Malika Oubilla’s Reviews > Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers > Status Update

Humans have used for so long human parts and discharge, blood and even feces as remedies to different diseases. History is nasty!
Up until the 20th century.

Where is the soul? Ancient egyptians believed it was in the heart, other cultures believed it was in the liver or blood... The recent believes tend to see the brain as the carrier of consciousness, since it controls all cognitive functions.
Transplanting brains would then mean transplanting the soul or a whole person. It then would be, a whole body transplant and not just a head/brain transplant.

Brain death is the legal death in USA. The brain controls the lungs, if a person is brain dead they cannot breath and the body needs an aspirator to keep the lungs breathing and the organs okay.

In history people didn't have technology to tell if someone was dead when they cannot hear thier heart beat, so they used techniques like pulling tongues, pincing nipples... even waiting for bodies a few days to root.

Cadavers were used in car accidents simulation to test the safety of vehicle and thanks to them, many features have been added to vehicles such as seat belts and airbags.
Cadavers of airplane crashes are also helpful to find the details of the crash by observing bodies and concluding how they died. There's what's called water impact. When a body hits water in a free fall, it's deadly for the internal organs bounce.

Phases of body decomposition: 1. Cell enzymes eat up the cells and the body shreds skin. 2. Bloating with bacterial gas. 3. Decaying which is long until the body melts.

Arterial embalming: replacing blood with solutions to perserve the body.

Use of dead bodies in anatomy and surgery practice schools is deemed necessary for students to learn. However, in history, acquiring dead bodies to use was a challenge so unethical ways were use such as grave digging. It even escalated to killing outcasts and selling their bodies to anagomy schools.