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| By: Christine Montross ISBN: 1594201250 Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The Release Date: 21 June, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 105175 | It's certainly an interesting concept for a book--observe the process of first-year anatomy lab at a medical school and watch the fur fly. There are a lot of good details here from Montross on both what the process means in historical terms as well as how it affects those who do it. However, Montross' prose when it comes to her self-observation is too simplistic to carry this book much beyond average. She writes in the tone of an emotional fourteen year-old on an online journal complaining about how someone has wronged her--the descriptions are too emotionally-loaded, too extravagant, too...much to do anything other than get in the way. But if you move quickly through these parts, there's a lot of good to see here as well. Mildly recommended. We have all thought of death. We have all imagined our bodies rotting after death. Many prefer incinerating their bodies, preferring ashes to decaying flesh. However, not all religions allow cremation, and thus, some of us are stuck with living with the thought of a decaying body. This thought is scary to most of us. <br /> <br />All of life is about death and decay. Every day, people around us die. Within our own body, death looms all the time. Cells in my body are dying as I write this. Indeed, we are born to die. And maybe we die to be reborn, sort of like a computer reboot. Some scientists believe death is beneficial to evolution, knocking off the weak genes and improving them in subsequent generations. If we all lived forever, evolution would have no opportunity to improve us. Death can therefore be looked upon as a way of improving ourselves, or an evolutionary upgrade. Any of you been watching the TV series Heroes? <br /> <br />In this book, you will follow the life of a medical student during her journey in body dissection. You will learn what it is like being around a dead body. What does a dead body smell like? What is it like cutting a dead body into pieces? Can a dead body know what we are doing to it? Those are all questions, among many others, medical students (as well as philosophers) ask all the time. And you'll be joining the circle and asking many more questions at the end of this book. <br /> <br />The author traces the history of body dissection, and actually flies first to Italy for her research. In the old days, doctors were desperate for dead bodies in order to learn more about the functions of the living body, and thus help the living. But not many people would volunteer to donate their body to science. The business of body-snatching was thus born. Bodies were often stolen from cemeteries. So prevalent was this practice at the time that families hired armed guards to watch over their family's burial grounds. The poor obviously could not afford such luxury, and their bodies were often stolen and then sold to hospitals. <br /> <br />Fresh bodies earned the most money. A body sold right after death earned more than a day or more old cadaver. This gave rise to another business: killing the patients before they die. Why wait for a person to die? Kill him and give his body for research, and earn big money! Real criminals just killed a person, whether ill or not, and then sold his body. Why wait for the person to be terminally ill? <br /> <br />Not only was there the fear of having your body stolen from the cemetery, but there also was the fear of being donated for research while being still alive. This often happened, and there are many stories of people having been buried alive! This of course gave rise to the tales of zombies! In fact, many acted as zombies for they were partially brain dead from oxygen deprivation. A person can quickly exhaust the oxygen supply in a coffin! <br /> <br />Prevalent at the time was live dissection. This was the preferred method, since the body is still alive, and doctors can better study and understand the functions of the body. But honestly, who would want to be cut off while still alive in the name of science? Unfortunately, many did not have a say. Prisoners were often used as live dissection subjects! <br /> <br />The author tells some horror stories that happened during her medical school. For example, students would cut off the penis of a cadaver and insert it into the vagina of another cadaver. How disrespectful to the dead! There are many other similar stories. Having sex with a dead body is not unheard off. <br /> <br />What is it like transporting a dead body, or part of a dead body? Does the body become an object for study, or the thought that this body was once a person lingers in one's mind? What is it like being in a room alone with twenty dead bodies? <br /> <br />I found it interesting that nowadays medical schools and hospitals are very cautious about which bodies they purchase. For example, if a person just died, the hospital or school researches the person's name and checks whether a student from the same family is one of their resident students. Could you imagine dissecting the body of your own father or uncle? Many psychologists will tell you that the dissection of a body gives trauma to a person, regardless whether the deceased is known or unknown to the dissector. <br /> <br />Nowadays, there is a movement to dissect bodies using 3D software and virtual computer programs. Maybe one day soon, all the dead can rest in peace. <br /> <br />A very prevalent multi-billion business nowadays is selling body parts. Many body parts are sold by poor people. Many body parts are taken from people forcefully. I once saw a movie about an American tourist going on a holiday in a South American Country, meeting a woman at a bar, who later drugs him. He wakes up in his hotel bathtub in icy water. One of his kidneys was surgically removed to be sold! Such stories do happen. There are reports that this is now happening in Iraq, with organs either sold by the person or being forcefully removed! <br /> <br />One important question you will ask yourself at the end of this book: will you give your body for medical research? I already answered this question for myself. <br /> <br />This is one of the best books I have read. The author has a great writing style, poetic at times. You will not be able to put this book down. And you will be scared out of your wits! A fascinating account of this `acceptable taboo' subject - namely the medical dissection of the human body by medical students. This is a personal, because the author is one of the students. She takes us through the entire semester - or more precisely the spiritual journey she undergoes. We follow Ms. Montross through her development - both human and medical. She is obviously anguished by what she has to do in the medical lab - and her reactions and expose give the book great beauty. We can feel her growth, she makes incredible connections between her lab work and internship with live patients. She realizes that the extreme awkwardness and cutting to exposure ALL parts of the human body is also a preparation for dealing with real people who may be terminally ill, have grotesque disfigurations... <br />Like all medical students she must learn to balance feelings and discomfort when listening to patients - but not at the loss of giving just a cold clinical diagnosis. We also get a sense of the mental and physical stress that these students undergo - not all of them make it through the entire term. They are in their own special club - and those outside the club cannot properly relate to them. Ms. Montross gives us wonderful insights into this club. <br />Another aspect of the book I liked was its lack of criticisms. This is not a book that rails against the medical profession and those in it. It treats all from the body undergoing dissection to the students, doctors and patients with a great deal of humanism and respect. <br />She also gives a history of anatomical dissection and how bodies were acquired (more often stolen) in past eras. Given the subject this is not easy reading - it is necessarily morbid. I did not have nightmares, but the words in the book remain with you - as does any good book. <br /> | |
