10 Things you didn't know about Death

Is this true? I've said it many times as a joke, that when we die we won't rot because of all the preservatives. So there'll be millions of mummies before long, and we can't burn 'em either, buecause it's harmful to the environment... :wink:

During the American Civil War, the corpses of Federal soldiers swelled and became bloated much sooner than those of the Confederate dead, because they were so much better fed . . .

nonsense

It can't be true, otherwise, how would Clinical Chemists generate
standard values for bodily consitutents to determine the precise time of death.

In the first place, pathologists don't give precise times for the time of death, they give the most plausible range. In the second place, your remark assumes that pathologists are never wrong about these matters. Finally, your remarks does not take into account that the baseline values by which a pathologist uses chemicals present in the body to establish a time of death may well have been established after food preservatives became common.

William the Conqueror.

William died at the age of 59, in France, on 9 September 1087 from abdominal injuries received from his saddle pommel when he fell off his horse. He was buried in the church of St. Stephen in Caen, Normandy.

During the interment, his corpulent body wouldn't fit to the stone sarcophagus, and burst after some unsuccessful prodding by the assembled bishops, filling the chapel with a foul smell and dispersing the mourners.

How tasteful...

Don't they have things called 'body farms'? Where they apparently study decomposition under under numerous conditions?

forensic Pathologists can give a fairly precise time of death based upon temperature cool-down, and forensic entymologsts can tell relative "day of death" based upon the pupation of blowflies and blue bottle flies. Saponfication is a relative "Month of death" determinant, and the best clue of year of death is the stratigraphy and redensification of soil where the body is deposited.
Of course, if the body is put in the trunk of a car and dumped, they look at the title and tags for forensics.

I dont think that , as set said, the "error bar" is that accurate so that precise enzymes can be used for timing death, especially if its a crime.

Our palynologist worked on a crime in DC where a rather high profile murder case was being investigated and the body was found about a year after the person went missing. The stratigraphy context showed that the body had apparently been moved in way post mortem because there werepollen indications on the body that didnt correspond with the pollen in-situ. and the leaf litter that was oldest atop the body, was springtime flower duff and not fall leaves. Even then, we could only provide the cops with those few pieces of data. .

something else you don't know about death

she's a pretty goth girl



some quotes from death

I'm not blessed or merciful. I'm just me. I've got a job to do and I do it. Listen: even as we're talking, I'm there for old and young, innocent and guilty, those who die together and those who die alone. I'm in cars and boats and planes, in hospitals and forests and abattoirs. For some folks death is a release and for others death is an abomination, a terrible thing. But in the end, I'm there for all of them.

When the first living thing existed, I was there, waiting. When the last living thing dies, my job is finished. I'll put the chairs on tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave.

I didn't say that--in fact, i was arguing against the proposition that pathologists routinely give an exact time of death. Within an hour is considered to be very good, very precise.

So that Bodyworks/Gunther Von Haagans guy that discovered plastinization, didnt have to go to the trouble of discovering it!!He could have just got us to eat more preservatives!