69 pages • 2 hours read
Mary RoachStiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Quiz
Reading Check, Multiple Choice & Short Answer Quizzes
Reading Check questions are designed for in-class review on key plot points or for quick verbal or written assessments. Multiple Choice and Short Answer Quizzes create ideal summative assessments, and collectively function to convey a sense of the work’s tone and themes.
Introduction-Chapter 3
Reading Check
1. In the Introduction, what does Roach say “plants a red flag” on her character?
2. In what university is the medical anatomy lab Roach visits in Chapter 1 located?
3. How many heads are in the medical anatomy lab?
4. In early surgery, what type of manual labor profession was surgery more akin to than a doctor?
Multiple Choice
1. In Chapter 1, why does Marilena (a surgeon) say she will not donate her body to science?
A) She has a rare blood disorder.
B) She feels the dead are treated with a lack of respect from other doctors.
C) It is against her religion.
D) She wants to be cremated, which is tradition in her family.
2. At what point in medical school are students first exposed to a real human cadaver?
A) gross anatomy lab
B) clinical pathology lab
C) anatomic pathology lab
D) biosafety lab
3. What group ritual do medical students perform before dissecting their first cadavers as a sign of respect/dignity to those who have donated their bodies to science?
A) They light candles in memory of the deceased.
B) They sing a hymn to honor the deceased.
C) They hold a memorial service with the deceased’s family members present.
D) They say a prayer on the first day of class to honor the deceased.
4. What century does Roach name as the “heyday” of human anatomy?
A) 18th
B) 19th
C) 20th
D) 21st
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What’s the overarching subject of Chapter 3, and why is it important to medical research?
2. What is the process of embalming?
3. In Chapter 3, why does Roach argue that “dissection and dismemberment” should not put readers off from donating their bodies to science?
Chapters 4-6
Reading Check
1. What is “impact tolerance”?
2. Who is UM006?
3. Name one advancement in terms of car safety that came about due to testing on cadavers, as described in Chapter 4.
4. What fatal airplane crash did injury analyst Dennis Shanahan study in 1996?
Multiple Choice
1. What primary industries does Roach discuss in Chapter 5 as benefitting from Dennis Shanahan’s work as an injury analyst?
A) pilot and Air Force training schools
B) iron and copper mining commerce
C) chemical and biochemical companies
D) insurance and car companies
2. What was one important feature about the cadavers Dennis studies in Chapter 5?
A) They were all from the same family.
B) They were a wide variety of ages.
C) They were recovered completely whole.
D) They all were decapitated upon impact.
3. What does Dennis determine is the cause of the airplane crash described in Chapter 5?
A) Sparks from frayed wires ignited one of the fuel tanks, causing the plane to explode.
B) The pilot had a medical emergency and unintentionally steered the plane into a mountain.
C) An unknown piece of debris flying through the air damaged the plane’s wing.
D) The weight of the cargo aboard the plane caused it to fall at a certain altitude.
4. In 1893, what rifle was tested by Captain Louis La Garde of the U.S. Army Medical Corps?
A) Springfield rifle
B) Colt Browning M1895 rifle
C) Krag-Jorgensen Model 1894 rifle
D) Berthier rifle
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What was the purpose of La Garde’s research on rifles?
2. According to Roach in Chapter 6, what is the “Holy Grail” of ballistics research?
3. How does Roach test the “neural overload theory”?
4. What is named as the most “firmly entrenched taboo of the cadaveric research world” in terms of military testing, and why?
Chapters 7-9
Reading Check
1. What material is the Shroud of Turin made of?
2. In 1931, what did a Catholic priest ask Dr. Pierre Barbet of Paris to prove?
3. What is “Destot’s space”?
4. What is the name of the Rockland County, New York medical examiner that has built upon and continued the work of Dr. Barbet in the modern era?
Multiple Choice
1. What is the pseudonym of the “beating-heart cadaver” described in the opening paragraphs of Chapter 8?
A) H
B) I
C) J
D) K
2. What was the purpose of “waiting mortuaries” in Germany in the 1800s?
A) They served as a sort of hospice for the fatally ill.
B) They were something like waiting rooms for the living as their deceased loved one’s body was prepared for the funeral.
C) They were a special type of building where the dead were allowed to putrefy ensure they were dead.
D) They were special buildings for the corpses of prisoners, who were thought to have their souls held in Purgatory before gaining entrance to Heaven.
3. What did Dr. Duncan MacDougall of Haverhill, Massachusetts seek to determine in 1907?
A) the color of the soul
B) the shape of the soul
C) the weight of the soul
D) the temperature of the soul
4. According to Roach, the live, moving heart in a beating-heart cadaver looks like “an alien life form that’s just won a Pontiac on“ what game show?
A) Jeopardy
B) Wheel of Fortune
C) Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
D) The Price is Right
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Why did various French doctors perform tests on decapitated heads in the early 1900s?
