The Cadaver: way better than a test dummy.

In STIFF writer Mary Roach explicitly and objectively describes the various ways scientist, surgeons, bio-chemical engineers, and even the U.S. army, using cadavers for research purposes. The author narrates moments of observations and conversations with many scientist working with  theses brave cadavers and through expository writing, engages her readers to the world of cadavers.

In chapter 4: "Dead Man Driving", Roach celebrates the achievements of cadavers by personification, she writes, " The dead's first contribution to safe driving was the non-face-gashing windshield." (88). 

In chapter 5, she articulates an investigation of cause of death, in which Dennis Shanahan- an injury analyst- works to solve the mystery of the Flight 800 which departed from JFK International Airport (1996) but never landed at its destination: Paris. Next, Roach continues and reflects on the history of science of injury analysis, which first started in 19954 when two British Comet airliners fell into the sea, never returning. An investigation then was conducted, led by Sir Harold E. Whittingham- director of medical services for the British Overseas Airways Corporation.  

In Chapter 6, Roach reveals other methods cadavers are used in experiments, some that are beneficial to the U.S. army. She states why the U.S. army took interest in using cadavers saying, " Incapacitation-or stopping power, as it is known in munitions circles- became the Holy Grail of ballistics research." (132) [perhaps alluding to the film: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) ]. She explains that La Garde (U.S. army) investigates the army's various guns and bullets ability to end the life of an enemy, using cadavers to discover how momentum of hanging bodies relates to stopping power of a human when shot at. 

Roach's purpose is to assert the various methods cadavers are used for the advancement of  science and other needs or benefits. She seems to have a young audience in mind because she is very humorous and makes the information understandable. 

Vocab.

1. mutilate: (n) to cut up or alter so as to make imperfect 

2. ballistic: (adj) being or characterized by repeated bouncing, suddenly excited,

3. attenuate: (adj) reduced in thickness, density, or force

4. verisimilitude: (n) and verisimilar (adj) - having the appearance of truth, depicting realism

5. lacerations: (n) the act of lacerating, a torn or ragged wound

6. munitions: (n) archaic

7. frangible: (adj) readily or easily broken 

8. calibers: (n) a degree of mental capacity or moral quality

9. effluvium: (n) offensive smell

10. chagrin: (n) distress caused by humiliation, disappointment, or failure

11. gauge: (n) dimension, size

12. viscera: (n) internal organ

13. scourge: (v) whip, one used to inflict pain or punishment

15. osteonecrosis: (n) necrosis of bone 

16. deleterious: (adj.) harmful often in a unexpected way

17. debilitating: (n) to impair the strength of a  human body 

18. patronizing:  (v) Treat with an apparent kindness that betrays a feeling of superiority

19. intracranial:  (adj.) situated within the cranium

20. fuselage: (n) central body portion of aircraft designed to accommodate 

21. culprit: (n) one accused or guilty of crime

22. deflection: (n) a turning aside or off course

 Just in case your taking Physics:

1. Amplitude: (n) the maximum departure of the value of an alternating current or wave from the average value; extent or range of quality 

2. Momentum: (n) property of a moving body , which has mass and velocity, a property of a moving body that determines the length of time before it rests when under constant force or moment

Rhetorical Strategies:

1. Antithesis: " You can't give a dead man a concussion, but you can check his skull for hairline cracks, and this is what researchers did." (88)

2. Personification: " Chest injuries are the other generous contributor to crash fatalities." (90)

3. Parallelism/ listing : "Child data aside, the blunt impact tolerance limits of the human body's vital pieces have long ago been worked out, and today's dead are being recruited mainly for impact studies of the body's outlying regions: ankles, knees, feet, shoulders." (95)

4. Fallacy* : " She doesn't look like an engineer. She has magazine-model skin and wide, white, radiant smile and thick, shiny brown hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. If Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock had a child together, it would look like Deb Marth." (99) My thoughts: I love these actresses but what does she mean by that? So Deb is white, is that what makes her magazine-model skin beautiful? And, why can't an engineer be a beautiful woman? And to think this author is female..

