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Analysis Of Stiff: The Curious Lives Of Human Cadaver

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“Death. It doesn't have to be boring.” (Marry Roach, Stiff) Dead bodies aren’t supposed to tell stories, but in Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Mary Roach reveals the beauty and purpose of human cadavers in a fun, intriguing, but respectful way.
During my SOAR visit in spring of last year, it came to the part in our tour where we reached the cadaver lab. We had the choice to either go in or not, and I excitingly accepted. At first sight, I got a knot in my stomach. It was hard to think of the cadaver as an actual human who had an entire life; with friends, family, and lover. I thought about things like that when I first saw the cadavers on that day. Now that I’m here at Springfield and visited the cadaver lab again, this time my …show more content…

What really surprised me was that enough people donate their bodies to science to be able to provide cadavers to all of the different research sciences. As fascinating and innovative as the research is when using the human cadavers to develop their studies, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about human cadavers used. I do agree that the resourcefulness and generosity of the donors is astounding and has transcended the fields of medicine, technology, ballistics and many more. On the contrary, I find it unethical to use human cadavers in some fields such as technology and ballistics for testing especially in these times where there are many different alternative to use as probes for these fields. Using human cadavers in medicine however, I believe, is essential to the success of students and programs worldwide, so when it comes to areas of research I find most appropriate for the cadavers, its medicine. The research I find most surprised about is regarding automotive technology with the use of human cadavers to test effectiveness of seat belts and car frames during tested crashes. I think I found myself most surprised about this because I always figured sim dummies were used for research such as this, and never thought about using a human …show more content…

Human compost is extremely innovative; forming new life from past life. The nutrients and organic rich make up of human bodies cannot be replicated nor created in any lab like the way our human bodies store and create them. In human composting, bacteria’s are added to the compost that release enzymes that break down tissue into component parts such as amino acids. Nitrogen-rich materials (our dead bodies) are surrounded by mounds of carbon-rich material (like wood chips, sawdust) along with the addition of moisture. Soon enough Microbial activity will begin and eventually, nitrogen-rich molecules bind to carbon-rich ones, creating a nutrient rich, soil-like substance. In my opinion, the resourcefulness of human composting is genius and only yields benefits to society and the human race. Living in New England, I don’t believe the human compost movement would have as high of a traction gain as it would in higher farming locations such as the western region of the United

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We all are really nothing more than organic tissue. Feinberg does an excellent job at drawing out the problem people have getting attached to the dead. He shows that we are attached emotionally to the dead as our treatment towards such represents our humanity. Yet I don’t think he looked deep enough, only skimming the surface as to why we have a problem with using cadaver unconventionally. Feinberg concludes the reason for the disgust people get when observing corpse being used as test subject is based on the value we place on corpses; He draws the line there and really goes any deeper into the reason for the sentimentality.

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