Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles to Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry.
Speaker 1: So it's stuff you should know what's going. It's going, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm like a little congested. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm not sick.
Speaker 1: I just congested you every mote when you're sick anyway,
Speaker 1: so who would know I'm not though. Look, I've got
Speaker 1: like tons of energy. Look well, I had that weird
Speaker 1: cough for three weeks when I got back from Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: It was very weird, and it wasn't like I was
Speaker 1: never sick. It was just I think it was a
Speaker 1: post nasal drip. Oh really, maybe from allergies or something.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe it's weird. I just couldn't kick it.
Speaker 1: But I've kicked it. That's great, I can tell. Yeah. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: I hope you feel better even though you're not sick. Thanks. Man.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm not sick because if you were sick,
Speaker 1: you could possibly die and don't ate your body to science.
Speaker 1: It's definitely true. I could, and I may I probably will. Yeah.
Speaker 1: When we did the organ donation podcast. Uh. Quite a
Speaker 1: number of years ago this came up, and I think
Speaker 1: we may have even said, let's do one on donating
Speaker 1: your whole body, and here it is, years later, promised.
Speaker 1: I can tell you that you me most decidedly wants
Speaker 1: to donate your body to science. Yeah. I think I
Speaker 1: do too. Yeah, it's it seems like a pretty great
Speaker 1: thing to do, agreed. Um, especially if by the time
Speaker 1: we all kick the bucket. Um, they have a regulatory
Speaker 1: body overseeing this. It might be nice. It would be nice.
Speaker 1: It makes me feel a little better. Yeah. Yeah, Well
Speaker 1: they do point out the article like the thought of
Speaker 1: some people are just turned off by the thought of
Speaker 1: your body being cut up. Um, I don't care. No,
Speaker 1: I think that that is the first mental hurdle that
Speaker 1: you have to go past to say I think I
Speaker 1: will donate my body to side. People are going to
Speaker 1: be pouring over every part of your body naked while
Speaker 1: you're dead on a table. And that's before they cut
Speaker 1: you open, pull everything out, cut your hand off, your feet,
Speaker 1: your head, all that stuff. Yeah, I think I would. Uh.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you can have a stipulation like to
Speaker 1: be covered and like have my privates covered. I have
Speaker 1: American stipulation. That's not it. You're like, I have a
Speaker 1: sock clause. Um. The other hurdle is uh, and I
Speaker 1: never really thought about this was people just thinking about
Speaker 1: like jerk medical students, like joking around and stuff. So
Speaker 1: apparently that would be an enormous at least like doing
Speaker 1: it for the class. It's an ethical breach. From what
Speaker 1: I understand, it would be a very it's that's very taboo.
Speaker 1: It has taken very seriously. It's a very poor taste. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: And so if you say donate your body to a
Speaker 1: university and ends up being used for anatomical study, you
Speaker 1: among m gross anatomy students. Right, Um, Probably they're going
Speaker 1: to know your name, they're going to know how you died.
Speaker 1: They're going to refer to you and talk to you
Speaker 1: by your name, so you will be a person to them.
Speaker 1: You're not just a cadaver. You know, there's a lump
Speaker 1: of meat. It sounds like they go out of their
Speaker 1: way to be very respectful of the what you've done
Speaker 1: for them. Right. They're they're taught to the the the
Speaker 1: instructors set that example. Um. I read about one I
Speaker 1: can't remember the university. It's sound that. There's a link
Speaker 1: to it on the podcast page where um the instructor
Speaker 1: hold they they make like a very big point of
Speaker 1: pointing out that this is a gift. This person gave
Speaker 1: you medical students, the gift of their cadaver so that
Speaker 1: you can become a good doctor and save other people's
Speaker 1: lives to make money. This is a huge gift and
Speaker 1: it's to be treated with respect. And also frequently most
Speaker 1: of these programs hold some sort of annual ceremony to
Speaker 1: kind of thank all of the people who um, just
Speaker 1: to honor them exactly the dead man. Yeah, it's pretty
Speaker 1: great that people get loaded. I can't find a date,
Speaker 1: no problem. So um, once you get past that hurdle,
Speaker 1: the the idea of being poked and prodded and looked
Speaker 1: at by medical students. Uh, there is another hurdle that
Speaker 1: people face two uh religious types at least that you're
Speaker 1: some religions, um prohibit this kind of thing. Who do
Speaker 1: you know? Well Islam outright says no, you can't do that,
Speaker 1: like the body is not to be cut up or
Speaker 1: dissected or messed with after death. But they just said
Speaker 1: organ donations okay, And I didn't see that that was
Speaker 1: really under Sharia law. It doesn't look like you're supposed
Speaker 1: to do anything to the dead body except take care
Speaker 1: of it. Okay. I think that the stuff varies, though
Speaker 1: I guess the thing I what I ran across said like, no,
Speaker 1: you can't. You definitely can't donate your body. It didn't
Speaker 1: say anything about donating organs, but from the context, it
Speaker 1: would seem like organ donation of be a no no
Speaker 1: as well. Jehovah's witness very famously do not accept or
Speaker 1: donate blood, transfusions, or any parts of blood um. They
Speaker 1: consider that blood is um. Basically, life is a gift
Speaker 1: from God and you are not to be messing with
Speaker 1: it with blood. But if all of the blood is
Speaker 1: removed from the body to prevent it from being used
Speaker 1: for transfusions, that body is a okay to go to
Speaker 1: be donated to um, say like a medical school. As
Speaker 1: far as Jehovah's Witnesses are concerned, most other religions are
Speaker 1: like do it? Why would you not? Yeah? And I
Speaker 1: love how this article says Baptist. They break it down
Speaker 1: to like, I think the author may have been Baptist.
