The Dead Tell Tales

I grew up in a house where I relished reading everything I could get my hands on at a very young age. I probably was the only kid ever who squealed with delight upon receiving a big, hardbound illustrated dictionary as a gift. While other kids would rather play outside, I was indoors learning what a tureen is and drawing my own version of it. Of course I'm kidding. I mean, I also went out and played, of course I wanted Lego and other toys as gifts, too. But I was more of a reader.

I also love science though we had a falling out that started in my computing errors in chemistry and physics exams. Once, way back then, I had a dream of becoming a scientist, nurtured by cartoons of old of an evil mastermind. I mean, well a scientist is a good dream as any as a kid, right? But we can't always get what we want. Thank goodness!

Ok, that long introduction means I'll be posting about a book that blends my love of reading with my other love, science.

A couple or so years back I probably read a handful of references to Mary Roach and her books from other bloggers out there. So I waited until I finally found a copy of this in my favorite bookstore. And after reading this, gee, please Philippine bookstore owners, bring her other books here! But I'm getting ahead.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Mary Roach

First off, a caveat. From the title and cover alone you'll see it's about cadavers. That alone would put off a handful of readers. It's a good thing if you grew up reading everything. Unfamiliar things such as this are welcome opportunities to further broaden your brain thirsting for a boost or two of new knowledge.

Second, Mary Roach may not be your type of writer. She's frank, she's funny, she asks questions you probably wouldn't even dream of asking, she's irreverent, she's witty and very observant. And she strings her observations and interviews with words that are frank, funny, uncomfortable, irreverent, and witty. Ergo, she's my type of writer.

Ok, that's out of the way. Let's see, what do I have to say about the book? Read this! Read this! Read this!

I mean, ok, the book deals with the dead and the handful of things we don't even know about them. Divided into chapters that deal with those specific things: as a tool for medical students in anatomy class, as a crash test dummy, as an organ donor, among other things we are all familiar with. Then the other stuff we aren't and I won't mention them here. You have to see for yourself. I mean, gee, it's the first time I heard of a honeyed cadaver for goodness' sake!

It's a well-researched, well-written and well-intentioned book that made me laugh and think over and over again, though I have to say half of my friends probably won't pick this up and I understand that. In this predominantly Christian (mostly Catholic), third-world country of mine we treat the dead with saintly reverence. And I recognize that there is nothing wrong with that belief system, unless of course the righteous few should prevent those of us from reading books such as this.

A part of me learned a lot from the book if I set aside the fact that I laughed so hard at least half the time. I never thought actual cadavers were used as crash test dummies and yet it's understandable that safety researchers would. I know of the not-quite dead donors, bodies kept alive prior to harvesting organs for other patients in need. I've heard of experiments preserving the bodies to show the human anatomy as is and of doctors and scientists of the Victorian age trying to reanimate the dead. But I never heard of freeze-drying cadavers until now. To me, that chapter was the most thought-provoking and I end up nodding along the entire thing.

What did I say earlier? Read this! Read this! Read this! Here's a link to some excerpts.

From among the chapters in the book, I am most familiar with the one used for human anatomy classes for medical students (sorry, I left my copy of the book at home so I won't be posting my favorite lines or funny lines, some of which can be found in her footnotes). My sister's a doctor, you see. When she was a medical student I dropped by her school a handful of times and then there was this one time I saw a former classmate of mine after classes were over and he was about to enter the anatomy laboratory for some stuff he left behind and asked me to join him. He probably thought I'd freak out. I didn't. That's when I first saw a human cadaver in mid-dissection. I think I even asked about the nerves and muscles and stuff.

So it didn't even come as a shock that one day my sister and her groupmates in class brought home a brain steeped in alcohol for further dissection at home. It's my own version of a brain in a vat (around the time we were discussing brains in vats for my philosophy class - you know, what if we're all just brains in vats, imagine The Matrix as real). I probably made up a lot of stories in my head as to what kind of person the owner of the brain was when s/he was still living; among them a wraith or something searching for its brain, and the brain is in our unit slowly being dissected. Yeah, horror stories in my head. No wonder I read everything. But I digress.

Learn something new, keep an open mind. Read this.

Other interesting points of view:

A Striped Armchair
Books I Done Read
Bookshelves of Doom
Capricious Reader
Confessions of a Bibliophile
Fizzy Thoughts
Mike Battista's Blog
Rebecca Reads
Sophisticated Dorkiness
The Bookworm Collective