5. Litotes: Understatement: " For the most part, it has been the lowly swine that has borne the burnt of munitions trauma research in the United States and Europe." (134) 

Questions to consider: 

1. In Chapter 4, what might have been the author's motives for writing so enthusiastically about ballistic gelatin? 

2. The author favors interrupting her passages with tiny stars which are supposed to direct the readers to continue reading  long often hilarious allusions, those located at the bottom of the pages, these are foot notes.. Why?

3. What is the significance of cadaver use in today's U.S. army? 

Memorable Quote:

" It is an unfortunate given of human trauma research that the things most likely to accidentally maim or kill people- things we most need to study and understand- are also the things most likely to mutilate research cadavers : car crashes, gunshots, explosions, sporting accidents." (152) 

" I see dead people." - *little white boy's voice* The Sixth Sense (1999)

Mary Roach is the very amusing and comical author of STIFF (2003), she narrates her very own learning  experience as an investigating journalist seeking the truths of cadavers- dead bodies used to practice medicine- and writes of her discoveries of the dead (literally). The author first justifies the practicing of surgery on the dead with a logical antithesis, explaining  it should not be the other way around - practicing with patients who are alive! She defends her argument with euphemism explaining that the dead (now cadavers) are treated with respect and even given proper memorial services like the one she witnessed at the University of California, San Francisco of Medical School (UCSF).
Chapter one is about Roach's experience at a surgery seminar, where she witnesses heads or pieces of cadavers and speaks on the value and usefulness they have. Roach makes humorous similes like the following : " This is why cadavers in photographs in pathology and forensics journals have black bars over their eyes, like women on the Dos and Dont's pages of Glamour. You have to assume that people don't want to be photographed dead.." (32) in order to provide a soft and funny tone, rather than a creepy one. She includes dialogues in her writing that are of her interviewing surgeon teachers who are all respectful of the dead, one who after finishing a surgical seminar sweetly said "May she rest in peace." (33).
 In Chapter two, Roach writes of her invitation to visit a  gross anatomy lab at UCSF Medical School and how exceptionally well the students are benefiting from the program.  She then continues with non- fictional stories of the history of surgeries (before anesthesia came along) and body snatching (from graves) used for fast cash, sold to be used for the practice of early medicine and tells of other awful crimes of anatomy in the 1800s.
Next in Chapter 3, Roach explains the process of human decay by paradox, in order to expose the reality that all human bodies (deceased) rot- its own bacteria eats the body. Roach describes her behind the scenes trip to the University of Tennessee Medical Center, a field research facility of human decay. And tells the history of mortuaries.
Her purpose is to bravely write about the dead and the science and history behind cadavers in order to  expose this secretive world to her audience.She seems to have a young, science interested audience in mind because she uses lots of satire and includes factual information regarding surgeries of the dead!

Vocab.

1. subcutaneous - under the skin
2. intermittently- (adj) coming and going, not continuous
3. catherizations- medical procedure to inspect the heart flow and heart
4. gratuitous- (adj.) un-called for, given free of charge
5. reciprocity- (n) the quality or state of being reciprocal (equal)
6. vernacular- (adj) using language native to a particular region rather than a foreign language


Tone: appealing, agreeable, honest, considerate


Rhetorical Strategies:

1. Anecdote: "Even cremation, when you get right down to it - as W.E.D. Evans, former Senior Lecturer in Morbid Anatomy at the University of London, did in his 1963 book The Chemistry of Death -isn't a pretty event: " (Page 83)

2. Allegory : " 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." (10)

3. Ambiguity (two or more possible meanings): " One woman confessed that her group had passed comment on the "extremely large genitalia" of their cadaver..... Even then, reverence, not mockery, colored the remark."(39)

4. Persona : " My end of the conversation takes place entirely in my head and consists of a single repeated line. You cut off heads. You cut off heads. You cut off heads. Meanwhile, I've missed the unveiling of the faces." (22)

5. Allusion/ Analogy: " Do you recall the Margaret Hamilton death scene in The Wizard of Oz? ( "I'm melting!") Putrefaction is more or less slowed-down version of this." (68)


Questions:

1. What could be the author's motives for writing the history of mortification?

2. What kinds of Satire is the author most fond of using?

3. Would you consider becoming a cadaver after death? (I would...!)



Memorable Quote:

" What she perhaps didn't realize is that the embalming fluid pumped into the veins expands the body's erectile tissues, with the result that male anatomy lab cadavers may be markedly better endowed in death than they were in life." (39)