From the Bookshelf of Science and Inquiry…

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Mary Roach

Start date: June 1, 2011

Finish date: June 30, 2011

Discussion: Book Club 2011

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Book Club 2011

September, 2011: The Blind Watchmaker
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April 2011 - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
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Nov 14, 2016 aPriL does feral sometimes rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: humor-hilarious-intentional-or-not, academic-notations, favorites, science, don-t-judge-me

'Stiff' is such a fun read! I recommend the book to people with scientific curiosity and a sense of delight in quirky human behaviors. I do not recommend it for anybody who is remotely squeamish or for very young sensitive people. Mary Roach writes of how people use cadavers as explicit and factual as a pathologist or a medical examiner writing for laymen.

Although I liked it, there were times I had to take a break and put it down. Not entirely because of squeamishness, though. I often needed tim 'Stiff' is such a fun read! I recommend the book to people with scientific curiosity and a sense of delight in quirky human behaviors. I do not recommend it for anybody who is remotely squeamish or for very young sensitive people. Mary Roach writes of how people use cadavers as explicit and factual as a pathologist or a medical examiner writing for laymen.

Although I liked it, there were times I had to take a break and put it down. Not entirely because of squeamishness, though. I often needed time to process the amazing details of historical and current scientific study and research into anatomy, dying, and decomposition, and the variety of methods of using and processing dead people the author Mary Roach dug up (how many times has a review included that line. ; p ).

Mary Roach often uses dry and slapstick humor to discuss the detailed science and pseudo-science and early-century proto-science that people have been doing to corpses for hundreds of years. She also travels around the world to a variety of medical, commercial and environmentalist laboratories who use either corpses and body parts for experimentation. She tackles the folk beliefs and practices from centuries ago, and not so long ago, which required what we would label cannibalism today, but these early cultures felt were either spiritually honoring their dead or curing their diseases. The jokes sometimes are groaners, but I thought they were more than appropriate and in tune with the centuries of human silliness and bizarre but earnest research about dead people mixed in with the mainstream studies.

Commercial research has used corpses more than I guessed! Car manufacturers use corpses for impact studies in order to design safe cars. Medical schools need bodies and body parts. Investigators of airplane and other types of crashes often use trauma studies of cadavers to determine likely causes of passenger deaths found after disasters (odd fact - being a male increases survivability because maybe the strongest survive by pushing everyone else out of their way). Military services use studies on corpses who are shot. Sports equipment are designed after throwing baseballs and such at dead people. Cadaver dogs need to train with body parts. Embalming techniques are explained. Researchers even know some of what internal body parts feel pain when hurt (past and present animal studies : O ). Gelatin made from animals is in thousands of commercial products you really don't want to think about because of what gelatin comes from. Illegal uses and past uses of cadavers which are now illegal are touched upon as well (for example, necrophilia!).

Then there are the early scientists and doctors who wanted to know where the soul might be living, or who simply wanted to know if it was true guillotined heads lived for awhile after being cut off(view spoiler)

Gentle reader, human, dog, pig, cow, and various other animals' poop have played major major major roles in early crackpot medicine for human ailments, wounds and injuries, along with spit, menstrual blood and urine, for centuries, literally, centuries. How in earth did humanity survive these early 'cures'? (view spoiler)

If you have managed to read this far without your gag reflex engaging, this is a must read!

There is a bibliography included. ...more

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Aug 31, 2013 Katy rated it liked it

Shelves: math-science

I enjoyed the read, but found it a bit chatty on the author's side. I learned almost as much about the author and her feelings toward death and the dead as I did about the science of cadavers.

Not a book to read while eating, I found. I suppose that for some people there will be a shock factor from the honesty that Roach writes about death. ...more

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Apr 13, 2010 Eric Bingham rated it really liked it

Roach does a great job of inserting her funny personality into the book, while still keeping it very factual. It was a strange combination of fascinating, thought provoking, educational, and morbid. Mary Roach likes to go off on tangents, and those tangents are usually very interesting. I didn't like two things about this book. One was that, although many parts of it are fascinating, there are definitely some boring parts. The other thing I didn't like was that there are a few parts that were a ...more

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Nov 21, 2010 Sarai rated it it was amazing

Shelves: own

I enjoyed this book immensely, a very intriguing and thought provoking read which I found hard to put down. A book packed full of historic and current practices of the many uses of human cadavers including saving human lives through various research. Although this book is nearly 10 years old, people should read this and clue themselves up on a topic most shun, as this book will make you think about the fate of your own body and the options available.
The book layout felt like I was having a conve ...more

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Jan 15, 2011 Audiaa rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, 2011

3.5 stars
This book offers frank discussions of different uses of human bodies after a person dies. I believe that everyone who picks up this book knows what it will be about; however, I felt like throughout the book, the author kept expecting the reader to be shocked and appalled at the descriptions and her use of humor. At times the author's sometimes flippant attitude was annoying and seemed a little disrespectful, but not to the extent that I felt it overshadowed the content of the book.

As a ...more

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Jun 11, 2012 Elissa D rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, 2012

loved it

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May 15, 2011 Julie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2011, science

Considering that I don't like thinking about dead bodies and don't even want to look at them at funerals, I probably wouldn't have read this book if I hadn't read a book by Mary Roach already. But I knew I would learn interesting things and I knew I would laugh and I was right. I even got used to the ickiness after awhile! The chapter about analyzing the bodies after an airplane crash to piece together what happened was probably my favorite. Interesting stuff. ...more

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