After reading Bonk, I was curious about Mary Roach’s other books, so I reserved them at the library. I chose to read Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers first. Basically, Mary was exploring the options of what to do with your body when you die.

Burial is certainly the most common choice, but for those that donate their body for research, there are a myriad of options, not just being a cadaver in an anatomy lab. She went to the University of Tennessee’s Body Farm to find out exactly what happens to a human body after death, when left to its own devices. Some can end up in the embalming lab at mortician school, or as practice heads for plastic surgeons, or as crash test dummies. She found others in the Harvard Brain Bank, and thought that might be a possibility:

My reasons for becoming a brain donor aren’t very good at all. My reasons boil down to a Harvard Brain Bank donor wallet card,which enables me to say “I’m going to Harvard” and not be lying. You do not need brains to go to the Harvard Brain Bank — only a brain.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What she wanted was to be a brain in jar, a la Abby Normal in Young Frankenstein. She was disappointed to discover the brains sliced and stored in rubbermaid containers in a lab refrigerator.

While this book is not for the squeamish, it’s definitely an interesting read, and gives the reader plenty to think about. Instead of embalming, how about compost?