And yet I'm still confused...

Before I even read Stiff I was wondering what I should do with my body after I die. I was kind of hoping that the book would help me decide. One day while sitting at my dining room table my mom and I were having a discussion when she says "Your Grandma is going to donate her organs. I don't know why she did that because depending on the people they could just let you die for your organs instead of trying to save you." Before this comment I had seriously considered giving my organs away after I die. I had grabbed Stiff in an attempt to try and figure out which way I wanted it. While reading the chapter before the last my mom says "Really our bodies are supposed to be cremated" Perfect timing Mom! I thought. I asked her to elaborate and she says "We're supposed to be cremated because our bodies are nothing. Our souls will go away from our bodies after we die so our bodies will just be nothing and are supposed to be given back to the Earth." I'm still deciding on whether I want to be cremated, buried or become a cadaver or whether I want to give my organs away or put them to waste. What could be some pros and cons to each?

Cannibal cures

I know that it seemed normal in the past and still seems normal in different places, but I just can't seem to grasp the idea that body parts served as cures for illnesses. It makes me sick to think that parts of the human body or produced by the human body were used to cure certain things. What makes me think the hardest is that they were so sure about each thing and what it cured. I wonder if those things really worked, or did they think it work and were these things almost like a placebo? How do you suppose they came to be so sure about the cures to everything?

Burke and Hare

While reading the part about Burke and Hare, I had a flashback to an earlier time when I read something similar to what they did. I started to get visuals in my head of their actions. I find it sickening that they would kill people and sell them for money (This really reminds me of Sweeney Todd starring Johnny Depp. He killed his customers like Burke and Hare did, except he used the dead bodies to provide meat for his accomplice's meat pies.) I also find it ironic that Burke ended up with the same fate as his customers that he so willingly murdered, and sold; he was hanged and became a cadaver afterward. During these times, they usually let murderers become cadavers, but is this fair? Should they have used murderers as cadavers for a "punishment" and should they still do this with contemperary murderers?

Practice makes perfect. Does it matter how you practice?

"Without exception, the only people who checked themselves in at teaching hospitals were those too poor to pay for private surgery...the poor basically donated themselves as living practice material." Cadavers give the opportunity for surgeons to practice on something without harming a living thing or making any mistakes. It was horrible that surgeons in the past would experiment on poor people knowing that they could make mistakes and kill them. Sometimes they would work on things that the patient didn't even need work on. Also, animals have been used for a number of things when it comes to experimenting. Although it may seem disrespectful to do any thing other than cremate or bury a dead body, cadavers benefit science. Would there be advancements in the science of surgery, make-up and other things if cadavers could not be used to practice procedures? Had we not thought of using cadavers, could we get far with science practicing on living things and risking lives; would it be worth it?