Stiff Read online

  More Praise for Stiff

  Named by NPR’s “Science Friday” as a “Best Book of 2003”

  A San Francisco Chronicle “Best Book of 2003”

  An Entertainment Weekly “Best Book of 2003”

  Named one of Las Vegas Mercury’s “Best Books of 2003”

  Named one of Seattle Times’s “Best Books of 2003”

  Named one of San Jose Mercury’s Best 50 Books of 2003

  An Amazon.com 2003 Editor’s Choice

  Chosen by Barnes & Noble’s

  Discover Great New Writers Program

  A Borders Original Voices Selection

  A finalist for the Borders 2003 Original Voices Awards

  “Roach is authoritative, endlessly curious and drolly funny. Her research is scrupulous and winningly presented.”

  —Adam Woog, Seattle Times

  “This quirky, funny read offers perspective and insight about life, death and the medical profession…. You can close this book with an appreciation of the miracle that the human body really is.”

  —Tara Parker-Pope, Wall Street Journal

  “‘Uproariously funny’ doesn’t seem a likely description for a book on cadavers. However, Roach…has done the nearly impossible and written a book as informative and respectful as it is irreverent and witty.”

  —Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “One does not skim this book. Every detail is riveting. It is impossible to tear one’s eyes away from Roach’s description.”

  —Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times

  “Surprisingly lively.”

  —Mark Rozzo, The New Yorker

  “The author’s witty voice breathes new life into the study of human cadavers and their role in research…. She proves that it’s never too late to contribute something good to society.”

  —Chrissy Persico, Daily News

  “Mary Roach is one of an endangered species: a science writer with a sense of humor. She is able to make macabre funny without looting death of its dignity.”

  —Brian Richard Boylan, Denver Post

  “A joy to read…. This is wonderful stuff.”

  —Tim Redmond, San Francisco Bay Guardian

  “Roach writes in an insouciant style and displays her métier in tangents about bizarre incidents in pathological history. Death may have the last laugh, but, in the meantime, Roach finds merriment in the macabre.”

  —Gilbert Taylor, Booklist

  “Roach adopts the Michael Moore approach to the unliving…by getting very up close and personal with the cadaver industry…. Splicing humorous anecdotes and historical tidbits she leaves no corpse unturned.”

  —Tony McMenamin, Maxim

  “Roach’s conversational tone and her gallows humor bring her subjects to life.”

  —Alex Abramovich, People

  “Roach seems intent on helping us (and herself) get a better handle on the meaning of death, or, at least, on making one’s own death meaningful.”

  —Steve Fiffer, Chicago Tribune

  “Roach deftly treads the line between glib flippancy and somber reverence…without sentimentality…. [She] describes cadavers’ superhuman feats with cleverness and poignancy, and makes a convincing case that as long as death is fatal, it might as well be interesting.”

  —Erica C. Barnett, The Stranger

  “With determined probing, a focused eye, and a delightful sense of humor author Mary Roach has written a compelling study of the history and current use of cadavers.”

  —Deborah Love, Richmond Times-Dispatch

  “[Stiff] is a fascinating book and, once you pick it up, you won’t likely put it down.”

  —William R. Wineke, Wisconsin State Journal

  “[Roach] has written a curiously funny, touching, respectful study…. [She] bravely goes where we wouldn’t want to go.”

  —Nancy Summers, Tampa Tribune

  “Mary Roach’s Stiff is genuinely funny and destined to be a classic read.”

  —Donald A. Collins, Tribune-Review, Pittsburgh

  “[Roach’s] style is genuinely warm, and she has a keen eye for observation of unique and ironic details…dead bodies have never been more fascinating.”

  —Michael Jaffe, Express-News, San Antonio

  “Droll, dark, and quite wise, Stiff makes being dead funny and fascinating and weirdly appealing.”

  —Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief

  “As fascinating as it is funny, as sensitive as it is probing, Mary Roach’s Stiff is above all an important account of how we treat the dead—literally. The research is admirable, the anecdotes carefully chosen, and the prose lively.”

  —Caleb Carr, author of The Alienist

  “Mary Roach proves what many of us have long suspected: that the real fun in life doesn’t start until you’re dead. I particularly enjoyed the sections about head transplants, black-market mummies, and how to tell if you’re actually dead.”

  —Joe Queenan, author of My Goodness:

  A Cynic’s Short-Lived Search for Sainthood

  “Mary Roach is the funniest science writer in the country. If that sounds like faint praise—or even an oxymoron—there’s proof to the contrary on almost any page of this book. Stiff tells us where the bodies are, what they’re up to, and the astonishing tales they still have to tell. Best of all it manages, somehow, to find humor in cadavers without robbing them of their dignity. Long live the dead.”