Speaker 1: Do you think that's why I took because it's weirdest
Speaker 1: not to say Christianity as a whole and to break
Speaker 1: it down into denominations because he said Baptist and Catholic,
Speaker 1: to say it's an act of charity. I never heard that.
Speaker 1: I grew up Baptist. Oh maybe you missed that Sunday.
Speaker 1: I didn't miss any Sundays, my friend didn't. Nope. Uh,
Speaker 1: there aren't any like hard and fast statistics. Because body
Speaker 1: donations can be donated to medical universities and colleges, to
Speaker 1: the US government, wait, private firms who cares what it's
Speaker 1: donated to. Surely there is a central authority that all
Speaker 1: couldaver donations go through. Isn't that nuts? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: It's totally nuts. Man. Think about it. Organ donation heavily regulated,
Speaker 1: lots of oversight. No money is exchanging hands, or if
Speaker 1: it is, it's like just the bare minimum. There's no
Speaker 1: free market associated with this whatsoever. And everything goes through
Speaker 1: the central authority. There's, at least on paper, there's a
Speaker 1: group that knows everything that's going on, every organ that's
Speaker 1: being transplanted. Right, makes total sense. But when you talk
Speaker 1: about like bones, tendons, eyeballs, I don't know if those
Speaker 1: are organ donation or not, but whole bodies. This stuff
Speaker 1: is it's it's wrong to say that there is no
Speaker 1: regulation or oversight. There is. It's just not anywhere near
Speaker 1: as strict as organ donation. It's not taking nearly as
Speaker 1: seriously well, I have a real problem with that. I
Speaker 1: don't have a problem with that. I think the reason
Speaker 1: why is because organ donations are being used to put
Speaker 1: into other people. You're not taking a whole body donated
Speaker 1: to science. It's only for purposes, that is what were
Speaker 1: they They actually use parts on other people, like what
Speaker 1: like bones, ligaments, tendons, but not like any sort of
Speaker 1: tissue or organ like from a cadaver. No, not the
Speaker 1: organ itself. But they are taking like like say a
Speaker 1: bone from you, the dead guy who who donated your body.
Speaker 1: It might end up in a living recipient. And you
Speaker 1: may be like, totally fine with that. That's cool, right,
Speaker 1: I want to help somebody. I didn't think i'd be
Speaker 1: able to donate my organs, which is something we'll talk
Speaker 1: about later. So that's great, that's helping him out. My
Speaker 1: problem with it is is somebody may have profited from
Speaker 1: your donation, and that's where my problem comes from. I
Speaker 1: think donating your body to science or free reuse in
Speaker 1: some way, shape or formance, going to help other people
Speaker 1: is wonderful. But the fact that there is a and
Speaker 1: there is not enough oversight or regulation, and that there
Speaker 1: is a free market that's associated with this because it's
Speaker 1: illegal to sell a body part, but you could say
Speaker 1: charge of handling fee, and they frequently do. It leads
Speaker 1: to this free market embody parts. That but that starts
Speaker 1: out as a an act of love, a gift, a donation,
Speaker 1: and then somewhere down the line somebody can profit from that.
Speaker 1: That's horrible. But there is handling, Like transporting a body
Speaker 1: isn't free. There isn't. It's true. So this, this oversight
Speaker 1: committee or this this government agency should say, here's how
Speaker 1: much it costs. We know how much an airline charges.
Speaker 1: We have what we know how much it costs to
Speaker 1: shipt a body. We know how much it get costs
Speaker 1: to take a piece of bone a femur from somebody
Speaker 1: and then transport it somewhere else. Right, here's how much
Speaker 1: for a bone. I totally disagree with that. I mean,
Speaker 1: let's think about organ procurement and like nobody's like there's
Speaker 1: a free gray market that's growing up. Over organ procurement,
Speaker 1: that's not what happens in this country. But when it
Speaker 1: comes to tissue and stuff like that, it's a problem.
Speaker 1: And it also here's the other thing, Chuck, It doesn't
Speaker 1: just affect donors. It affects people who haven't donated their
Speaker 1: body because year after year after year, some news article
Speaker 1: comes up where some crematorium has been stealing body parts
Speaker 1: and selling them in this gray market. SAME's true for organs,
Speaker 1: though there's a black market. Yeah, it is true. I
Speaker 1: just have the impression that is it's much harder to
Speaker 1: do with organ procurement than it is with tissue, and
Speaker 1: and tissue, like a whole body donation is considered tissue.
Speaker 1: So sorry about that's right. So, I think the sentence
Speaker 1: I was about to finish was there are somewhere around
Speaker 1: twenty whole bodies donated per year. Uh they think in
Speaker 1: the US, right, Yeah, But that's, like I said, uh,
Speaker 1: not an exact number, because like you said, there is
Speaker 1: no US government body watching all this, and so sounds
Speaker 1: like a pretty decent amount, right. Apparently, No, Apparently there
Speaker 1: is a real um dearth of of cadavers. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people don't realize you can really
Speaker 1: donate your whole body, and probably the idea seems a
Speaker 1: little daunting or weird or whatever. So my hope is
Speaker 1: that just from us talking about this, more people will
Speaker 1: come to see it as something that's totally doable, because
Speaker 1: from what I ran across, it really is totally doable.
