Thursday, December 04, 2003

A Gross-out isn't worth it unless you share it....

OK, folks, normally I wouldn't do this. But I'm reading a fairly morbid book right now, called Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, which is a survey of the various uses -- scientific and others -- in which the dead play a role. (I tend to read this kind of stuff for story-inspiration, and the book certainly is providing that -- I have about five stories I want to write that this book suggested.) It starts out fairly prosaically, with a discussion of forensic details and how cadavers must be studied in order to establish things like how much force bones can withstand before snapping (a detail without which, crash test dummies would be useless). It's not a book for the squeamish, which is fine, because I tend to have a fairly high "squeam" threshold.

But the chapter on cadavers as an item of diet challenged me -- with one passage grossing me out in particular.

And that's all the warning you get. Do NOT click this link, unless you are (a) not at work and (b) possessed of a strong stomach!

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