The British investigators know what butchers have long known: If you want people to feel comfortable about dead bodies, cut them into pieces. A cow carcass is upsetting; a brisket is dinner. A human leg has no face, no eyes, no hands that once held babies or stroked a lover's cheek. It's difficult to associate it with the living person from which it came. The anonymity of body parts facilitates the necessary dissociations of cadaveric research: This is not a person. This is just tissue. It has no feelings, and no one has feelings for it. It's okay to do things to it which, were it a sentient being, would constitute torture.
British investigators have discovered a truth that butchers have long understood: people are more comfortable with dead bodies when they are disassembled. A whole cow might be distressing, but seeing a brisket can evoke thoughts of a meal. When human remains are presented in isolated parts, such as a leg, the emotional connection to the deceased is diminished, making it easier for people to accept the dismemberment as just another form of flesh, devoid of its past life.
This detachment allows for the necessary emotional distance in cadaveric research. Dissected body parts lose their identifiers—no faces, hands, or personal stories associated with them, which helps to eliminate the feelings typically tied to a once-living individual. Viewing these body parts simply as tissue enables researchers to conduct studies and experiments that would otherwise be deemed inhumane if they involved a sentient being.