Speaker 1: Totally doable. All right, Well, we'll take a break here
Speaker 1: and when we come back, we will talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the history of whole body donation. Stop. All right,
Speaker 1: let's go back to the nineteenth century, early nineteenth century
Speaker 1: and uh and Briton, they're using animals a lot of times,
Speaker 1: or criminals, um, dead bodies of people that have been hanged. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the only way that you could get your
Speaker 1: hands on a cadaver as a medical school was if
Speaker 1: it was the body of an executed criminal. That's right,
Speaker 1: that was it. Or it's a pig or you know
Speaker 1: some other animals. Right in a pig. Great, it's very
Speaker 1: satisfying to cut into a pig with the scalpel everybody
Speaker 1: knows they had. But you're not gonna learn as much
Speaker 1: about the human body from cutting open a pig as
Speaker 1: you would from cutting open a human body. So they
Speaker 1: decided they needed more bodies because the UMU capital crimes
Speaker 1: had had dropped, and so grave robbing became a common practice.
Speaker 1: And uh, it still is a common practice. I don't
Speaker 1: know about common, but it still happens in some parts
Speaker 1: of the world. Back then they were called resurrectionists and UM,
Speaker 1: a lot of times it was slaves that were being
Speaker 1: having their graves robbed. Yeah, did you read the Smithsonian
Speaker 1: article I sent you. Yeah, I read that one. And
Speaker 1: then there's a documentary out to uh made by Dr
Speaker 1: Shaun Utsey of h Virginia Commonwealth University go Rams called
Speaker 1: Until the Well Runs Dry Medicine and the Exploitation of
Speaker 1: Black bodies. And in it he talks about, um, someone
Speaker 1: named Chris Baker who was a famous resurrectionists in Virginia
Speaker 1: who would rob slave grades basically, and and it was robbing,
Speaker 1: but they still there wasn't a crime because slaves had
Speaker 1: no rights even after death right. And apparently they would
Speaker 1: employ slaves to do this because slaves couldn't be arrested
Speaker 1: for grave robbing slaves graves somehow, at least in Georgia. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because you sent in this other case of what was
Speaker 1: his name, Grandison Harris. Yeah, he was Medical College of
Speaker 1: Georgia and Augusta. Then they discovered in nineteen nine and
Speaker 1: one of the old buildings of do you remember that
Speaker 1: a bunch of bones? Remember when that happened. I was
Speaker 1: in high school, dude, didn't watch the news. Were you
Speaker 1: like a tenth grader watching that was like eighth and
Speaker 1: ninth grade. I just remember. I was like what because
Speaker 1: when they found all these bones, they were like, what
Speaker 1: is going on here? And then they figured out, oh,
Speaker 1: these were old anatomical specimens that had been robbed from
Speaker 1: the grave. Apparently he was employed because he was huge
Speaker 1: and strong and he could rob a grave by himself,
Speaker 1: which usually needed a few people to rob a grave.
Speaker 1: But he was an efficient gray rubbing machine and made
Speaker 1: a lot of money and educated himself and rose up
Speaker 1: somewhat in white society, but was not really accepted by
Speaker 1: either whites or blacks. Yeah he he Uh. The Smithsonian
Speaker 1: article puts that he occupied a liminal place between black
Speaker 1: and white society. He was shunned by everybody, but also
Speaker 1: grudgingly respected and feared. Ye need article. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Um. And this Chris Baker apparently Dr Shaun
Speaker 1: Utsy says along with things like the Tuskegee experiments. He
Speaker 1: says that he thinks that medical college is accepting grave
Speaker 1: robbed bodies is of slaves is one of the reasons.
Speaker 1: He says that, uh, some African Americans today have like
Speaker 1: lingering suspicions about doctors in general. Yeah, makes sense, um,
Speaker 1: And he says that that's a big reason that he
Speaker 1: feels like Black people die more of preventable disease because
Speaker 1: of a fear of doctors. Yeah, or maybe a mistrustum
Speaker 1: of doctors after things like the t Skee experiments and
Speaker 1: grave robbing of god slave graves. So it sort of
Speaker 1: makes sense. So pretty interesting. He's the professor of UM,
Speaker 1: I think the head of African American studies at UVA
Speaker 1: or not uv A but Virginia COMMONWEALTHCU. So grave robbing
Speaker 1: became very very widespread, not just in the UK, but
Speaker 1: also an American I think you said, around the world, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just deals being like if you ever watched the Nick,
Speaker 1: like the police make deals with the hospital, Like they
Speaker 1: find a body, they get little money on the side.
Speaker 1: It was just basically, how how can we get our
Speaker 1: hands on a body? Exactly, and finally people figured out like, oh, well, this,
Speaker 1: this prohibition on dissecting human bodies is leading to grave robbing, which,
Speaker 1: now that we compared the two side by side, grave
Speaker 1: robbing is way worse. So, um, let's just make it
Speaker 1: if if somebody wants to donate their body or uh,
Speaker 1: we can let that happen, and that's that change happened.
