Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers - Mary Roach

Category: Adults, Science
Language: English
Keywords: Forensic Science Human Body

Written by Mary Roach
Read by Shelly Frasier
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Tantor Media
Release date: August 19, 2008
Duration: 08:00:17

“Uproariously funny” doesn’t seem a likely description for a book on cadavers. However, Roach has done the nearly impossible and written a book as informative and respectful as it is irreverent and witty.

For 2,000 years, cadavers—some willingly, some unwittingly—have been involved in science’s boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They’ve tested France’s first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and helped solve the mystery of TWA Flight 800.

From her opening lines (”The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back”), it is clear that she’s taking a unique approach to issues surrounding death. Roach delves into the many productive uses to which cadavers have been put, from medical experimentation to applications in transportation safety research (in a chapter archly called “Dead Man Driving”) to work by forensic scientists quantifying rates of decay under a wide array of bizarre circumstances.

There are also chapters on cannibalism, including an aside on dumplings allegedly filled with human remains from a Chinese crematorium, methods of disposal (burial, cremation, composting) and “beating-heart” cadavers used in organ transplants. Roach has a fabulous eye and a wonderful voice as she describes such macabre situations as a plastic surgery seminar with doctors practicing face-lifts on decapitated human heads and her trip to China in search of the cannibalistic dumpling makers. Even Roach’s digressions are captivating, helping to make the book impossible to put down.