5 Things You Didn’t Know About Death

5 Things You Didn’t Know & May Not Want To Know About Death

Death scares us for a host of reasons, but it’s chiefly terrifying for its unknowable quality — any kind of change makes us nervous. But death doesn’t have to be such a grave affair. Recently, Mary Roach wrote what is possibly the most entertaining and hilarious book ever written on death and dead bodies (and a major source for information in this piece), entitled Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. In morgues and cemeteries around the world, mention of this book is greeted with a profound and respectful moment of silence.

From this and other sources, we present: 5 things you didn’t know about death.

1- Funeral homes make a killing

As a human being, you need help coming into this world but you don’t really need any help leaving it. The rest of us would rather you picked up after yourself, however, and since the Grim Reaper’s too lazy to do it, the mortuary and funeral home businesses step in. And by all accounts, they make a killing.

Often embroiled in controversy for aggressive up-selling, for taking advantage of the vulnerability of mourners and for pulling the ol’ “cardboard casket switcheroo,” funeral homes rarely file for bankruptcy, and enjoy a failure rate of about 1% — the lowest of any industry in the United States.

2- Death is great for male enhancement

Another thing you didn’t know about death is that Smilin’ Bob at Enzyte has got nothing on death’s effect on male cadavers.

During decomposition, areas of the body where heavy amounts of bacteria are known to gather have the tendency to bloat severely, notably the mouth, stomach and yes, even the genitalia, where the effects often startle the unprepared. Not only does the penis swell to a size that would make John Holmes feel inadequate, but the testicles have been known to bloat into softballs.

Of course this post-mortem enhancement can’t really help you land a role in a ClubJenna production, but neither can the modern-day snake oil known as male enhancement pills.

3- Tobacco enemas once determined death

The fact that death, comas and even sleep look so alike has likely cost more than a few people their lives. Traditionally, medicine has had a hard time determining when, exactly, death has taken place. Today, many legal definitions rely on the absence of brain activity, and prior to that, doctors relied on the stethoscope’s ability to hear the heart. Before that, they employed various methods, all with the same goal: cause such extraordinary pain or discomfort that any person not dead would surely pop to life (and in some cases, have a serious new health problem to deal with). They included:

• A tobacco enema that used a mechanism similar to a bagpipe
• Pouring scalding hot wax onto the forehead
• Slicing the bottom of the feet with razors
• Sticking long needles behind toenails
• Jamming a red-hot poker up the behind
• Pulling on the tongue, using a machine that would do it for hours

4- Some deaths save

According to figures published in the The Journal of Trauma in 1995, an estimated 8,500 lives have been saved every year since the late 1980s thanks to the work of crash test cadavers. These brave, dead volunteers have been exposed to unimaginable injuries in controlled vehicle crashes — injuries many argue would otherwise have been meant for you and me — aiding in the development of safer seat belts, air bags, windshields, crumple zones, and more.

5- Sometimes there is life after death

The last thing you didn’t know about death is that you can be dead and still be a high priority hospital patient.

So-called “beating-heart cadavers” are legally dead, but you would never know it; their flesh is pink and fresh, they have a pulse, and they reside in a hospital’s intensive care unit, where the staff is required to perform CPR and other life-saving procedures should life support systems fail for whatever reason. Beating-heart cadavers are kept in this state for one reason — their organs are scheduled for harvesting, and, thus, they are given the utmost respect.