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

First Third of Care-of-the-Dead Book

Precis:

The first third of the book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers tells how cadavers have contributed to a better life for the living beginning with heads that help cosmetic surgeons practice on the job, how they have helped medical students throughout history learn anatomy through dissection, how they used to be hard to come by and produced the profession of body snatcher, how they became easier to get after the first successful heart transplant, the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, and the increased cost of funerals, and how they are used in crash testing to improve design improvements for safety in cars. This part of the book also tells about the process of decay of bodies thanks to bacteria and baby flies (maggots), the process of embalming to make the body last a little longer, and the process of cremation to make the point that body disposal is never pretty.

Quotes:

“The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship…If I were to take a cruise, I would prefer that it be one of those research cruises…I guess I feel the same way about being a corpse. Why lie around on your back when you can do something interesting and new, something useful?” (p.9)

“The problem with cadavers is that they look so much like people.” (p.21)

“For evident reasons, mortuary science is awash with euphemisms. ‘Don’t say stiff, corpse, cadaver…Say decedent, remains of Mr. Blank. Don’t say ‘keep.’ Say ‘maintain preservation.’…” Wrinkles are “acquired facial markings.” Decomposed brain that filters down …and bubbles out the nose is “frothy purge.” (p. 77)

“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.” (p. 84)

Analytical paragraph:

Because a lot of the beginning of this book is so gruesome dealing with the treatment of cadavers for education and testing and the way the body decays, I liked the historical parts the best like the description of the Father of Embalming, Thomas Homes, who seems to have been responsible for modern embalming. He developed a fluid to put in the arteries that helped the Civil War troops not to have to deliver decomposing bodies to families. He also made it possible for Abraham Lincoln’s body to travel from Washington to Illinois and be seen by so many people. I know that the reason this book seems so grotesque to me is that like most people I can’t separate the cadaver from the human who used to be attached to it. I think it is good that medical students are having more digital anatomy classes now even if it is just because they don’t have enough time to spend with cadavers. Also researchers are using body parts now more than whole bodies. This fact makes me feel better about donating my body for research. The idea of having family members, friends, or myself laid out whole to be cut up by a first-year medical student would keep me from signing the donation form.