Speaker 1: Let's set up a government branch to screw it up.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, man, Yeah, I don't know, man. Just
Speaker 1: for me personally, I just don't trust our government to
Speaker 1: handle something as nuanced and delicate as a part of
Speaker 1: the end of life industry. I just think it would
Speaker 1: be a typical, inefficient, bureaucratic nightmare, and that's the last
Speaker 1: thing people need when they're dealing with like the death
Speaker 1: of a family member. That's just me. I think the
Speaker 1: organ Procurement system network in place now is a sterling
Speaker 1: example of what could be done. It's great. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know too much about the financials behind it. Well,
Speaker 1: that's the thing, Like I agree with you, it does
Speaker 1: cost a certain amount of money to operate, but then
Speaker 1: you could have not for profit businesses running these things, right,
Speaker 1: So for a not for profit business still creates income,
Speaker 1: but that goes into the business that doesn't enrich shareholders
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Right, there's so with for profit companies,
Speaker 1: and there are I'm not slamming all for profit companies.
Speaker 1: There are for profit Uh body donation companies out there
Speaker 1: that are great, right, But I'm just saying that the
Speaker 1: fact that that is allowed to me allows this free
Speaker 1: market in body parts that I don't think should exist. Uh.
Speaker 1: There is not one process because there's not one governing body.
Speaker 1: So it depends on who you're dealing with. Um, if
Speaker 1: it's a medical school, that's a good option, could be
Speaker 1: a government agency, could be a private group like you
Speaker 1: were talking about. But what you're gonna start out doing
Speaker 1: is filling out a lot of paperwork. Uh. You need
Speaker 1: to make sure your family knows and is on board
Speaker 1: and that step be in your will and uh everyone's
Speaker 1: cool with all this. Yeah, because if you go in
Speaker 1: the mail clinic website and look how to donate your body,
Speaker 1: one of the things they say is if your next
Speaker 1: of kin opposes it, we're not going to accept your body. Well,
Speaker 1: it's just too much of a headache. Well, plus also
Speaker 1: I think they want to like, they don't want this
Speaker 1: to be a traumatic experience. They want it. It's supposed
Speaker 1: to be a gift. You know. This donation of your
Speaker 1: whole body is supposed to be a gift, not supposed
Speaker 1: to put your next of kin through hell. And they
Speaker 1: don't want a headache. Let's be honest, man. UH, once
Speaker 1: you die, you are not guaranteed even if you want
Speaker 1: to donate your body, that you can have your body donated.
Speaker 1: You need to be in decent shape. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of disease and things that they won't accept. HIV one
Speaker 1: or two, AIDS related deaths, help B or C symphilist
Speaker 1: kidney failure, jaundice, viral infections, bacteria infections, extensive trauma. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't be severely burned. They want you to be
Speaker 1: like basically a typical human being. You can't be too
Speaker 1: of weight. No, that's a that's a big one. Um.
Speaker 1: Some places, UH will only accept people up to like
Speaker 1: a hundred and seventy undred ninety pounds for practical reasons. Yeah,
Speaker 1: embalming adds about a hundred pounds to you and they're
Speaker 1: gonna have to move you around if you're in an
Speaker 1: anatomy lab for a year. Some attendants are going to
Speaker 1: have to move you on and off gurneys and out
Speaker 1: in and out of the freezer for a whole year.
Speaker 1: And they don't want to deal with a four hundred
Speaker 1: pound couldaver when they can deal with two hundred fifty
Speaker 1: pound cadavers. Yeah, they will also want to be able
Speaker 1: to find your organs very easily and not have to
Speaker 1: wade through lots of tissue. Yes, you know what I'm saying. Yep.
Speaker 1: So if you want to, if you're very serious about
Speaker 1: donating your body after death, you want to, that's a
Speaker 1: good reason to take care of yourself while you're alive. Also,
Speaker 1: and you can help this much less. But if you're emaciated,
Speaker 1: grossly emaciated, UM, you probably are not going to have
Speaker 1: your body accepted UM. And this brings up a really
Speaker 1: important point. If your body is going to be rejected,
Speaker 1: which it very easily can be, UM, you need to
Speaker 1: have a plan in place for the disposition of your
Speaker 1: body should it come back to your family or more likely,
Speaker 1: they're not going to ship it into place. Isn't gonna
Speaker 1: just send it back, but they're they're going to call
Speaker 1: the place in the place, is gonna be like, we
Speaker 1: can't use you know, your relative, and now you are
Speaker 1: your family stuck with your dead body, which is not
Speaker 1: a situation you want to put your family in. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I would God, I would hope that most people would
Speaker 1: think like, if this doesn't happen, then we can just creamate.
