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Topic: Adipocere - Nature's Plastination (Read 16079 times) |
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Hermit
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Adipocere - Nature's Plastination
« on: 2006-08-24 06:12:03 » |
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I have visited - and enthused upon - the Body World exhibition, and will be taking some others to see the Minneapolis exhibition sometime soon, so I did a google search for it: Google.
Looking at the entries, I found this site: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread63414/pg1 with the following fascinating text and image:
Quote:
This is an interesting topic! I was unaware of these procedures...
It seems only natural that after we see the incredible preservation of mummies that man would desrie to duplicate and improve upon it...
In forensic pathology, it is common to come across "adipocere" - let me quote from a book I have for the exact definition..."Occasionally, a decomposing body will undergo transformation to adipocere. Adipocere is a firm, greyish-white to brown wax-like material composed of oleic, palmitic, and stearic acids. It is produced by conversion of neutral fats during putrefaction to the aforementioned acids....It is seen most commonly in bodies immersed in water or in damp, warm environments. Adipocere is said to take several months to develop, though development can be as short as several weeks. It is relatively resistant to both bateriologic and chemical degradation."
This this little girl died in 1902, and her casket was reopened, for some reason or another, in 1995.
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I'm sure I don't have to explain that this is not what a century old corpse usually looks like.
Also links courtesy of the above site, some impressive Body World images can be seen at:
http://www.koerperwelten.com/Downloads/Wallpaper_Highlander_800x600.jpg
http://www.koerperwelten.com/Downloads/Wallpaper_Hacker_800x600.jpg
http://www.koerperwelten.com/Downloads/Wallpaper_Basketb_800x600.jpg
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Adipocere - Nature's Plastination
« Reply #1 on: 2009-07-08 21:49:22 » |
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Adipocere may or may not act to preserve bodies effectively, and may or may not be involved in the remarkable preservation of this child's corpse, but I suspect that the primary reason that this body does not look like a century old corpse is that she was in fact carefully embalmed and the corpse preserved. The article I quoted apparently contains numerous inaccuracies.
Her name was Rosalia Lombardo. Wikipedia has an interesting article about her including this picture (infra).
Rosalia Lombardo was an Italian child born in 1918 in Palermo, Sicily. She died on December 6 1920. It is thought that she died from a case of pneumonia. Rosalia's father was sorely grieved upon her death that he approached Dr. Alfredo Salafia, a noted embalmer, to preserve her[1]. She was one of the last corpses to be admitted to the Capuchin catacombs of Palermo in Sicily.
Embalming
Thanks to Dr. Salafia's embalming techniques, the body has been well-preserved. X-rays of the body show that the organs are remarkably intact[2]. The child appears as if she were only sleeping, hence receiving the name "Sleeping Beauty", though due to the discoloration that has become more pronounced in the years following her preservation, it is quite obvious she is deceased. Rosalia Lombardo's body is kept in a small chapel at the end of the catacomb's tour and is encased in a glass covered coffin, placed on a marble pedestal.
Technique
Recently the mummification techniques used by Dr. Alfredo Salafia were rediscovered in a handwritten memoir of Salafia's. Dr. Salafia replaced the girls blood with a liquid made of formalin to kill bacteria, alcohol to dry the body, glycerin to keep her from overdrying, salicylic acid to kill fungi, and the most important ingredient, zinc salts to give the body rigidity[3][4][5]. [i] [ Hermit : Very similar to the techniques developed contemporaneously in the Argentine and Russia and used on Lenin and Evita Peron's bodies ].
References
1. National Geographic magazine, Feb 2009, p.124
2. National Geographic magazine, Feb 2009, p.150
3. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090126-sicily-mummy.html
4. http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,623616,00.html
5. Piombino-Mascali D, Aufderheide AC, Johnson-Williams M, Zink AR (March 2009). "The Salafia method rediscovered". Virchows Arch. 454 (3): 355–7. doi:10.1007/s00428-009-0738-6. PMID 19205728.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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