Cadavers in the 21st Century

I just finished reading Stiff by Mary Roach. It is an interesting tale of what happens to dead bodies that are donated to scientific research. Most bodies are hacked to pieces by medical students, who carefully learn use the dismembered pieces to carefully learn the anatomy of the human body. Others are used by surgeons, who practice new techniques on cadavers. Other bodies are dropped off of buildings and put into cars that are then driven into a concrete wall. This research tells us what the human body's maximum tolerances are. All of this research helps to save lives.

Few people desire to be cadavers. Religious tradition has a lot to do with it. Until recently, Christian belief held that a soul could not be resurrected to heaven if the body was not intact. Because of this, dissection was the ultimate penalty far worse than the death penalty. Donating to science became equated with being a criminal.

Like most 17th and 18th century beliefs, this belief was totally wrong. If we accept that God made all of us, then we accept that he also made techniques like dissection that, while gruesome, can be used to heal others. Jesus was the master healer. It follows that we should, then, do what we can to the point of donating our bodies to heal those around us. Also, having a fellow human being eviscerate your body is a lot less gruesome than allowing nature read maggots to do the same thing.

I would like to say that times have changes, and that the cultural resistance to dissection and anatomical study has waned. Unfortunately, it hasn't. The Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh has contracted with the traveling "bodies" exhibit. The exhibit, which I have not seen, shows corpses in various phases of dissection. Plastic has been used to eliminate decomposition and smells, I truly don't understand how this works, but it apparently works. The exhibit shows our internal organs; it shows our skeleton; it shows our brain; it shows our muscles; it shows God's'work.