Stiff: A book review

I listened to the audiobook version of "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" by Mary Roach. What a treat. Am I a sicko, or what?

In her explorations into how human cadavers are used, Mary tells us - in gruesome detail - about many of her site visits. These include a cosmetic surgery workshop (for anatomical education), a human-remains research "farm" (used to infer time of death), and a tissue digestion company (an alternative to cremation). She also outlines a lot of the history around early anatomists, and how they used to hire body-snatchers to supply corpses by digging fresh graves, or otherwise.

One of my favourite parts of the book is her chapter on head transplants. Umm, make that "body transplants". Not done on humans, but on dogs and monkeys. I even took the time to look up the 1971 Surgery paper she described, entitled "Cephalic exchange transplantation in the monkey" by Robert J. White et al, which is where this rather disturbing figure comes from.


Mary has a humourous candor that comes out effortlessly from Shelly Frasier's reading. I highly recommend this book, if you have a strong stomach and a fascination with the macabre.

Poor Little Albert

Today in psych class, we heard about Little Albert, an 11-month-old baby that was the sole subject of a rather cruel and unethical psychology study done in the 1920s.

Little Albert was shown little furry animals. Like any baby, he wasn't afraid. That is, until the experimenters repeatedly scared the poop out of him every time he saw a furry animal. They'd make a loud clang with a metal bar when he saw a rat, and that would make him cry. After a while, they no longer needed make the noise; Albert had successfully associated the loud noise with little furry animals, and the animals themselves would make him cry. Even a mask of Santa Clause freaked him out. Check out this sad video.


His family moved away before they could undo the conditioning. Such an experiment would not be allowed on a baby today. Poor little guy.

If any man took a Santa mask and got THAT in-your-face with any of my kids, I'd give HIM a dose of conditioning.

According to Wikipedia, Little Albert died of hydrocephalus at the age of 5.

What is ethical treatment of animals?

Today, in the PSYCH 261 lecture, the prof discussed research ethics. It was interesting to hear about some of the cases that prompted the whole concept of research ethics. For example, the Nazis performed horrific experiments on prisoners, and some labs have been charged with mistreating animal subjects. For example, the image below was part of a photo-essay in Life magazine in 1966.

©1966 Stan Wayman/Life

It prompted the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act of 1966, which regulates the sale of animals for research use, as well as enforces a minimum standard of care for laboratory animals.

When it comes to seeing an animal suffer, I'm just as squeamish and sympathetic as the next guy. But the whole discussion got me thinking. What does it really mean to suffer? What, exactly, is it that we're trying to accomplish with these regulations?

I'm totally on-board with preventing people from stealing family pets to sell them to labs. No issue there. What I'm confused about is the requirement that laboratory dogs should be allowed to exercise, and non-human primates be afforded "environmental enrichment". Is there a rationale for this? Or has science been hijacked by our human tendency to sympathize? After all, many species kill, dismember, paralyze and consume each other without any legislation at all. Is bacteria less alive than a monkey? We kill bacteria every day.

[From intelligent-falling.blogspot.com]