Speaker 1: Well the thing. They wouldn't be like, what do we
Speaker 1: do now? You know it's not like a sitcom. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you could listen to our podcast Things to Do
Speaker 1: with the Dead Body? Right. Oh, I'm glad you bring
Speaker 1: that up. Because the Mayo clinic um uses uh alcohol,
Speaker 1: what does the alkaline hydrolysis, the one that turns into goo. Nice,
Speaker 1: that's how they get rid of bodies. Uh, well, one
Speaker 1: positive thing. Actually, they'll stick another break here, okay, and
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit more about pros and cons
Speaker 1: of doing this right for this, so, Chuck, there were
Speaker 1: a couple more things like you were you were talking
Speaker 1: about the steps to donating your body, right, and they
Speaker 1: might not take you. If they do take you, um,
Speaker 1: it depends on what organization or company that you go with, right,
Speaker 1: that's right. One of the great things about a for
Speaker 1: profit company is your family. If you're accepted and you
Speaker 1: probably will be accepted. They usually have the UM not
Speaker 1: the lowest standards, but the the the most leeway in
Speaker 1: accepting bodies. Can with the free market, you can shop around, okay, UM,
Speaker 1: see see who you feel most comfortable with. They are
Speaker 1: also the ones who are the least likely to UM
Speaker 1: put any costs onto your family, right, so they will
Speaker 1: pay for things like transportation. They will pay for cremation.
Speaker 1: They will probably pay for the costs to return the
Speaker 1: cremated remains of you to your family because when they
Speaker 1: use your body, there eventually will be UM a cadaver
Speaker 1: there that is no use to them, and then will
Speaker 1: cremate that and send you the remains right UM. And
Speaker 1: they're also usually pretty quick with it because with UM,
Speaker 1: with a lot of the for profit companies UM, they
Speaker 1: basically cut you into the various parts and then ship
Speaker 1: those out and then they have the They do this
Speaker 1: fairly quickly UM. And they take that leftover stuff and
Speaker 1: then bring your remains back to your family within a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. With If you donate your body to
Speaker 1: say like a medical school, the medical school is gonna
Speaker 1: be like, thank you, this is very nice. UM, we
Speaker 1: need you to pay for some stuff, so transporting the body,
Speaker 1: which is why, um, a lot of people will donate
Speaker 1: to like their local medical medical school like Emory. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So like if you live in Atlanta and you donate
Speaker 1: your body to Emory, Emory will probably pay to come
Speaker 1: pick it up. But if you died in Alabama and
Speaker 1: you had plans to um donate your body to Emory,
Speaker 1: your family might want to find a place in Alabama
Speaker 1: because Emory is gonna accept your body, but they're not
Speaker 1: gonna pay to get it to Atlanta. I don't think
Speaker 1: that medical schools in Alabama. Sorry, Alabama so mean and
Speaker 1: like we're in Georgia. It's like right, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're just so high on the hog I know, but
Speaker 1: Georgians are always like, well we're not Mississippi and Alabama
Speaker 1: not funny, not fair. It's a little funny like Alabama.
Speaker 1: So that is that is definitely a pro of a
Speaker 1: for profit companies. Like the costs associated with this donation
Speaker 1: are load and nonexistent. That's right. Um. Where so wherever
Speaker 1: your body goes, there's going to be some lots of
Speaker 1: paperwork to fill out. Your family is going to see
Speaker 1: your body off at the funeral home. Maybe the funeral home,
Speaker 1: is going to is going to put it, put your
Speaker 1: body into a casket, it's going to get on an airplane,
Speaker 1: or it's going to go down the road to emery
Speaker 1: or whatever. And then, um, you will have no say
Speaker 1: whatsoever and what happens to it after that point? Is
Speaker 1: that always true? Pretty much? Yes? I figured there were
Speaker 1: some companies that allowed you some control. I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I think that there are. UM. I have heard that
Speaker 1: you can opt to not be used for cosmetic surgery,
Speaker 1: but I don't. I didn't see that anywhere in research. Interesting. Um.
Speaker 1: One thing that some organizations allowed to do is to
Speaker 1: also be an organ donor. But generally they want your
Speaker 1: whole body with all its organs intact. But some will
Speaker 1: again because it's not you know, one single body, no
Speaker 1: pun intended. Uh. Some will allow you to donate your
Speaker 1: organs some organs first, and I only saw one that
Speaker 1: does that, UM, which I thought was great. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize that you could do that. But the reason why
Speaker 1: they want all of your organs attact is because you're
Speaker 1: serving as a teaching tool for medical students who need
Speaker 1: to cut into these things. If you donate it to
Speaker 1: a medical school, right. Um. So oh that was another
Speaker 1: thing too. If you donated to say like a medical school,
Speaker 1: you'll get your cremated remains back usually as well, um,
Speaker 1: but it could be it will be well over a
Speaker 1: year because they're going to use you for that year
Speaker 1: of medical school. Yeah. And y'all, you know you're gonna
Speaker 1: want to get right and your family get right with
Speaker 1: your ceremonies and how that's handled because either won't have
Speaker 1: your cream as or it might take a little while.
Speaker 1: So just wrap your head around the fact that you're
Speaker 1: just gonna have a memorial service for your loved one
Speaker 1: that may not include remains. Um. And you know, some
Speaker 1: people still don't like that idea of like like they
Speaker 1: want a body there. Some people still need that closure
Speaker 1: of seeing the the the dead body sounds awful, but
Speaker 1: the problem is is that that is not going to
Speaker 1: happen if you donate your body, because you can't be
Speaker 1: donated embalmed, so you are shipped fresh, freshly dead. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's happened within a couple of days, Yeah, very quickly.
