The Strange Usefulness of the Dead: A Review of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
The Strange Usefulness of the Dead: A Review of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers Death is usually discussed through the languages of grief, religion, philosophy, or fear. In Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers , Mary Roach approaches it from a less familiar direction: practicality. Once life has ended, what can the human body still accomplish? The answer, as Roach discovers, is an astonishing amount. Cadavers have trained surgeons, improved safety standards, helped investigators reconstruct disasters, contributed to military research, and allowed scientists to study decomposition. They have also been subjected to experiments so unusual that they can initially sound like inventions from a particularly morbid comedy. Roach examines this history with curiosity, skepticism, and irreverent humor, producing a book that is simultaneously informative, unsettling, and unexpectedly reassuring. Stiff is not primarily a book about dying. It is about what happens to the body...