Stiff: The Curious Lives Of Human Cadaver

A beating heart cadaver in our culture is identified as a human body that is legally “brain dead” but the body’s organs are kept alive by machinery in order to keep the bodies organs from collapsing before they can be transplanted into another body. In the book “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers” by Mary Roach, she explains her experience with her patient she named H and explained, “H is unique... She is what’s known as a ‘beating-heart cadaver,’ alive and well everywhere but her brain. Body will not breathe on its own… Hook it up to a respirator and its heart will beat and the rest of its organs will, for a matter of days”(Roach 167). Without a respirator, a beating heart cadaver will not function. Being confronted with a beating

heart cadaver is often a worrying and confusing experience. Because the heart is crushing and the body is warm, people may have difficulty believing the individual is dead. Although it is a difficult experience, there is a positive outcome to have the beating heart cadaver donates his/her organs in order to save another one’s life.
Before doctors may declare someone brain dead, there is certain criterion they must process in order to indicate that a patient has a permanently nonfunctioning brain.

Unreceptively and unresponsively. “Even the most intensely painful stimuli evoke no vocal or other response, not even a groan, withdrawal of a limb or quickening of respiration,” (Ward 28). No movements or spontaneous breathing (being aided by a respirator does not count). Doctors must follow patients for at least one time of day to make sure they make no spontaneous muscular movements or spontaneous breathing. To try the latter, physicians are to bend off the respirator for three transactions to determine if the patient attempts to take a breather on his own (the trial).No reflexes. To look for reflexes, doctors are to shine a light in the eyes to make sure the pupils are enlarged. Muscles are tested. Ice water is poured in the ears. Doctors should use “electroencephalography, a test of great confirmatory value,”(Ward 32) to make sure that the patient has flat brain waves. After none of the criterions respond to the recipient, the doctor must “legally” declare the person brain dead. This is where family members often have difficult deciding whether they should continue having their loved one under life support. The respirator will continue to keep the persons organs alive for a certain period of time but family members must confront with a decision if they would want to donate or continue to have them

under life support.