69 pages • 2 hours read
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
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Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “Dead Man Driving”
Chapter Four discusses cadavers used in “ghastly, but necessary” research on impact tolerance (87). Impact tolerance refers to how much the human body can handle in terms of brute force before serious injury or death occurs: “[o]ver the past sixty years, the dead have helped the living work out human tolerance limits for skull slammings and chest skewerings, knee crammings and gut mashings: all the ugly, violent things that happen to a human being in a car crash” (87). Focusing on impact tolerance related to car crashes, Roach visits Wayne State University’s Bioengineering Center, a facility in Detroit that has been researching impact tolerance since 1939. When Roach visits Wayne State, UM 006 is the name of the cadaver being used in this particular round of testing.
Before delving into the experiment being done on UM 006, Roach provides an overarching history of how cadaver research has improved car safety: “[t]he dead’s first contribution to safe driving was the non-face-gashing windshield” (88). Due to impact tolerance studies conducted on the dead, “it’s now possible to survive a head-on crash into a wall at 60 mph” (92). However, while impact studies using cadavers are frowned upon, alternatives to cadavers have not been viable: “Lord knows, alternatives [to impact testing on cadavers] have been tried. In the dawn of impact science, researchers would experiment on themselves” (93). Roach runs through a brief history of human cadaver alternatives (animals, live human subjects) used in impact studies.
The testing performed on UM 006 involves a metal piston silently slamming into the cadaver. Roach finds that “without the screech of skidding tires and the crunch and fold of metal” the impact is neither violent nor disturbing. After UM 006 is pelted with the piston, researchers will analyze the body to test various medically-significant statistics about the impact.
The general public perceives impact testing on cadavers as lacking in dignity, which can be difficult for loved ones of the deceased: “[t]he family of UM 006 does not know what happened to him this evening…[t]he body goes to a morgue facility at the university to which it was donated, but may be shipped, as was UM 006, from that school to another” (103). One way to sidestep public disapproval is to focus on one particular body part: “[m]any times, of course, a researcher doesn’t need a whole body, just a piece of it” (106). Roach discovers that, if cadavers are disassembled into pieces, that can be easier for public approval because it divorces the dead from the person they once were, transforming them into impersonal parts.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Beyond the Black Box”
Injury analysis and aviation pathology is the focus of Chapter Five. Roach interviews Dennis Shanahan, who is an injury analyst that worked on the fatal crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996. An injury analyst is a person who analyzes the wounds of people to determine what exactly happened during a traumatic injury, which could be anything from a non-fatal car crash to a devastating plane crash. This type of work is beneficial to insurance and car companies looking to investigate lawsuit claims of faulty products. Injury analysts are also used to determine, by looking at the injuries on dead bodies, what happened at the scene of a car or plane accident. Using TWA Flight 800 as a case study, Roach, alongside Shanahan, walks us through the process of a forensic-injury analysis, as he tries to determine what happened when TWA Flight 800 fell from the sky.
TWA Flight 800, a flight from New York City to Paris, “blew apart” over the Atlantic, not far from East Moriches, New York. Based on witness reports, it was unclear if the plane had been struck by a missile or if an internal explosion caused the crash. Immediately after the crash, Shanahan was called in to examine the bodies of the dead, and to weigh in on what happened. Roach wants to know how, scientifically and emotionally, a person is able to do this type of grueling work.
Most of the bodies from TWA Flight 800 were recovered completely whole. When it is parts of bodies, Shanahan says that “it’s gory, but not sad” (116). With whole bodies, it is more emotionally distressing. Because the bodies were whole, this has implications for what happened to make TWA Flight 800 crash. Bodies can help determine whether a bomb went off, based on their “intactness” as well as the numbers and trajectories of “foreign objects” embedded within them (117). Based on the states of the bodies (as well as the charred remains of the plane), Shanahan is able to determine that sparks from frayed wires ignited one of the fuel tanks in TWA Flight 800, as opposed to a bomb having gone off.
Roach gives a brief history of the “unjolly science” of injury analysis, which began in 1954, when two British Comet airliners “mysteriously dropped from the sky into the sea” (121). The investigation was carried out by Britain’s Royal Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine in Farnborough, which concluded, after a lengthy investigation (involving ballistic tests on guinea pigs), that a structural failure had caused both planes to break apart mid-air.
The chapter concludes with more general questions about airline safety. Roach also asks Shanahan about the costliness of safety: “[c]ould airlines do a better job of making their planes fire-safe? You bet they could” (125). However, at least from the perspective of the Federal Aviation Administration, the cost-benefit analysis for better airline safety measures is not great enough, so it simply is not done.
Chapter 6 Summary: “The Cadaver Who Joined the Army”
Chapter Six examines cadavers used in military testing on guns, bombs, and other explosives. Even more than other kinds of cadaver research, testing the killing power of weapons has complicated ethical implications.
