Readers will be horrified by this carefully researched exposé revealing that the trade in corpses for medical research and education didn't go out with 19th-century grave robbers. Cheney, who won a Society of Professional Journalists award for the Harper's
article that gave rise to this book, describes the case of Arthur Rathburn, a morgue attendant at the University of Michigan Medical School, who supplied body parts to the American Association of Clinical Anatomists and other organizations until he was caught and fired. Families who donate the bodies of loved ones to medical schools are misled into believing that no profit will be made from their gift, but many schools—the University of Kansas and Tulane, among others, according to the author—generate income by selling surplus corpses to the highest bidders. Cheney also covers the sale of transplantable tissue for patients undergoing surgery; with no government oversight of this "billion-dollar business," such tissue can be diseased, resulting in bacterial infections and even death for recipients. Occasionally, melodramatic narrative pads the substance, but Cheney reveals a disturbing medical underworld that deserves attention. (Mar.)
