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Book Cover
Book
Author Roach, Mary, author

Title Stiff : the curious lives of human cadavers / Mary Roach
Edition First edition
Published New York : W.W. Norton & Co., 2003
©2003

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 WATERFT HEALTH  611 Roa/Stc  AVAILABLE
 W'PONDS  611 Roa/Stc  AVAILABLE
Description 303 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
regular print
Series Medical Humanities collection PAH
Medical Humanities collection PAH
Contents 1. A head is a terrible thing to waste: practicing surgery on the dead -- 2. Crimes of anatomy: body-snatching and other sordid tales from the dawn of human dissection -- 3. Life after death: on human decay and what can be done about it -- 4. Dead man driving: human crash test dummies and the ghastly, necessary science of impact tolerance -- 5. Beyond the black box: when the bodies of the passengers must tell the story of a crash -- 6. The cadaver who joined the army: the sticky ethics of bullets and bombs -- 7. Holy cadaver: the crucifixion experiments -- 8. How to know if you're dead: beating-heart cadavers, live burial, and the scientific search for the soul -- 9. Just a head: decapitation, reanimation, and the human head transplant -- 10. Eat me: medicinal cannibalism and the case of the human dumplings -- 11. Out of the fire, into the compost bin: and other new ways to end up -- 12. Remains of the author: will she or won't she?
Summary A look inside the world of forensics examines the use of human cadavers in a wide range of endeavors, including research into new surgical procedures, space exploration, and a Tennessee human decay research facility
"Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand 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. For every new surgical procedure, from heart transplants to gender reassignment surgery, cadavers have been there alongside surgeons, making history in their quiet way. In this fascinating, ennobling account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries--from the anatomy labs and human-sourced pharmacies of medieval and nineteenth-century Europe to a human decay research facility in Tennessee, to a plastic surgery practice lab, to a Scandinavian funeral directors' conference on human composting. In her droll, inimitable voice, Roach tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them."--Publisher's description
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages [295]-303)
Notes Accelerated Reader 9.4
Reading Counts! 11.0
Reading Counts RC 6-8 11.0 18.0 36132
UG Accelerated Reader AR 9.4 16.0 77823
ALA/YALSA Alex Award, 2004
Tayshas Reading List, 2006
Subject Dead.
Human experimentation in medicine.
Dead.
Human dissection.
Autopsy.
Cadaver.
Dissection.
Genre/Form Creative
Creative.
LC no. 2002152908
ISBN 0393050939 (hardback)
Other Titles Curious lives of human cadavers