10 shameful questions about death: pathologist Tatyana Khitrova answers
Miscellaneous / / October 23, 2023
We have collected what you really wanted to know about, but were embarrassed to ask.
In this series articles, well-known experts answer questions that are usually awkward to ask: it seems that everyone already knows about it, and the questioner will look stupid.
Today we talked with pathologist Tatyana Khitrova about what happens to us after death and whether the soul really weighs 21 grams.
Tatyana Khitrova
1. Can they be buried alive?
In modern realities this is impossible. The attending physicians must confirm that a person is biologically dead before sending him to the morgue.
We have three types of death: biological, clinical and social. Clinical death is a state of the body in which there is no breathing and heartbeat, the functions of the nervous system fade away, but metabolic processes in tissues are preserved and vital functions can be restored. This is a reversible process, and a person can return to life after resuscitation.
Social death is when a person’s cerebral cortex dies and only autonomic functions remain. The heartbeat and breathing are preserved (but sometimes the artificial respiration machine breathes for the person), but there is no mental activity. The person is lost to society.
Biological death is final death.
There are probable signs of death: cessation of breathing, heartbeat and activity of the nervous system, lack of pain sensitivity, muscle tone, reflexes, it is impossible to feel the pulse. These signs are called probable because, perhaps, this is still clinical death and the person can still be brought back.
And there are reliable signs of death, early and late. Early ones are, firstly, cadaveric cooling. Although it is not entirely correct to call it that way, because the body does not cool down, but becomes ambient temperature. If the environment is hot, the body will be hot; if it is cold, the body will be cold. The second sign is local cadaveric desiccation, when the tissue begins to dry out. The third sign is cadaveric spots. They arise due to cessation of cardiac activity and passive output blood from vessels into surrounding tissues. Gravity also affects the places where corpse spots appear. If a dead person was lying on his back, the blood would flow into the back of the body, if he was in an upright position, into the legs.
Late signs of death appear in those bodies that were not discovered immediately. This is rotting; adipose wax - a kind of fatty substance into which corpses sometimes turn if, for example, they were in a humid environment; mummification, when the body is in hot and dry air or, conversely, at low temperatures, and decomposition processes slow down.
And when a person dies, the doctor first determines the probable signs of death, then the reliable ones, making sure that the person has definitely died and will not resurrect. Afterwards, in the morgue, all bodies, with very rare exceptions, are subject to autopsy. With the permission of the head physician, a person who, for example, has been dying for a long time from a histologically confirmed cancer disease, may not be opened.
After opening pathologists They study the brain and remove and cut up all the organs in order to send a piece of tissue for examination. In this case, the person can no longer be alive.
2. Is it true that nails and hair grow after death?
When a person dies, the vital activity of all cells stops, and the skin dries out because the moisture from it evaporates into the surrounding space.
Due to the fact that the body dries out a little, it seems that nails or the stubble becomes longer. It is just an illusion because the body itself has dried up. After death, cells do not divide and nothing can grow.
3. Is it true that the human body becomes 21 grams lighter after death?
The body really becomes lighter. Because, firstly, some of the moisture evaporates, as we said, and secondly, all sphincters relax, and feces, urine, and vomit come out.
But about 21 grams - it’s beautiful legend. The theory was put forward by the American doctor Duncan McDougall. He weighed only six patients before and after death, and one of them was 21 grams lighter. McDougall published these observations. But they were criticized by the scientific community for the lack of proper sampling and control over the measurements and for the insufficient accuracy of the equipment, which, by the way, he was never able to present.
There is still no reliable research to support this theory.
Imagine how many experiments would actually need to be carried out on people, weighing them on the verge of death and right after, to prove that they all became exactly 21 grams lighter.
There are no large scales at all in the morgue. We do not weigh the entire body after death, but only individual organs to understand whether there is a difference in weight from the norm.
4. What does the body of a deceased person smell like?
Body odor depends on the disease. If these are some kind of putrefactive processes caused by the activity of microbes, or diseases associated with the breakdown of tissues (gangrene, tuberculosis or some cancers with tissue death), then the smell is corresponding, putrid or burnt. And you have to work with open windows intermittently.
