FREEZING HUMAN BODIES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1053, 11 January 1883, Page 3

FREEZING HUMAN BODIES.

The St. James' Budget describe! the manner in which in France they preserve dead bodies for the pu-pjse of identification. Every corpse that is taken to the morgue is now quickly converted into a block almost as hard as atone. The result is obtained by Carre's chemical refrigerator, which is enable of reducing tbe temperature of the gruesomo ' co:ißervut'ry,' where each body h laid out on something c'oeely resembling a camp bedstead in stone, to 15 degrees below zero centrigrade. At the back of this salle is a row of stove-like compartments in whioh tbe corpses are boxed up and frozen hard before being exposed to public view. As an illu 1 - tration of the intense cold thus artificially Becured, a Paris journalist, in describing a recent visit to the morgue, fays that in opening one of the compartments the attendant took the precaution to wear a glove, lest' bis hand should be burnt by contact with the cold iron.' The corpse which was taken out of its receptacle had been there nine boure; The doctor who accompanied the visitor struck tbe dead man on tbe breast with a stick, aud the found was just as if he had struck a stone. 'C'esb effrayant!' aids tliia descriptive writer, 'My guide,' he continues ' told me that the corpaos once frozen at this temperature will stand erect upon their feet, and should they fall down they do not sustain the slightest scratch. But tbe noise is like that of a marble chimney-piece crashing down upon the floor.' During the experiments which preceded the adoption of the new system, corpses in this frozen Btate were actually thrown out ; but although they made un fracus terrible they were ' not in the least damaged.' No wonder that the morgue has become more than ever in attractiveness one of the ' eights of Pari?,' and that the munciis seriously contemplating the conduction of a larger building for the accommodation of its unclaimed dead.