Speaker 1: And in fact, grave robbers when that was at its height. Um,
Speaker 1: people at some point in some graveyards used to their
Speaker 1: family would guard the body for three or four days
Speaker 1: until they figured it was you know, too late. You know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I remember hearing that. Man crazy huh, it
Speaker 1: really is. Um. So the point is the first step
Speaker 1: to all this is to tell your family and then
Speaker 1: get it down on paper, either in an advanced directive
Speaker 1: or will or something like that, and then start looking around.
Speaker 1: Yeah and uh, since a lot of these organizations will
Speaker 1: pay for the remains and all that, like hopefully financial,
Speaker 1: it's not a purely financial consideration. But you can't save
Speaker 1: a lot of money by donating your body to science
Speaker 1: because funerals and stuff like that is really expensive. That's right, chucking,
Speaker 1: Actually that is Um. There's a post on get rich
Speaker 1: Slowly dot com about donating your body to science to
Speaker 1: save money. Really yeah, and um, I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: a totally legitimate thing. The thing is is, um, you
Speaker 1: want to have a backup just in case your body
Speaker 1: is not accepted. You don't want to bet on the
Speaker 1: idea that you don't have to save anything for funeral
Speaker 1: costs because you're donating your body to science. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like funerals cost several thousand dollars. Apparently, according
Speaker 1: to this article. It was about a little under bucks
Speaker 1: in two thou twelve and that's the average UM. And
Speaker 1: then cremation is and up to six grand for a
Speaker 1: UM a cremation with funeral service and all the bells
Speaker 1: and whistles unless you bring your own coffee can and
Speaker 1: save money that way Glubowsky reference. So you can save
Speaker 1: all this money, especially if you go with a for
Speaker 1: private company, UM, and just give it to your errors instead.
Speaker 1: You know, uh what else, Well, there are some I
Speaker 1: think we talked about the cons right, Yeah, maybe, um,
Speaker 1: they have a section to hear about creative ways to
Speaker 1: donate your body. Um, there are other things you can do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can do donate your body to be used as
Speaker 1: a crash test dummy. Well here's the thing. I don't
Speaker 1: think you really necessarily have say over that. Like I
Speaker 1: think when you donate your body you're donating it to
Speaker 1: potentially all this stuff in the US. I think you
Speaker 1: can donate it. Maybe I'm wrong. I didn't look it up.
Speaker 1: I thought you could donate it directly to the n
Speaker 1: h T s A. I don't know. Maybe so, or
Speaker 1: you could like move to Michigan and make it that
Speaker 1: much more likely that it will be used by them.
Speaker 1: That's a good point. But they have they do use
Speaker 1: bodies of crash tests on me. Yeah, they still do. Um,
Speaker 1: there was a great there was a Wired article that
Speaker 1: was really good, and then I saw another one called
Speaker 1: the Driving Dead. Human cadaver is still used in car
Speaker 1: crash testing. There's a place called the Laboratory of Technology
Speaker 1: and Systems for Safety and Automobiles. Is that at Wayne State. No,
Speaker 1: it's in Spain, uh in northern Spain, and it's one
Speaker 1: of six places in the world where they still use
Speaker 1: human body crash tests cadavers for crash tests. And it's
Speaker 1: been happening for a long time. In the car companies
Speaker 1: have distance themselves from it. They don't directly do it.
Speaker 1: But what they do is they get the data from
Speaker 1: these places that do it right because they don't want
Speaker 1: to be directly tied to it. But four very famously
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eleven, I guess was testing an
Speaker 1: inflatable rear seat belt. So I guess they said, um,
Speaker 1: here's our rear seat belt. Why don't you see what happened,
Speaker 1: you know with cadavers, And the National Highway UM Safety
Speaker 1: Traffic Safety Administration says, oh, we know what you mean.
Speaker 1: And so they get their hands on some cadavers and
Speaker 1: they wrap them up in body stockings, cover their faces
Speaker 1: as you see the pictures of that UM, and they
Speaker 1: run them through the rigors and then do autopsies afterwards
Speaker 1: to see what happened to the body after it was,
Speaker 1: you know, in this crash. Well, and you know, there's
Speaker 1: lots of advantages obviously, you can even though biomechanics and
Speaker 1: crash thees stummies now are like way better than they
Speaker 1: used to be. Um, nothing beats a body. Nothing beats
Speaker 1: a body. You know, you can't tell what's really gonna
Speaker 1: happen to your internal organs. UM. It's also imperfect because
Speaker 1: there are no two cadavers that are the same, so
Speaker 1: it's not gonna be consistent. Also, cadavers are usually older
Speaker 1: and more fragile. UM. And also young cadavers are hard
Speaker 1: to come by because the highest rate of death among
Speaker 1: young people are car crashes. Yeah, a strange twist there
Speaker 1: stuff to get young cadavers for that research. But there
Speaker 1: was a guy in the nineteen thirties named Wawrence Patrick
Speaker 1: from Wayne State University. I think you were talking about him,
Speaker 1: and he was somewhat of a He was the guy
Speaker 1: the crash test pilot. Yeah, Colonel Staff, he was sort
Speaker 1: of like him. He was his own test dummy and
Speaker 1: would just you know, throw himself downstairs and do all
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff. And he even flung a cadaver down
Speaker 1: a university elevator chaft to test the strength of a
Speaker 1: human skull at one point and found like it can
Speaker 1: hold up, yeah, pretty good. So he was I think
Speaker 1: led the charge at Wayne State. And they still do
Speaker 1: work there with cadavers in highway safety, don't they. It's well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's so funny to me that this is like scandalous.