  —Burkhard Bilger, author of Noodling for Flatheads

  STIFF

  THE CURIOUS LIVES OF HUMAN CADAVERS

  MARY ROACH

  W. W. NORTON & COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON

  For wonderful Ed

  Copyright © 2003 by Mary Roach

  All rights reserved

  In several instances, names have been changed to protect privacy.

  Photo credits: title page: Hulton Deutch Collection/Corbis; Getty Images/Juliette Lasserre; Getty Images/Robin Lynn Gibson; Photofest; Photofest; Getty Images/Stephen Swintek; Hulton Deutsch Collection/Corbis; Geoffrey Clements/Corbis; Getty Images/Tracy Montana/Photolink; Bettmann/Corbis; Getty Images/John A. Rizzo; Minnesota Historical Society/Corbis; T.R. Tharp/Corbis

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

  Production manager: Amanda Morrison

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Roach, Mary.

  Stiff: the curious lives of human cadavers / by Mary Roach.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  ISBN: 978-0-393-06919-8

  1. Human experimentation in medicine. 2. Dead. 3. Human dissection. I. Title.

  R853.H8 R635 2003

  611—dc21 2002152908

  W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

  www.wwnorton.com

  W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., Castle House,

  75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  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

&n
bsp; 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?

  Acknowledgments

  Bibliography

  INTRODUCTION

  The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back. The brain has shut down. The flesh begins to soften. Nothing much new happens, and nothing is expected of you.

  If I were to take a cruise, I would prefer that it be one of those research cruises, where the passengers, while still spending much of the day lying on their backs with blank minds, also get to help out with a scientist’s research project. These cruises take their passengers to unknown, unimagined places. They give them the chance to do things they would not otherwise get to do.

  I guess I feel the same way about being a corpse. Why lie around on your back when you can do something interesting and new, something useful? For every surgical procedure developed, from heart transplants to gender reassignment surgery, cadavers have been there alongside the surgeons, making history in their own quiet, sundered way. For two thousand years, cadavers—some willingly, some unwittingly—have been involved in science’s boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. Cadavers were around to help test France’s first guillotine, the “humane” alternative to hanging. They were there at the labs of Lenin’s embalmers, helping test the latest techniques. They’ve been there (on paper) at Congressional hearings, helping make the case for mandatory seat belts. They’ve ridden the Space Shuttle (okay, pieces of them), helped a graduate student in Tennessee debunk spontaneous human combustion, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin.

  In exchange for their experiences, these cadavers agree to a sizable amount of gore. They are dismembered, cut open, rearranged. But here’s the thing: They don’t endure anything. Cadavers are our superheroes: They brave fire without flinching, withstand falls from tall buildings and head-on car crashes into walls. You can fire a gun at them or run a speedboat over their legs, and it will not faze them. Their heads can be removed with no deleterious effect. They can be in six places at once. I take the Superman point of view: What a shame to waste these powers, to not use them for the betterment of humankind.

  This is a book about notable achievements made while dead. There are people long forgotten for their contributions while alive, but immortalized in the pages of books and journals. On my wall is a calendar from the Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The photograph for October is of a piece of human skin, marked up with arrows and tears; it was used by surgeons to figure out whether an incision would be less likely to tear if it ran lengthwise or crosswise. To me, ending up an exhibit in the Mütter Museum or a skeleton in a medical school classroom is like donating money for a park bench after you’re gone: a nice thing to do, a little hit of immortality. This is a book about the sometimes odd, often shocking, always compelling things cadavers have done.

  Not that there’s anything wrong with just lying around on your back. In its way, rotting is interesting too, as we will see. It’s just that there are other ways to spend your time as a cadaver. Get involved with science. Be an art exhibit. Become part of a tree. Some options for you to think about.

  Death. It doesn’t have to be boring.

  There are those who will disagree with me, who feel that to do anything other than bury or cremate the dead is disrespectful. That includes, I suspect, writing about them. Many people will find this book disrespectful. There is nothing amusing about being dead, they will say. Ah, but there is. Being dead is absurd. It’s the silliest situation you’ll find yourself in. Your limbs are floppy and uncooperative. Your mouth hangs open. Being dead is unsightly and stinky and embarrassing, and there’s not a damn thing to be done about it.

  This book is not about death as in dying. Death, as in dying, is sad and profound. There is nothing funny about losing someone you love, or about being the person about to be lost. This book is about the already dead, the anonymous, behind-the-scenes dead. The cadavers I have seen were not depressing or heart-wrenching or repulsive. They seemed sweet and well-intentioned, sometimes sad, occasionally amusing. Some were beautiful, some monsters. Some wore sweatpants and some were naked, some in pieces, others whole.

