Stiff by Mary Roach

Mary Roach use to write a monthly column for Reader's Digest called "My Planet". It was often informative, occasionally irreverent, and always funny. She sometimes contributed to another favorite magazine of mine, Discover, and it was there I saw a review for Stiff. I requested the book for Christmas that year and it's been sitting on my shelf ever since (seven years!!).

While perusing my shelves for books that would fit the RIP V Challenge (click on sidebar image for details), I realized Stiff would be perfect. Consider the full title: Stiff - The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. This is not fiction, folks, and not for the squeamish or faint of heart. However, Mary Roach has a knack of being able to tackle a sobering topic like this with enough humor to keep it interesting and not too dry, yet not so much that it becomes flippant or disrespectful. I was entertained, informed, and yes...a bit grossed out in a few places. Actually, it was the parts which described experiments using live dogs that disturbed me the most.

The book is divided into twelve chapters covering a variety of topics. For example, Chapter One deals with using cadaver heads for learning (or brushing up on) surgical procedures, often by plastic surgeons. Chapter Two looks back into the history of human dissection and body snatching. Chapter Three focuses on the science of what happens to the body after death and takes a visit to the "Body Farm" at the University of Tennessee. Other chapters cover things like what can be learned from bodies in plane crashes, their use by the military and auto safety industry, religious experiments and the search for the soul, transplants, cannibalism, and of course... options for what to do with your body after you're through living in it.

With the exception of a few "insecty" things, I'm not a squeamish person and have a fairly strong stomach. I remember being grossly fascinated by my older (by 12 years) brother's textbooks when he was in medical school. (Ironically, he was a pathologist and therefore dealt with more than his share of cadavers) So, I'll admit I thought this was a very interesting book. I learned a lot (maybe more than I really needed to know in some cases) and laughed a lot in the process.