Speaker 1: Apparently some leak at GM started like talking to the
Speaker 1: media about how SAB was running tests using dead bodies.
Speaker 1: It's like, that's a great use of a dead body
Speaker 1: to like save other people's lives. There's this article from
Speaker 1: a guy at Wayne State who wrote that could ever
Speaker 1: save abouts annually thanks to serving as crash test dummies.
Speaker 1: Um NASA actually used some as well, um to test
Speaker 1: the O Ryan capsule because it just isn't the same
Speaker 1: thing as using a robot or something like that, and
Speaker 1: they certainly don't want to put humans in their first
Speaker 1: live humans at least I don't understand why this is
Speaker 1: at all scandalous. Again, I think donating your body is
Speaker 1: a fantastic thing to do. I think it could get
Speaker 1: scandalous and that, uh, which was what we're about to
Speaker 1: talk about here with the body's exhibits, is how these
Speaker 1: cadavers are sourced. Oh, that's where it gets scandalous. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: that was one of the other creative things you can
Speaker 1: do if you want to donate your body to be
Speaker 1: in one of those body exhibits. There are two main
Speaker 1: ones that I saw, um, Body Worlds and Bodies the
Speaker 1: exhibit the exhibit I can't remember which one the exhibition, sorry,
Speaker 1: thank you me? And I saw that one. Have you
Speaker 1: seen it? The one that's the one in Atlanta. It's
Speaker 1: based out of Atlanta. Actually it's astounding, It is astounding.
Speaker 1: But they have been dogged by criticism because one group
Speaker 1: says that straight up, I think bodies the exhibition straight
Speaker 1: up says these are probably criminals from China, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna be straight up and say they're unclaimed bodies. The
Speaker 1: other one is Body Worlds UM and that's been in
Speaker 1: the US since two thousand four, and apparently they have
Speaker 1: death certificates. But the paper trail cuts off at a
Speaker 1: certain point, and they say it's with respect to anonymity.
Speaker 1: But certain people have called them out and said, you
Speaker 1: know what, you should have a paper trail like you
Speaker 1: can't and equivocally say that these cadavers are all on
Speaker 1: the up and up? Can they? And um, they say
Speaker 1: they can. But they've come under a lot of fire,
Speaker 1: and those exhibits have in general because of where they
Speaker 1: get these bodies from. Well, now I feel dirty for
Speaker 1: having seen that. Yeah, yeah, I mean like it's disrespectful
Speaker 1: to the dead. Well. In two thousand eight, uh, in
Speaker 1: New York, the Attorney General force Premier, which was the
Speaker 1: company behind I think Body Worlds, to put a disclaimer
Speaker 1: that said, this exhibit displays human remains of Chinese citizens
Speaker 1: or residents which are originally received by the Chinese Bureau Police.
Speaker 1: The Chinese Bureau of Police may receive bodies from Chinese prisons.
Speaker 1: Premier cannot independently verify that the human remains you're viewing
Speaker 1: are not those persons who are incarcerated in Chinese prisons. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So they forced them to put that up pretty pretty
Speaker 1: out there. They're putting it out there. They probably had
Speaker 1: that sign after you pay your money to go in.
Speaker 1: I doubt if it's by right beside the ticket booth.
Speaker 1: But apparently you can donate your body, although I don't
Speaker 1: know that you can because it sounds like they're not
Speaker 1: sourcing from you know, donating from the United States. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I saw somewhere that they have a list of like
Speaker 1: twelve thousand living donors just waiting to donate their bodies. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Who knows what's real or true anymore? Who knows. Uh.
Speaker 1: The other thing you can do is what we talked
Speaker 1: about in our awesome classic episode on body Farms. Uh,
Speaker 1: if you want to help out forensics study, you can
Speaker 1: donate your body to the University of Tennessee go Valls,
Speaker 1: and you can be thrown out in the woods decomposed.
Speaker 1: Right did you just say go Valls? Really? I have
Speaker 1: to keep it consistent. That's cool, man. Yeah, the body
Speaker 1: Farm episode was great. I think the only thing I
Speaker 1: can't say is go get G A G A T
Speaker 1: O R S, which is funny because, yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: blame me, but my family's from Tennessee, so I can
Speaker 1: root for most SEC teams except for the one in Florida.
Speaker 1: Does none of it matters anyway? Um, did you hear
Speaker 1: about the woman in New York whose body was accidentally
Speaker 1: donated for medical science and her family was like, what
Speaker 1: did you do with grandma? And the New York Medical
Speaker 1: Examiner went, oh, I said, we planted a tree in
Speaker 1: her honor, right, which apparently is what some medical schools
Speaker 1: will do. They said, here's some money. We're really sorry.
Speaker 1: That was apparently very traumatic for the family. I imagine
Speaker 1: they said that that. Yeah, yeah, see, I'm not precious
Speaker 1: about after I'm dead. I'm not precious about the this
Speaker 1: lump of cells and skin that remains that to me,
Speaker 1: that nothing to me. I'm totally with you, man, I
Speaker 1: totally agree to me. The only thing is somebody profiting
Speaker 1: off of a donation by anybody else what, no matter
Speaker 1: what it is, whether it's a body part or money, whatever,
Speaker 1: it's that's wrong. Yeah, respect my my spirit and who
Speaker 1: I was, not this dead carcass on the table. That's
Speaker 1: not me anymore, you know, that's right. I'm gone, buddy,
Speaker 1: I'm up there with with the highwaymen. Oh yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: flying a starship. Man. What else you got, uh? Skeleton?
