think that I am now going to go read a nice novel, something light and easy on the brain.
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