Blog Post 4

Chapters 10-12

Summary

In the last 3 chapters of Stiff, Mary Roach discusses the past methods used to treat diseases by consuming parts of humans (and their bodily excrements), how humans can give back to the earth upon death, and what she would do with her body when she dies. Chapter 10 focused on old and new remedies for diseases based on the consumption of the natural parts of the human body such as the placenta, dandruff, blood, aborted fetuses, and fecal matter. Many of the practices used to heal or treat someone in one place can be seen as taboo somewhere else due to one's culture and upbringing. Mary Roach then moves on to the manners in which one's body and soul are commemorated after death in chapter 11. One can either go the traditional route and be buried (highly supported by the Christian church), the kind of controversial route by being cremated, or the most problematic route by being turned into compost or being flushed down the sewer via the process of tissue digestion. In the last chapter, Roach declares what she plans to do with her body when she passes away. It turns out that she doesn't really care because she is not going to be alive anymore, so the decision will rest on her husband.

"We are all nature, all made of the same basic materials, with the

same basic needs. We are no different, on a very basic level, from

the ducks and the mussels and last week's coleslaw. Thus we should

respect Nature, and when we die, we should give ourselves back to

the earth."

Passage Analysis

Here's the other thing I think about. It makes little sense to try to control what happens to your remains when you are no longer around to reap the joys or benefits of that control. People who make elaborate requests concerning disposition of their bodies are probably people who have trouble with the concept of not existing. Leaving a note requesting that your family and friends to the Ganges or ship your body to a plastination lab in Michigan is a way of exerting influence after you're gone-of still being there, in a sense. I imagine it is a symptom of the fear, the dread, of being gone, of the refusal to accept that you no longer control, or even participate in, anything that happens on earth. I spoke about this with funeral director Kevin McCabe, who believes that decisions concerning the disposition of a body should be made by the survivors, not the dead. "It's none of their business what happens to them when they die," he said to me. While I wouldn't go that far, I do understand what he was getting at: that the survivors shouldn't have to do something they're uncomfortable with or ethically opposed to. Mourning and moving on are hard enough. Why add to the burden? If someone wants to arrange a balloon launch of the deceased's ashes into inner space, that's fine. But if it is burdensome or troubling for any reason, then perhaps they shouldn't have to. McCabe's policy is to honor the wishes of the family over the wishes of the dead. Willed body program coordinators feel similarly. "I've had kids object to their dad's wishes [to donate]," says Ronn Wade, director of the Anatomical Services Division of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "I tell them, 'Do what's best for you. You're the one who has to live with it.'"

This passage speaks volumes to me because it is the honest truth. I mean, it makes sense for the living to decide what to do with the bodies of the dead because it is them who are affected the most by their death. Sometimes people who have passed away leave outrageous requests for what to do with their body such as scattering their ashes in a remote location. At times the loved ones of the dead are forced to do things that they are not comfortable with or that go against their beliefs placing them in an ethical dilemma over what's the right thing to do. Though, I agree with Mary Roach when she states that the last wishes of the dead are to give them a sense of control after they have no influence in the world. I believe that one must accept that losing control over what happens next is a natural part of death and one shouldn't fight it by making requests that they won't be a part of.

Conclusion

I would in fact recommend this book to others because it is very informative and allows one to contemplate about what they want done (or don't) with their body when it is their time to go. This book is very appealing because it covers a topic that not many people know about and it dwells into the past, present, and future contributions involving cadavers that can revolutionize life as we know it. It also details the natural processes our body undergoes at death and the various ways one's body can be used after death such as for a burial, cremation, donation (so that the cadaver can be used for research and learning purposes), tissue digestion, or for being made into human compost. This book was a great read.

10/10 stars