Stiff

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (Mary Roach)
- Highlight Loc. 159-62  | Added on Thursday, February 16, 2012, 06:40 AM

The problem with cadavers is that they look so much like people. It's the reason most of us prefer a pork chop to a slice of whole suckling pig. It's the reason we say "pork" and "beef" instead of "pig" and "cow." Dissection and surgical instruction, like meat-eating, require a carefully maintained set of illusions and denial. Physicians and anatomy students must learn to think of cadavers as wholly unrelated to the people they once were.