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| By: Michael McKinley, Valerie O'Loughlin ISBN: 0077213408 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math Release Date: 05 October, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 35061 | ||
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| By: Terry R. Martin ISBN: 0072829575 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math Release Date: 24 March, 2006 Bioscience book rank: 154549 | Only needed a workbook for my class. Found it very easy online with Amazon. Purchased the book at a reasonable price and received the book in a couple of days. Very pleased with the service and product. The seller sent me an older edition book when I was trying to purchase the new editon The lab manual is pretty good and the sheats are nice to study from once filled in. I hear the 10th edition fo the book and lab manual are betterwith digrams and what not. Other than that great product no complaints. | |
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| By: Elaine N. Marieb ISBN: 0805372539 Publisher: Benjamin Cummings Release Date: 07 March, 2005 Bioscience book rank: 16059 | The book came on time in top condition and at a reasonable price. Can't complain; just getting it on time was important. | |
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| By: Carmine D Clemente ISBN: 0781751039 Publisher: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Release Date: 01 April, 2006 Bioscience book rank: 112156 | Was a required text, but many other classmates found different atlases that much easier to use. We didn't follow dissection as listed in the text so it seemed pointless. Might be useful if implemented properly but it's now collecting dust. This book has incredible detail for each of the body systems and is an invaluable resource for those people who are looking for a reference book to study the systems for anatomy and physiology. It's a good book to keep for future studies in medicine and I recommend it for pre-med students. This is an excellent detailed pictoral of the human anatomy, like a textbook really, but with captions and descriptions that can be easily comprehended by a non-medical person. The quality of the volume is well worth the cost: the graphic images are clear and true, almost photographic; the print is refined and easy to read; the pages themselves are substantial, not flimsy at all. Want to see how your body works, what you've got goin' on under the skin? Take a look. | |
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| By: Kenneth S. Saladin ISBN: 0073293695 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math Release Date: 05 January, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 392749 | This is an excellent book. I use this in my anatomy class and it helps me a lot. | |
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| By: Gerard J. Tortora, Bryan H. Derrickson ISBN: 0471691232 Publisher: Wiley Release Date: 20 March, 2006 Bioscience book rank: 215214 | i am very happy with my purchase i needed this book for uni nd it came in perfect new condition and was cheaper than buying it at uni
<br />thanks sue I received the textbook it was in good shape. However, my CD-ROM was not in the sleeve inside the book. Where is the CD? Here at the school the CD comes with the textbook? I have tried to get information on my CD nevertheless; I can't get an answer!!! | |
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| By: Lawrence A. Golding, Scott M. Golding ISBN: 1585187062 Publisher: Coaches Choice Books Release Date: March, 2003 Bioscience book rank: 27736 | This book came with my ACE Personal Trainer Premier package and it's been extremely useful. This in combination with the "ACE Functional Anatomy" DVD by Sabrena Newton, has really made learning this complex material much easier than I thought it would be (though still not easy by any means)!
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<br />In spite of some typo's in the book (which I have been told they will correct in future editions when I contacted the publisher), it's an excellent resource which has an incredible CD ROM showing individual details of muscles and "video" footage of various types of movements as well as a large amount of exercises.
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<br />There are also great quizzes you can use to practice the information. This has been an extremely beneficial tool in terms of being able to apply the information rather than just memorize it by rote. It adds another dimension to the learning process which I find helps to reinforce the material.
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<br />Along with the footage, there is a list of all the muscles involved in the particular exercise. You have the option of clicking on the names of those muscles which then leads you to a page with detailed illustrations (with various viewing options including seeing only the origins/insertions) and explanations of the functions of the muscles.
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<br />I also like that fact that they not only tell what each individual muscles do, but there is a section in the book containing several pages where they list various types of anatomical movements (ex. Scapula Adduction) and then list all the muscles involved with each movement. They also make it clear which are primary muscles and which are secondary.
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<br />With the individual muscles they rank (in order of importance) the motions that the muscle is responsible for. I got this book because of the combination of text and DVD. I had to try the CD-rom on 3 computers before I was able to install it. Once installed, I wasn't thrilled with the videos. I thought I'd get snippets of athletes in motion with audio to go with it, but it's just shots of a single person performing a muslce action multiple times(adduction, abduction, etc.) The activity examples given in the text were good, but in all I wouldn't recommend this for trying to learn muscle anatomy. Not worth the $40. This book has very graphic pictures and everything is described in detail. The quizzes and the dvd were very helpful as well. | |
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| By: David N. Shier, Jackie L. Butler, Ricki Lewis ISBN: 0072438908 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math Release Date: 10 March, 2003 Bioscience book rank: 139646 | I ordered this text book through Amazon because the school book store was out. In my past experiences with Amazon, I have been able to receive the same product, faster and sometimes cheaper. In this case, all was true except the book store book came with a very necessary CD, the book with Amazon did not. Take this as a prereq into nursing! This is a great course and a great texbook. It explains things well and in language you can understand. I very much enjoyed this course. This is a very informative book and has really helped in my A&P class. | |
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| By: Susannah N. Longenbaker ISBN: 0073288861 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math Release Date: 17 January, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 386538 | ||
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