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

by Caitlin Doughty

Medical professionals have stolen corpses and even dug up fresh graves to get bodies for dissection and research. Then there are cases like that of Julia Pastrana, the nineteenth-century Mexican woman with a condition called hypertrichosis that caused hair to grow all over her face and body. After she died, her embalmed and taxidermied corpse was taken on world tour by her awful husband. He saw there was money to be made by displaying Julia in freak shows. Julia had ceased to be regarded as human; her corpse had become a possession.

Your body is not going to sit bolt upright on its own corpsey power. This is not a horror movie, folks. Dead bodies aren’t going to scream, sit up, or grab your hair and pull you down to hell

When a body purges, it may make a creepy whooshing sound. Worry not, this isn’t the horrible ghost wails of the dead, it’s . . . bacteria farts.

The deeper he is buried, the farther away he is from oxygen, microbes, and other things that speed up the decomposition process.

Hundreds of years ago, across Europe, people afraid of witchcraft would seal cats inside the walls of their homes, believing they would ward off supernatural threats. Builders and contractors have been finding random cats in European walls for years.

Do you want him to become part of the garden? If so, bury him close to the surface or in rich soil, where he has the best chance of decomposing fast and completely.

Scientists now pretty much agree that getting useful DNA from animals in amber is not possible. DNA just disintegrates too quickly. Oxygen levels change, temperatures change, moisture levels change, all of which cause the puzzle pieces that make up your genetic code to fall apart.

In the first ten minutes of the cremation, the flames attack the body’s soft tissue—all the squishy parts, if you will. Muscles, skin, organs, and fat sizzle, shrink, and evaporate. The bones of the skull and ribs start to emerge. The top of the skull pops off and the blackened brain gets zapped away by the flames. The human body is roughly 60 percent water, and that H2O—along with other body fluids—evaporates right up the machine’s chimney.

What are we left with at the end of a cremation? Bones. Hot bones. We call this pulverized mess of molten bones “cremated remains” or, more commonly, ashes.

Cremations for very heavy people can take longer, sometimes over two hours longer. That gives the fat enough time to burn away. But at the end of the process, you can’t tell who went in the machine a 450-pound person and who went in a 110-pound person. The flames are the great equalizer.

Almost 60 percent of conjoined twins will die in the womb before birth. If the twins are born alive, 35 percent won’t survive their first day.

The Ahmad ibn Fadlan guy is the person on the internet who insists that Hollywood versions of flaming boat cremations are real.

Death has happened in many homes, more homes than you probably realize. Perhaps in the very house in which you’re reading this book. Remember, people mostly used to die in their own homes, not at hospitals or nursing homes, so if your house has been around for one hundred years or more, it’s highly likely to have seen death within its walls.

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.

A person has to fail a lot of tests to be declared brain-dead. And more than one doctor has to confirm brain death. Only after countless tests and an in-depth physical exam will you go from “coma patient” to “brain-dead” patient.

Aquamation uses water and potassium hydroxide to dissolve the dead body down to its skeleton. The aquamation process is better for the environment and doesn’t use natural gas, a valuable resource.

Scientists believe that seeing this light at the end of the tunnel is the result of retinal ischemia, which happens when there isn’t enough blood reaching the eye.