  All were strangers to me. I would not want to watch an experiment, no matter how interesting or important, that involved the remains of someone I knew and loved. (There are a few who do. Ronn Wade, who runs the anatomical gifts program at the University of Maryland at Baltimore, told me that some years back a woman whose husband had willed his body to the university asked if she could watch the dissection. Wade gently said no.) I feel this way not because what I would be watching is disrespectful, or wrong, but because I could not, emotionally, separate that cadaver from the person it recently was. One’s own dead are more than cadavers, they are place holders for the living. They are a focus, a receptacle, for emotions that no longer have one. The dead of science are always strangers.*

  Let me tell you about my first cadaver. I was thirty-six, and it was eighty-one. It was my mother’s. I notice here that I used the possessive “my mother’s,” as if to say the cadaver that belonged to my mother, not the cadaver that was my mother. My mom was never a cadaver; no person ever is. You are a person and then you cease to be a person, and a cadaver takes your place. My mother was gone. The cadaver was her hull. Or that was how it seemed to me.

  It was a warm September morning. The funeral home had told me and my brother Rip to show up there about an hour before the church service. We thought there were papers to fill out. The mortician ushered us into a large, dim, hushed room with heavy drapes and too much air-conditioning. There was a coffin at one end, but this seemed normal enough, for a mortuary. My brother and I stood there awkwardly. The mortician cleared his throat and looked toward the coffin. I suppose we should have recognized it, as we’d picked it out and paid for it the day before, but we didn’t. Finally the man walked over and gestured at it, bowing slightly, in the manner of a maître d’ showing diners to their table. There, just beyond his open palm, was our mother’s face. I wasn’t expecting it. We hadn’t requested a viewing, and the memorial service was closed-coffin. We got it anyway. They’d shampooed and waved her hair and made up her face. They’d done a great job, but I felt taken, as if we’d asked for the basic carwash and they’d gone ahead and detailed her. Hey, I wanted to say, we didn’t order this. But of course I said nothing. Death makes us helplessly polite.

  The mortician told us we had an hour with her, and quietly retreated. Rip looked at me. An hour? What do you do with a dead person for an hour? Mom had been sick for a long time; we’d done our grieving and crying and saying goodbye. It was like being served a slice of pie you didn’t want to eat. We felt it would be rude to leave, after all the trouble they’d gone to. We walked up to the coffin for a closer look. I placed my palm on her forehead, partly as a gesture of tenderness, partly to see what a dead person felt like. Her skin was cold the way metal is cold, or glass.

  A week ago at that time, Mom would have been reading the Valley News and doing the Jumble. As far as I know, she’d done the Jumble every morning for the past forty-five years. Sometimes in the hospital, I’d get up on the bed with her and we’d work on it together. She was bedridden, and it was one of the last things she could still do and enjoy. I looked at Rip. Should we all do the Jumble together one last time? Rip went out to the car to get the paper. We leaned on the coffin and read the clues aloud. That was when I cried. It was the small things that got to me that week: finding her bingo
winnings when we cleaned out her dresser drawers, emptying the fourteen individually wrapped pieces of chicken from her freezer, each one labeled “chicken” in her careful penmanship. And the Jumble. Seeing her cadaver was strange, but it wasn’t really sad. It wasn’t her.

  What I found hardest to get used to this past year was not the bodies I saw, but the reactions of people who asked me to tell them about my book. People want to be excited for you when they hear you are writing a book; they want to have something nice to say. A book about dead bodies is a conversational curveball. It’s all well and good to write an article about corpses, but a full-size book plants a red flag on your character. We knew Mary was quirky, but now we’re wondering if she’s, you know, okay. I experienced a moment last summer at the checkout desk at the medical school library at the University of California, San Francisco, that sums up what it is like to write a book about cadavers. A young man was looking at the computer record of the books under my name: The Principles and Practice of Embalming, The Chemistry of Death, Gunshot Injuries. He looked at the book I now wished to check out: Proceedings of the Ninth Stapp Car Crash Conference. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. It was all there in his glance. Often when I checked out a book I expected to be questioned. Why do you want this book? What are you up to? What kind of person are you?

  They never asked, so I never told them. But I’ll tell you now. I’m a curious person. Like all journalists, I’m a voyeur. I write about what I find fascinating. I used to write about travel. I traveled to escape the known and the ordinary. The longer I did this, the farther afield I had to go. By the time I found myself in Antarctica for the third time, I began to search closer at hand. I began to look for the foreign lands between the cracks. Science was one such land. Science involving the dead was particularly foreign and strange and, in its repellent way, enticing. The places I traveled to this past year were not as beautiful as Antarctica, but they were as strange and interesting and, I hope, as worthy of sharing.