Nobody can cheat death , but for thousands of age , humanity have tried to dodge decomposition . Whether we ’re save up our torso for the afterlife or time traveling to a better future , peoples throughout chronicle have plump to astounding lengths to save their mortal remains .
Here are five fascinating agency human clay have defied the born process of decay .
Mummification
You ca n’t talk body preservation without talking mummies , one of the sure-enough and most renowned methods . Mummification is well be intimate for its coming into court in ancient Egypt , but mummies are a assay-mark of dozens of ancient cultures , from Aztecs to Pacific Islanders .
Still , since Egyptian mummification is so well - document , it ’s a expert standard for how the process worked . While theappearance of the first intentional mummies in Egypt is a matter of public debate , by the Middle Kingdom ( 2000 – 1700 BC ) , it was common practice for families of mean value to state their jazz ones to a protracted dry gangrene process upon death . First , the soundbox was resect ; all inner organs were removed except the meat , which was deemed necessary for the journeying to the hereafter . That squishy thing inside your skull , however , had to go . As far as archaeologist can differentiate , the learning ability was removed using a highly scientific methodology : sticking a hook up the nose , swirling it around to make mental capacity slushy , and tile the caput forward to pour out out the goop .
Egyptian mamma at the British Museum . Image Credit : Klafubra / Wikimedia
The gutted corpse was then wash out with a motley of spices and palm wine , which helped foreclose bacterial decay , before it was basted with natron common salt and go away to wither into human jerky for 40 - leftover days . After dehydration , the body was washed again , wrap in layer upon stratum of linen cloth , and coated with rosin to prevent water hurt . The mummy was then sealed in a grave along with a bunch of useful blase good .
The process of dry up a stiff was n’t for the fainthearted ; but far more grisly is the act of self cold gangrene , famously achieved by several devout practitioners of Shingon Buddhism in Japan between the 12th and former 20th 100 . To achieve transcendence , these brave soul would prepare their trunk for mummification through an intense , 3,000 - day education physical process thatio9 describe in rich particular . highlight require supplant one ’s normal diet with pine needle , tree diagram barque , stones and resins in an endeavour to kickstart the embalm cognitive operation during living . Once the half - starved — partially mummified ? — ascetic was ready , he ’d be buried awake .
Tollund Man , a body preserved at the bottom of a peat bog in Denmark from the 4th century BC . simulacrum citation : Sven Rosborn / Wikimedia
cold gangrene has a long and rich history , but with the exception of a few noteworthy cases ( personal favorite : Bog Bodies ) , most of the thickly - tanned corps excavate today do n’t much resemble living humans . It was n’t until late century that hoi polloi started using science to preserve the look and look of living flesh .
A Death Fit for A Communist Leader
advanced embalming techniques vary from billet to spot , but they usually involve a assortment of methanal and alcohol or water . Bodies embalmed in this manner have a shelf life of about 10 age .
counterpoint that with the mortal remains of Vladimir Lenin , which were apparently look pretty good when they turned 145 this year . Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of the Center for Scientific Research and Teaching Methods in Biochemical Technologies in Moscow — keep your breath and call it the “ Lenin Lab ” — the Soviet beginner ’s corpse still maintains the flavour , experience , and flexibleness of Lenin toward the conclusion of his life . If anything , the trunk ’s appearance has improve with old age .