Speaker 1: The University of New Mexico and Albuquerque. I didn't look
Speaker 1: up their mascot, but you said none of it matters anyway,
Speaker 1: So I think they're the Lobos Lobos, I think so. Uh.
Speaker 1: They have a skeleton collection even though they aren't on display. No,
Speaker 1: and apparently the body farm in Tennessee, and that's we
Speaker 1: should say, not the only body farm. There's several, um,
Speaker 1: but the one in Tennessee will put you in their
Speaker 1: skeleton collection afterward as well. You can be you can
Speaker 1: be very useful there. Maybe I would like to be
Speaker 1: We have a skeleton here at the house stuff works offices.
Speaker 1: I'd like to be put alongside him. Did you ever
Speaker 1: hear about the the skeleton of the Outlaw? I don't
Speaker 1: remember his name, but he was like a real live
Speaker 1: one of the last wild West outlaws UM in the
Speaker 1: early twentieth century, and his body was put on display
Speaker 1: by the coroner and the charge people in Nickel to
Speaker 1: come look and sounds familiar from that. He uh he
Speaker 1: ended up never being buried and he ended up in like, uh,
Speaker 1: like one of those house of horrors that like one
Speaker 1: of the rides spook ride or whatever they call him,
Speaker 1: dark rides heard about that and um, it turned out
Speaker 1: that somebody like was cleaning them or something once decades
Speaker 1: later and like broke his hand off and realized, like,
Speaker 1: that's a bone, and may this isn't a wax dummy.
Speaker 1: And they figured out somebody figured out who it was
Speaker 1: that it was this old criminal who was never buried
Speaker 1: and ended up in a real carnival ride. I remember
Speaker 1: hearing about that. That's crazy. Do you anything else? I
Speaker 1: got nothing else? You could be turned into collagen to
Speaker 1: be used for facelifts. Uh see, I don't want to
Speaker 1: chase anybody away from this. I just think like I
Speaker 1: want everybody to flood the market with donated bodies so
Speaker 1: much so that like the price comes down and anybody
Speaker 1: who's in it too, like who's bodied part pirate, gets
Speaker 1: out of the business because it's not lucrative anymore. Bam. Uh.
Speaker 1: Since check doesn't have anything more, and I don't either.
Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about donating your body
Speaker 1: to science a very virtuous thing to do, you can
Speaker 1: type those words into search bar how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Since I said virtuous, it's time for listener mail. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna call this underwater towns. Hey, guys, And you mentioned
Speaker 1: of an underwater town near you, and you caught my
Speaker 1: attention and how droughts work. I'm originally from the cat Skills,
Speaker 1: New York, where my family lived for a few generations,
Speaker 1: and I still lived there in the summer. The round
Speaker 1: out Round Doubt, I'm not sure it's Round Doubt Reservoir. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's always fascinating me because when you drive around it
Speaker 1: takes a little time and you pass signs that read
Speaker 1: former site of Eureka, former site of Montella, former site
Speaker 1: of lack A Whack. After World War Two, with the
Speaker 1: huge influx of g I s into New York City
Speaker 1: and Long Island, more water was needed and the three
Speaker 1: towns were condemned and flooded to create the reservoir. A
Speaker 1: few years ago, my grandfather passed away and I became
Speaker 1: interested in creating a family archive. One of the many
Speaker 1: interesting things among my grandparents photos, papers, and other items
Speaker 1: is the postcard that I sent to you. Uh picture
Speaker 1: that is. It's not signed, but, according to my grandma,
Speaker 1: was written by the postal employee of the town in
Speaker 1: the last days of Eureka. It mentions on the back
Speaker 1: that he's sending it in part because he thinks of
Speaker 1: my great grandfather Bruce might want to photo of the
Speaker 1: mill that his father built. Uh. The Rondoubt is a
Speaker 1: water supply for New York City, so I wouldn't expect
Speaker 1: any Gulf globes to start breaking the surface if the
Speaker 1: water got low. But who knows. I have no idea
Speaker 1: who's down there. Pretty interesting story. Here's the postcard. Uh.
Speaker 1: I also think it's interesting. At the time, apparently only
Speaker 1: a name in town was required to send a postcard,
Speaker 1: and that is from Patrick. Thanks Patrick. And it was
Speaker 1: pretty neat and I just think underwater towns or it's
Speaker 1: kind of sad and kind of cool all at the
Speaker 1: same time and creepy as long as you get people
Speaker 1: out of there. We oh yeah, well, desially they warned
Speaker 1: the residents first, I know, but you know how people are.
Speaker 1: They don't want to leave their homes. Oh well, whatever,
Speaker 1: they were warned. There you have it. Uh. If you
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with Chuck or me or whoever,
Speaker 1: you can tweet to s Y s K podcast. You
Speaker 1: can join us on Facebook dot com. You can send
Speaker 1: us an email to Stuff podcast, to how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com, and as always, joined us start at home
Speaker 1: on the web. Stuff You should Know dot com. For
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. M