Summary of Mary Roach's Stiff

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The human head is of the same approximate size and weight as a roaster chicken. I have never before seen a head in a roasting pan, but forty of them are resting faceup on what looks like a small pet-food bowl. The heads are for plastic surgeons to practice on.

#2 Objectification is a common coping method for those who must deal with human corpses. For physicians, objectification is mastered their first year of medical school, in the gross anatomy lab.

#3 The surgeons were at work, cutting up the heads. The flesh gave no resistance and yielded no blood. The heads looked like rubber Halloween masks. They also looked like human heads, but my brain had no precedent for human heads on tables or in roasting pans, so it had chosen to interpret the sight in a more comforting manner.

#4 The surgeons do not enjoy dissecting the heads of dead people, but they clearly value the opportunity to practice and explore on someone who isn't going to wake up and look in the mirror anytime soon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822512092

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Insights on Mary Roach's Stiff

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The human head is of the same approximate size and weight as a roaster chicken. I have never before seen a head in a roasting pan, but forty of them are resting faceup on what looks like a small pet-food bowl. The heads are for plastic surgeons to practice on.

#2

Objectification is a common coping method for those who must deal with human corpses. For physicians, objectification is mastered their first year of medical school, in the gross anatomy lab.

#3

The surgeons were at work, cutting up the heads. The flesh gave no resistance and yielded no blood. The heads looked like rubber Halloween masks. They also looked like human heads, but my brain had no precedent for human heads on tables or in roasting pans, so it had chosen to interpret the sight in a more comforting manner.

#4

The surgeons do not enjoy dissecting the heads of dead people, but they clearly value the opportunity to practice and explore on someone who isn't going to wake up and look in the mirror anytime soon.

#5

The modern face-lift lifts four individual anatomical layers. This means all of these layers must be identified, surgically separated from their neighbors, and individually repositioned and sewn into place.

#6

Surgery has always been done in a teaching environment, with students watching experienced surgeons at work. The patient was not always involved in these early surgeries.

#7

Nepotism, rather than skill, secured a position at early-nineteenth-century teaching hospitals. The December 20, 1828, issue of The Lancet contains