Lenin ’s trunk , photographed April 16th , 1997 . Image Credit : Larry Koester / Flickr
The quest to preserve the former communistic loss leader grew out of the work of anatomist Vladimir Vorobiev and biochemist Boris Zbarsky , who , after two calendar month of political debate , were allow to perform experimentation on Lenin ’s stiff begin March of 1924 . ( gratefully , it was a cold winter , and Lenin , whose brain and harmonium were removed during initial autopsy , did n’t decompose too much in the intervening week . ) “ No one was certain whether the experimentation would succeed and , if it did , how long the organic structure could be displayed after that,”writesAlexei Yurchak , a prof of societal anthropology at UC Berkeley . “ The plan was to attempt to save it for as long as potential . ”
The gamble was a resounding success . In what Yurchak describes as “ a dynamic method of preservation , ” Lenin is reembalmed every class ; his body is submersed in a slew of preservatives and antimicrobic solutions , include glycerol , formaldehyde , H peroxide , and acetic acid . Each of these “ sessions ” can take week . When the cadaver is wheeled out for its yearly public appearance , it ’s get over in a arctic suit that keep a thin stratum of embalming fluid trapped against the skin . ( A regular causa of clothes fits overtop . )
As new challenges have arisen , Russian scientists have innovated , “ substituting original organic textile with stilted unity , and on a regular basis resculpting [ Lenin ’s ] shapes and surfaces . ” Lenin ’s eyelashes were replaced with bogus ones long ago , and artificial skin plot now spread over much of his body . Today , the clay might be seen as more a sculpture than anything else — one that produce out of the body itself . Like any piece of work of graphics , Lenin ’s maintenance is driven by esthetic standard . What ’s exceptional is the amount of noesis that ’s been garnered along the way .
Steeped in Honey
If life in twelfth - century Arabia was n’t sweet enough , perhaps there was morbid solace to be establish by turn your deathly remains into a sugary sweet . Throughout human history , mass have filled the coffins of honored men and charwoman with food and other sepulture detail preserve in beloved . We ’ve also candied our fair part of cadaver .
The practice of “ mellification ” — literally , transforming a cadaver into human rock confect by infuse it in love — was purportedly use by military personnel of ancient Arabia . Tales of mellifed man fall to us from Taiwanese sources , most notably theBencao Gangmu , a compendium of exotic cures pen by 16th 100 Chinese apothecary of Li Shizhen .
Artist ’s imprint of a mellified serviceman . Image Credit : Wikimedia
consort to Shizhen , mellification was a self - sacrificial summons that began before end . Near the end of their lives , the to - be - candied men would eat , drink , and bathe in nothing but honey , the result being that they ’d soon be pissing , sweating , and shit honey , too . When the saccharine diet eventually did them in , these brave souls would be rate inside Harlan Fiske Stone coffins and deluge in — you guessed it — more honey .
After a hundred or two of….ripening , honey workforce would be pulled out of their indisposed honeyed brine , break up into small confectionary sherd , and sold in bazaars for a premium . Mellified serviceman were reportedly capable of healing break limbs and other ailment . However , as Mary Roach point out in her bookStiff : The odd life-time of Human Cadavers , “ The popularity of some of these human elixir probably had less to do with the purported effective ingredient than with the root word . ” That is , the honey might have done the trick all by itself .
Honey is one of the best natural preservatives we cognize of . Image Credit : Shutterstock
Even if the tales of Arabian mellification are apocryphal , there ’s respectable reason to consider this conservation method acting was effectual . Honey ’s alone physical and chemical substance properties renders it a singular preservative . “ Honey in its raw signifier is very humiliated wet , ” Amina Harris , executive director of the Honey and Pollination Center at UC DavistoldSmithsonian Magazine . “ Very few bacteria or microorganisms can survive in an environment like that , they just become flat . They ’re smothered by it , essentially . ” What ’s more , thanks to the especial chemical reactions between a bee ’s abdomen enzyme and nectar , dear contains hydrogen peroxide , a powerful antimicrobic federal agent .
A sealed jar of honey will keep pretty much indefinitely . So , it does n’t seem too surprising that man would turn to this nitty-gritty for everlasting existence .
Go Plastic Or Go Home
Ahh , modern life….filled with Netflix , WiFi hotspots , and corpses that do n’t stink to high heaven . If they ’re in good order plasticized , that is . In this decidedly New take on human rock’n’roll candy , cadavers are subject to a four - stage plasticizing procedure that fundamentally turns them into jumbo action form . No odour , no decomposition , no goopy rotten liquid . A classy way to remain tethered to the Earth .
The process of plastination was first rise byGunther von Hagensin 1977 . Like other human preservation proficiency , variation bristle , but here ’s the gist : First , the body is fixed in a continue result , ordinarily formaldehyde , to prevent tissue chemical decomposition reaction . After fixing , an anatomist will perform any necessary dissection , opening the body up to reveal tissues and organ for presentation .
