October 28th, 2012

biomedicalephemera:

Removal and dissection of spinal cord in postmortem examination.

The spinal cord is rarely a point of fine-tuned focus in postmortem examinations, since the primary reason one would die that relates to it is a complete severing. As a severed spinal cord is generally fairly obvious, the nerve bundles don’t require close inspection. However, in full autopsies and criminal investigations, the spinal cord is generally closely inspected, especially if no other cause of death is found.

Postmortem Pathology. Henry L. Cattell, 1906.

(via biomedicalephemera)

1,244 notes Source: biomedicalephemera #postmortem#pathology#anatomy#dissection#human body#spinal cord#Henry W. Cattell#1900s#1906#death#corpse#forensics
April 6th, 2012
theossuary: In the late 1990s, a perfectly preserved Spanish flu victim from the 1918 pandemic was exhumed. Read more about it at Science Daily: In a mass grave in a remote Inuit village near the town of Brevig Mission, a large Inuit woman lay buried under more than six feet of ice and dirt for more than 75 years. The permafrost plus the woman’s ample fat stores kept the virus in her lungs so well preserved that when a team of scientists exhumed her body in the late 1990s, they could recover enough viral RNA to sequence the 1918 strain in its entirety. This remarkable good fortune enabled these scientists to open a window onto a past pandemic—and perhaps gain a foothold for preventing a future one. (Image: “Compulsory mask, brought in to combat the flu epidemic after the World War, 1918-1919,” by Sam Hood. State Library of New South Wales.)

theossuary:

In the late 1990s, a perfectly preserved Spanish flu victim from the 1918 pandemic was exhumed. Read more about it at Science Daily:

In a mass grave in a remote Inuit village near the town of Brevig Mission, a large Inuit woman lay buried under more than six feet of ice and dirt for more than 75 years. The permafrost plus the woman’s ample fat stores kept the virus in her lungs so well preserved that when a team of scientists exhumed her body in the late 1990s, they could recover enough viral RNA to sequence the 1918 strain in its entirety. This remarkable good fortune enabled these scientists to open a window onto a past pandemic—and perhaps gain a foothold for preventing a future one.

(Image: “Compulsory mask, brought in to combat the flu epidemic after the World War, 1918-1919,” by Sam Hood. State Library of New South Wales.)

99 notes Source: Flickr / statelibraryofnsw #1918#corpse#dead body#epidemiology#exhumation#flu#influenza#inuit#mask#medicine#preservation#science#spanish flu#disease#feats