Cadaver Book Report

879 Words4 Pages
Science Book Report Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, by Mary Roach covers the broad topic of cadavers. Instead of focusing on the loss and sadness of death, the book instead talks about how the dead can be used, and how cadavers contribute the the scientific community . This book goes over many interesting topics about cadavers, Roach ventures from the more tolerable subjects such as history and origin of cadavers, to the outright disgusting topics of cannibalistic techniques and rotting bodies. While maintaining a usually humorous tone this book also goes into respecting the human body (after death) and defends the cadaver by exploiting unjust experiments. The author defines dead bodies as a “beating heart cadavers” which is when a brain dead body functions on the…show more content…
Since hands and heads are extremely difficult to work with, she states that cadavers given to young surgeons the chance to practice and perfect their skill. In one specific chapter “Crimes of Anatomy” Roach goes into detail about being a cadaver throughout history. The use of cadavers began as early as 300 BC Egypt. During this period, since doctors were far and few, finding cadavers was a simple task. Over a span of hundreds of years though the number of doctors and students increased yet the supply of cadavers did not. It was a very lengthy process to get bodies for experimentation, so a lot of times scientists, or shady henchmen, would dig up newly laid graves in the name of science. The people of this generation believed that if you dug up the body you could disturb is decent to heaven, only mass murderers at this time would alout to be dissected. “ With so many relatively minor offenses punishable by death, the legal bodies felt the need to take on added horrors as deterrents against weightier crimes. If you stole a pig, you were
Show More
Related

  • Mary Roach's Stiff: The Curious Lives Of Human Cadavers

    2895 Words  | 12 Pages

    novel "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers", she gives a run through of what all happens to cadavers after they have passed away. Mary explains in each chapter experiences and research she has done with the uses of cadavers. I believe she wrote this book in a pursuit to try and show the more positive connotation of a cadaver that most people don't think about. The novel uses a descriptive way to explain how anatomy students and scientists used cadavers in the past and how they use them today

    Read More

  • The Forensic Casebook

    1017 Words  | 5 Pages

    Up until I read this book I was clueless as to how crucial footwear evidence could be in establishing a timeframe that a suspected individual was at the scene of a crime. Investigators can tell a lot by a person’s gait or the manner in which they walk. For instance, they

    Read More

More about Cadaver Book Report

Open Document