Going, Going, Gone.('Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers')(Book Review)

In the twelfth century, the bazaars of Arabia were known to offer an exotic and allegedly salutary concoction called "mellified man”--essentially human remains steeped in honey. Mellified man was also known as "human mummy confection,"and one recipe for it called specifically for "a young, lusty man"as the main ingredient. This strange footnote in the history of death and decay is recalled by Mary Roach in her surprisingly lively Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (Norton). "Cadavers,"Roach writes, "are our superheroes: They brave fire without flinching, withstand falls from tall buildings and head-on car crashes into walls."We learn, among other notable macabre facts, that a detached human head is about the size and weight of a roaster chicken, that King Ptolemy I of Egypt first green-lighted autopsies in 300 B.C., that ...