TOW #12 – IRB: “Stiff” (Part 1)

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

By Mary Roach

In Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Mary Roach writes about various accounts of cadavers and discusses the ethical and moral issues surrounding the use of human cadavers.  Roach has already written six non-fiction books and several articles for The New York Times Magazine, Discover Magazine, National Geographic, and Wired.  Although Roach does not have a science degree, she conducts extensive research and interviews with experts to make abstruse subjects more accessible to the general public through her shocking and humorous descriptions of the dead, ultimately making a curiously sensible argument for donating our bodies to science.

The author begins her book with a surprising comparison to open the readers’ minds about society’s perception of death.  She figures, “The way I see it, being dead is not terribly off from being on a cruise ship” (9).  Death is typically associated with a period of darkness and fear, far from those sunny and enjoyable times on a cruise.  However, Roach logically points out that in both cases, individuals are simply lying on their backs, do not use their brains, and are not expected of anything.  Throughout the book, Roach makes many other similar observations about death, making the undesirable and inexplicable more acceptable and comprehensible. 

Furthermore, Roach juxtaposes the different lives a body could have after death to reveal the benefits of becoming a human cadaver.  First, she visits the University of Tennessee Medical Center, where Roach observes the stages of normal decomposition, describing in great detail the “fresh” smell, “as in fresh fish, not fresh air” (64), leaking liquids, “gloving” skin, and beetles, maggots, and flies.  Then, she moves on to discussing the processes of embalming, erroneously believed to be a way of eternal preservation (81); hideous mummification; and cremation, quoting William Edwin Dunn Evans of the University of London for a grotesque description of the body as it burns (83).  Roach plainly states the ugliness and inevitability of decomposition, but offers a bright side of dying as she explains just how much cadavers can and have contributed to scientific research.  No matter how we choose to prolong the illusion of life, our bodies cannot escape the hideousness of death.  So why not donate our bodies to science while they can still have a life after death?

While reading the often nauseating, sometimes deserving-of-someone-telling-Roach-TMI descriptions of death, historical medical practices, uses and misuses of cadavers was difficult, at times, I also could not stop laughing out loud at Roach’s insights.  Her writing is very different from what I have ever seen before, both her style and subject-wise.  I look forward to finding out more in the second half of the book about how the dead can lead such curious lives that significantly impact those still alive.