Gunther von Hagens with a plastinated Gorilla gorilla . Image Credit : Wikimedia
Next , drying up . After all dissections are finished , the specimen is placed in a sub - zero propanone bath . As the physical structure freezes , pee is drawn out of its cells and propanone , with a freezing point of -139ºF ( -95ºC ) , floods in to replace it .
Once all that pesky pee is out of the manner , the acetone - filled corpse is put in a bath of smooth polymer — silicon rubber , polyester , or epoxy rosin . Now it ’s time to remove the dimethyl ketone . Under vacuum conditions , acetone apace dissipates , run liquid charge plate into the trunk ’s electric cell as it exits . The stiff can now be reconfigured into its net resting position , before its charge plate - fill up variety meat and tissues are cured with gasolene , high temperature , or UV light .
Plastination was made famous by Von Hagens ’ BODY WORLDS display , which , since the tardy ‘ 90s , have traveled the public disclose the inmost enigma of human lives to the pubic . I strongly advocate checking out the exhibit next time it comes to a city near you — you ’ll never see your own human meatbag the same way .
Cryogenics
And eventually , we get to cryogenics , the bodily saving method acting of choice for spacefarers attempting to get over impossibly long cosmic distance , and celebrities in the twenty-first century . Among all the preservation techniques detailed in this office , cryogenics is the only one whose goal is to extend living .
range of a function Credit : Shutterstock
The rationale is simple : cold is one of the in effect ways to uphold constitutive tissues . sealed organisms , from microbe tofrogs , can inflame up and go about their business after long stints at subzero . Might humans do the same ? If so , we may be able to freeze people with incurable illness today , in the Hope that science and engineering will save them tomorrow .
That idea may have the ring of far - fetched science fiction , but it ’s compelling enough that several companies , most notably the Alcor Life Extension Foundation , are now offering cryogenic service . For $ 770 a class , you could become an Alcor member , a contract which guarantees your body space in a grave of liquid nitrogen — provided you could set ashore up an extra $ 80,000 ( for brain - only ) or $ 200,000 ( for full body ) cryopreservation upon expiry .
Alcor ’s cryopreservation procedure is best described as acute . now after a patient ’s middle halt , he ’s moved onto an ice bottom ; his circulation and breathing are by artificial means restarted with a “ ticker lung resuscitator . ” The patient is then reach a cocktail of intravenous drug , include anticoagulants and pH buffer , before his blood is pumped out and substitute with an organ conservation solution .
Once at Alcor ’s Arizona facility , the patient ’s circulative scheme scram another charge before a medical - course antifreeze is slowly introduced ; this solution permit the organic structure to be cooled to a resting temperature of -196ºC ( -320ºF ) over the class of two week . The torso — or brain — is then sent to computer memory in a untarnished steel dewer at Alcor ’s facilities , where it stay on indefinitely , waiting for a cure .
There ’s one big stop , as I ’m sure you ’ve already surmised : there ’s no guaranty that any of this will work . No warrant that the technology to extend your life , bring around your illness , even resuscitate you by rights , will ever be invented . But Alcor remains affirmative , offer this aptly reductionist summary of your existence on its website :
finally the difference between liveliness and death for a electric cell , an organ , or an organism abridge to a difference in how speck are arrange inside it . It therefore seems sure that future practice of medicine capable of diagnosis and haunt at a molecular story will be able-bodied to resuscitate the great unwashed after long periods of clinical dying than medicament can today . How much memory and personality would survive resort and healing after hours of cardiac arrest is not presently known .
Then again , death offers no guarantees , either . Hey , to each their own mysterious destruction .
The preservation techniques I ’ve draw here are but a small fraction of the fascinating ways humanity have attempted to keep their bodies throughout history . Our methods of pick ( honey , salt , methanal , ice-skating rink ) are as diverse as our motive ( religious belief , political relation , education , medicinal drug ) . If there ’s one vulgar ribbon here , it ’s that we humans are utterly fascinated by our own fatality rate . And we ’ll never stop tag the dreaming that we can somehow , in some fashion , break away it .
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