Stiff (2003) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

Summary edit see section history

Write a summary of the plot or a synopsis of this book.

Characters/People edit see section history

• Jarret: Interesting information about Cadavers, definitally check it out if you're interested in weird science.
• H: H is a beating-heart organ donor who has suffered brain death. The harvest of her organs is used as the centerpiece of a chapter (How to Know If You're Dead) discussing live burial, the history and ethics of transplants, and the many historically accepted physical residences of the human soul.

Quotes edit see section history

• “While I have no preconceived notions of the hereafter, I stand firm in my convictions that it should not take the form of someone else's underpants.”

  Mary Roach

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• We are biology. We are reminded of this at the beginning and the end, at birth and at death. In between we do what we can to forget.

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• One’s own dead are more than cadavers, they are place holders for the living.

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• Dissection and surgical instruction, like meat-eating, require a carefully maintained set of illusions and denial.

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• It is astounding to me, and achingly sad, that with eighty thousand people on the waiting list for donated hearts and livers and kidneys, with sixteen a day dying there on that list, that more than half of the people in the position H’s family was in will say no, will choose to burn those organs or let them rot. We abide the surgeon’s scalpel to save our own lives, our loved ones’ lives, but not to save a stranger’s life. H has no heart, but heartless is the last thing you’d call her.

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• The American Way of Death—Jessica Mitford’s

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• The potassium level of the gel inside the eyes is helpful during the first twenty-four hours, as is algor mortis—the cooling of a dead body; barring temperature extremes, corpses lose about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit per hour until they reach the temperature of the air around them. (Rigor mortis is more variable: It starts a few hours after death, usually in the head and neck, and continues, moving on down the body, finishing up and disappearing anywhere from ten to forty-eight hours after death.)

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• The hallmark of fresh-stage decay is a process called autolysis, or self-digestion. Human cells use enzymes to cleave molecules, breaking compounds down into things they can use. While a person is alive, the cells keep these enzymes in check, preventing them from breaking down the cells’ own walls. After death, the enzymes operate unchecked and begin eating through the cell structure, allowing the liquid inside to leak out.

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• I want you to know you are always there when I see patients. When I palpate an abdomen, yours are the organs I imagine. When I listen to a heart, I recall holding your heart.” It is one of the most touching pieces of writing I’ve ever heard. Others must feel the same; there isn’t an anhydrous lacrimal gland in the house.

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• And ever since, the U.S. Army has gone confidently into battle, knowing that when cows attack, their men will be ready.

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• (A male heart, Oz says, is in fact slightly different from a female heart. A heart surgeon can tell one from the other by looking at the ECG, because the intervals are slightly different. When you put a female heart into a man, it will continue to beat like a female heart. And vice versa.)

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• China
• Sweden
• New York
• California
• Paris
• America
• England
• United States
• San Francisco
• Europe
• Germany
• Michigan

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Mortality: Describe this theme.

Series & Lists edit see section history

List the series to which this book belongs.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Mary Roach (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners (2009: Science and Technology)
• Alex Awards (2004)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: R853.H8 R635 2003
• Dewey: 600

Notes for Parents edit see section history

This book is graphic in nature and contains depictions of dead bodies and decaying bodies as well.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Nonfiction
• Books › Health, Mind & Body › Death & Grief
• Books › Medicine › Special Topics

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, by Mary Roach

More Books Like This edit see section history

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