Roach begins with historical context: In 1893, Captain Louis La Garde of the U.S. Army Medical Corps tested the .30-caliber Springfield rifle and the .45-caliber Springfield on twenty cadavers to determine “the physiological effects of the two different weapons upon the human body’s bones and innards” (132). La Garde’s research and other ballistics testing began, partially, in an attempt to find a “more humanitarian form of gun battle” (132). Incapacitation (or stopping power) is the “Holy Grail” of ballistics research, and it refers to the ability for a bullet to slow down its object without maiming or killing it (132). In the name of finding the weapon with the greatest incapacitation ability, La Garde tested first on cadavers and later used live animal subjects, including cows and pigs.
Related to stopping power, Roach asks why some people fall to the ground immediately after being shot, while others take a few moments before dropping to the ground. Duncan MacPherson, a ballistics expert for the LAPD, helps Roach answer this question, saying that he thinks it is purely psychological. Others believe in the “neural overload theory,” which essentially states that the body becomes overwhelmed with sensation after being shot, causing the individual to drop immediately. The theory’s proponents believe it occurs largely because of the “temporary stretch cavity,” which is the hole briefly formed around a bullet as it enters the body.
Roach wants to test neural overload theory, so she enlists the help of Rick Lowden of Kind & Knox, a company that makes ballistic gelatin. Ballistic gelatin is a synthetic substance used for simulating human tissue. Firing into a gelatin thigh “affords a stop-action view of the temporary stretch cavity” (139). Lowden is a materials engineer with an aversion to actual cadaver testing, a fact that Lowden reveals to Roach as they test the impact of a variety of guns together (140). During the interview, Lowden does not appreciate Roach asking him if munitions professionals ever thinking about designing a bullet that will do the least maiming/killing possible. Lowden scoffs. Roach then realizes that this research is primarily about helping mankind take lives, not save them (142). Lowden is concerned with the stigma around shooting cadavers; and even shooting into freshly-killed livestock (143).
Due to the long-held stigma, the military has only recently begun using cadavers again in their research. Commander Marlene DeMaio of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology’s Ballistic Missile Trauma Research Lab tested newly-developed body armor on cadavers, which is a vast improvement over past testing, as recent as the Korean War, which involved simply suiting military personnel in the latest vest and firing at them (144). As stated, there is a major stigma against ballistic testing—which includes shooting at, exploding, and otherwise maiming—cadavers. Fear of liability, bad media reports, and public funding withdrawal are all concerns on an institutional level when using cadavers for research. Roach quotes Edmund Howe, editor of the Journal of Clinical Ethics: “Part of respecting persons is telling them the information that they might have an emotional response to” (146). It is a “delicate balance” letting relatives of the deceased know specifics of what is being done with the donated body without being alarming, and in this regard “ballistic studies are especially problematic” (147). Cindy Bir, another researcher at Wayne State, “copes like most other cadaver researchers do, with a mix of compassion and emotional remove” (148).
Testing bombs and landmines are “perhaps the most firmly entrenched taboo of the cadaveric research world” (148). Still, thanks to testing with cadavers, footwear for landmine clearance teams were improved. Roach details the cadaver experiments used to determine the best possible footwear for such teams:
It is an unfortunate given of human trauma research that the things most likely to accidentally maim or kill people—things we most need to study and understand—are also the things most likely to mutilate research cadavers: car crashes, gunshots, explosions, sporting accidents (152).
Roach says, while she would not object to ballistics testing (because ultimately it makes the world a better place by furthering scientific research), she would object to having testing done on her cadaver in the name of religion.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
Violence inflicted upon the dead in the name of science is highlighted in this section. Injury prevention related to car accidents, landmines, and plane crashes all rely heavily on cadaver testing. Ironically, the violence committed on the dead is done in order to protect the living from that same violence. As no one wants to think about their loved ones’ bodies in this situation, Roach mitigates this difficult subject with her characteristically dark humor, explaining why the dead are actually the best candidates for this kind of violent testing: “By and large, the dead aren’t very talented…[t]hey can’t tell a joke, and they can’t dance for beans. There is one thing dead people excel at. They’re very good at handling pain” (87).
Themes surrounding taboo are prominent in this section. Roach explains that “ballistics studies are especially problematic. How do you decide it’s okay to cut off someone’s grandfather’s head and shoot it in the face?” (147) Even if ultimately humanitarian impulses motivate ballistic research, due to the violent nature of the act (and public governmental funding associated with military testing), the taboo and stigma are heightened.
Roach highlights that the stigma is proportional to the violence inflicted upon the corpse. Testing bullets on corpses is one thing, but the stigma surrounding explosives is even worse: “If you really want to stay up late worrying about lawsuits and bad publicity, explode a bomb near the body of someone who has willed his remains to science. This is perhaps the most firmly entrenched taboo of the cadaveric research world” (148). The more violent the research, the greater the taboo associated with cadaver testing.
Irony surrounding our beliefs about the dead are emphasized in this section, as well. There is irony in the fact that people are vehemently resistant to using cadavers in ballistics research, which is experimentation meant to keep the living alive. This irony is embodied by Rick Lowden, a gun enthusiast, who finds it distasteful to use cadavers for research purposes. While Lowden finds it distasteful to shoot a cadaver, somehow he finds it less distasteful to shoot the living.
All questions of the dead inevitability lead to a discussion of spirituality, and Roach touches upon religious beliefs and the afterlife. These chapters serve as an introduction to the following section, whichfocuses more directly on religion and spirituality.
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