Stiff: Section 1

I have started to read this book, Stiff for my ap bio class. We had a list of books to choose from to read for the assignment. There are four different papers we are supposed to write. The first three are splitting the book into thirds to read and the last one is an overall view. This is over the first section of the book that I read.

When I went to Barnes and Noble to pick out a book, I had a couple in mind. I had to ask the ladies there to help me find some of the books and they ended up finding Stiff and Survival of the Fittest. I talked a little bit with some of the ladies there that helped me to see what one would be better to read. One of the ladies told me that Stiff was quite funny and clever. She thought it would be more interesting to read, so that’s the book I went with.

As I first started reading the book Stiff, I did not expect it to be too exciting or funny. When I started to get more into the book, it became more and more interesting. The author did a very nice job of really putting her personality and humor into the reading. When she would describe different work with cadavers it was always her observations of what others did and how they felt about it. She herself would put her own experiences in there too, but it was not all just her own feelings she shared.

Cadavers were used as practice heads for students at school. These students would practice facial reconstruction like face lifts. Cadavers are great study bodies for students to learn from before they start working with people whose lives are in their hands. Back in older times when using cadavers was not really allowed, anatomists would either use the bodies of criminals that were put to death, or they dug up the graves of those that had died. This led to a business of grave robbing. People would dig up graves at night and sell them to anatomists for a good profit.

Another thing cadavers go through is being embalmed. This is also practiced in school, usually for the poorer people who can't afford it. Some scientist would use dead bodies to see how the body decays. They would set out bodies to see exactly what parts of the body go first and what happens to the innards. These help know when a body actually dies. The book is very interesting to learn all the different ways cadavers are used. You would never know how many ways there actually are.