Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And Other Questions About Dead Bodies

by Caitlin Doughty

For your enjoyment, here’s a fun sample of the death tests: Shoving needles under the toenails, or into the heart or stomach. Slicing the feet with knives or burning them with red-hot pokers. Smoke enemas for drowning victims—someone would literally “blow smoke up your ass” to see if it would warm you up and make you breathe. Burning the hand or chopping off a finger. And, my personal favorite: Writing “I am really dead” in invisible ink (made from acetate of lead) on a piece of paper, then putting the paper over the corpse-in-question’s face. According to the inventor of this method, if the body was putrefying, sulfur dioxide would be emitted, thus revealing the message. Unfortunately, sulfur dioxide can also be emitted by living people, like those with decaying teeth. So, it’s possible there were a few false positives.