Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

The cadavers themselves, though anonymous for the most part, are major characters in this story. From UM 006 (the car crash cadaver in Chapter Four) to “H” (the organ donor from Chapter Eight), the importance of these unnamed figures can be summarized by Roach as follows:

Cadavers are our superheroes: They brave fire without flinching, withstand falls from tall buildings and head-on car crashes into walls. You can fire a gun at them or run a speedboat over their legs, and it will not faze them. Their heads can be removed with no deleterious effect. They can be in six places at once. I take the Superman point of view: What a shame to waste these powers, to not use them for the betterment of humankind (10).

Early anatomists can be seen in Chapter Two (Huang Ti from 2600 B.C. China, Galen from Imperial Rome), and Chapter Nine (Jean Baptiste Vincent Laborde in 1884 Paris, Charles Guthrie in 1908 St. Louis),among other places. These individuals made often fumbling attempts to conduct scientific research with bodies often procured illegally. Stories from the early days of anatomy science are peppered throughout the book. 

Doctors, surgeons, and medical professionals are featured in nearly every chapter. From Canadian surgeon Marilena Marignani, in Chapter One, to Dr. White, the head of transplant research in Chapter Nine, medical professionals are inseparable from the story of cadavers.

Then there are those medical professionals associated with the research community. This refers to researchers like Arpad Vass, the adjunct professor at University of Tennessee and senior staff scientist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Chapter Three, as well as Hugh Patterson, the anatomy professor and director of University of San Francisco’s Willed Body Program. From Chapter Four, there is Albert King, the Wayne State Bioengineering Center Director who studies brain damage related to car crashes. 

In this group, there are embalmers, cremationists, and all manner of mortuary professionals. These include embalming students Theo Martinez and Nicole D’Ambrogio, at the San Francisco College of Mortuary, as well as Susanne Wiigh-Masak, the Swedish human-composting enthusiast. There are also historical figures in this group, such as Thomas Holmes, a CivilWar-era American known as the “Father of Embalming,” in Chapter Three (79). 

Outside of those associated with science, there are the religiously-affiliated people who used cadavers for spiritual purposes. Most of these figures are from Chapter Sevenand include people like Father Armailhac, the priest who sought the advice of Dr. Pierre Barbet, in order to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin in1931 France. Also in this category is Frederick Zugibe, the medical examiner for Rockland County, in New York, who conducted a series of experiments in the 1970s on people who volunteered to simulate the Crucifixion on a cross built in his garage.