Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
6
Distillations
The smell . . . was most closely aligned with musk, yet the impression upon the olfactory organs was
more delicate, more subtle.
—A. B. Isham, MD, professor of materia medica, 1875
The moment a person dies, the body starts to decompose, although different cells decompose
at different rates. Billions of the trillions of cells in the body that had been chugging along
just moments before, mindlessly doing their duty to both conscious and unconscious bodily
functions, give up and collectively exhale. The process begins, researchers believe, the mo-
ment the heart stops beating. Something incredibly light leaves the body, diffusing almost
instantly.
After that, some things go fast and others slowly. Even organs die and decompose at dif-
ferent rates. Hair is one of the last things to go, bones after that, and teeth, which seem so
vulnerable while we're alive, hang on forever. This is called the taphonomic process. Bodies
Search WWH ::




Custom Search