2. What is the importance of Dr. Robert White’s rhesus monkey experiments in the mid-1960s?
3. While body organ harvesting is seen as acceptable, what are some of the issues that exclude the head/brain from being viable transplant options?
Chapters 10-12
Reading Check
1. In what text does Roach find the recipe for “mellified man”?
2. Name at least one type of human byproduct described in Chapter 10 as being used by doctors throughout history for their curative powers .
3. What are the only two types of ancient bodily cures Roach could find still being used today in the United States?
4. What is the urban legend surrounding the White Temple Restaurant in modern China?
Multiple Choice
1. What chemical is used in “tissue digestion”?
A) alkali (or lye)
B) sulfuric acid
C) glycolic acid
D) imidazole
2. In the early days when cremation was first becoming more popular in America, what was purported as the main benefit of cremation as opposed to burial?
A) It was more respectful to the deceased than burial.
B) It was a less ornate, humbler alternative to burial.
C) It was a more hygienic process than burial.
D) It was more secular than burial.
3. What is the specialty of the company Wiigh-Masak?
A) makeup for cadavers
B) embalming chemicals
C) human composting
D) ballistic gel
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What does Roach want to have done with her own remains after she passes? Discuss the different options she explores.
2. Why does Roach think it is illogical for humans to be too concerned over what happens to their body after they die?
Quizzes – Answer Key
Introduction-Chapter 3
Reading Check
1. writing a full-length book about death (Introduction)
2. the University of California San Francisco (Chapter 1)
3. 40 heads (Chapter 1)
4. a barber (Chapter 1)
Multiple Choice
Short-Answer Response
1. The decay of the human body is the overarching subject of Chapter 3. Roach focuses on it because it establishes a baseline to aid in forensic investigations. (Chapter 3)
2. Embalming is the process by which a corpse is chemically treated to delay petrification. (Chapter 3)
3. Dissection and dismemberment should not be off-putting because the alternatives—natural decay, the embalming process, and even cremation—are all also gory and gruesome procedures. (Chapter 3)
Chapters 4-6
Reading Check
1. the study of how much the human body can handle in terms of brute force before serious injury/death (Chapter 4)
2. the cadaver being tested upon at the Wayne State University’s Bioengineering Center when Roach comes to visit (Chapter 4)
3. windshield improvements and seat belt testing, to name two (Chapter 4)
4. the TWA Flight 800 crash (Chapter 5)
Multiple Choice
Short-Answer Response
1. La Garde researched rifles to find a more humanitarian form of gun battle. (Chapter 6)
2. Incapacitation (or stopping power) is the “Holy Grail” of ballistics research. It refers to the ability of a bullet to slow down its object without maiming or killing it. (Chapter 6)
3. She has a company make a ballistic gelatin that simulates human tissue. She arranges for a bullet to be fired into the gelatin, and then she examines the “temporary stretch cavity,” which is a key feature of the “neural overload theory.” (Chapter 6)
4. The testing of bombs and landmines are considered the most taboo because it is still seen as disrespectful to the deceased and their families. (Chapter 6)
Chapters 7-9
Reading Check
1. linen (Chapter 7)
2. that the Shroud of Turin was authentic and therefore proved the existence of Jesus Christ (Chapter 7)
3. a “pea-sized gap between the two rows of bones of the wrist” and the site where Dr. Barbet believed Jesus Christ’s wrists were penetrated by nails (Chapter 7)
4. Dr. Frederick Zugibe (Chapter 7)
Multiple Choice
Short-Answer Response
1. Doctors performed tests on decapitated heads in the early 1900s to test if execution by guillotine was more humane than hanging. (Chapter 9)
2. Dr. White attempted to preform “isolated brain preparations,” in which a living brain is removed from its subject and kept alive by another animal’s circulatory system. These tests have implications for brain and head transplants in humans. (Chapter 9)
3. Donors do not typically consent to give away their heads or brains. These parts are also simply seen as more personal than other types of organs, especially since the face is believed to be unique, and the brain is considered to be the seat of human consciousness. (Chapter 9)
Chapters 10-12
Reading Check
1. the Chinese Materia Medica (Chapter 10)
2. toenails, blood, and human feces are all mentioned (Chapter 10)
3. cadaver blood transfusions and the consumption of the placenta by new mothers (Chapter 10)
4. They are serving dumplings made from cadavers. (Chapter 10)
Multiple Choice
Short-Answer Response
1. She wants to donate her body to science, but she does not know how precisely she wants the remains to be used. She explores having her bones made into a skeleton for med students, and she explores “plastination,” which would preserve her remains. (Chapter 12)
2. She believes it is illogical because we have so little control over what will be done with our remains. Roach feels ultimately that survivors are the ones who should decide what happens with the body of a loved one since they are the ones who need to make sure the body reaches its final destination. (Chapter 12)