And if it’s a heart attack, stroke, blood clot, or some other non-infectious disease, then the body smells the same as in the meat department. There is no sharp terrible smell.
5. Is it possible to become infected with something from the body?
You can become infected with something that is even posthumously transmitted through airborne droplets.
Viruses remain only in the body of a living person and die very quickly in the environment, so it is almost impossible to contract viral diseases from the body. Bacteria also die under the influence of light, ultraviolet radiation or some chloride solutions.
But there is, for example, tuberculosis not only of the lungs, but also of the bones or other organs, which is transmitted after death. And so he can be dangerous to the living. Therefore, pathologists must use protective equipment. But in general, surgeons who come into contact with blood, with living people, have a much greater chance of becoming infected.
6. What is cadaveric poison?
This is an outdated name. They used to think that bodies exude something after death poisonous, what you can collect, and then poison someone with it or poison yourself.
Now it is correct to say ptomains. These are substances that are obtained as a result of putrefactive processes. We are all made up of proteins, fats and carbohydrates, and when protein is broken down into amino acids, ptomaines are formed. They have the same meaty smell and their toxicity is very low, they are not dangerous.
7. Where do the internal organs go after opening?
During the study, we open both the chest and the skull and remove the organs in order to weigh them, measure them and send them piece by piece for research. This is done to determine the cause of death. We do diagnostic work, and all the diagnoses we make go into statistics. Accordingly, the Ministry of Health allocates more money for research into diseases from which people die more often, or quotas for medicines.
And when we take out the organs, then it is impossible to put them back and arrange them the way they were there. This doesn't make any sense anymore.
Therefore, all the organs, including the brain, are put back into the abdominal cavity, and it is carefully sutured.
The organs must be returned because relatives may demand exhumation, and the body may be sent for a second autopsy to another pathologist for double-checking.
The void that forms in the skull after we have removed brain, filled with rags. Also, rags are placed in all natural openings of the body so that it does not leak. Blood and other fluids may leak. We care about the feelings of the living, so we try to put the body in order.
It is very important to clarify that the hospital must open the body absolutely free of charge, conduct research, then carefully sew everything up, dress it, put it in a normal position so that the body is ready to the burial! If the pathologist or orderlies ask you for money in order to quickly perform an autopsy or clean up the body, this is illegal. Such people try profit from your misfortune and take advantage of the fact that you are in shock.
All other services (posthumous makeup, for example), if any, must be paid only through the hospital cash desk.
8. Are the lungs of a smoker and a non-smoker really different as shown in the pictures?
We all live in industrial cities, and none of us will have pink, fresh lungs, even children. Therefore, in general, if we are not talking about any pathologies, the lungs smoker and a non-smoker, when opened, look approximately the same, not as they show us in the pictures.
We all have lungs of varying degrees of gray.
This does not mean that it makes no difference whether you smoke or not. If at first glance the lungs of a smoker do not differ from the lungs of a non-smoker, this does not mean that they are just as healthy. And if we all live in industrial cities, this does not mean that we are all subject to the same changes in the lungs. Smoking cigarettes, vapes, hookahs and other things have a very negative effect on the functioning of the lungs and can actually provoke illness.
9. What do they most often die from?
From cardiovascular diseases. Moreover, women live longer because they have more estrogen, protecting blood vessels from the formation of atherosclerotic plaques, which can provoke cardiovascular diseases. After menopause, when the level of estrogen in a woman’s body decreases, the number of such diseases increases sharply.
Oncological diseases are in second place in mortality.
10. How long does it take for a body to decompose?
It is impossible to say exactly how quickly the body will disintegrate. Much depends on where, how and from what the person died. If these are some kind of putrefactive processes, then the body begins to decompose faster; if this is, for example, traumatic brain injury, the body decomposes more slowly. If the body was in a humid environment, there will be some changes, for example, the same fat wax that we talked about. If it is dry, mummification is possible, then it will disintegrate more slowly.
Internal organs begin to disintegrate on the first day, so it is important to perform an autopsy as quickly as possible, before necrosis begins.
Following the organs, soft tissues disintegrate, and bones are the last to disintegrate.
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