How can a corpse be incorruptible?

Within hours after death, decay usually sets in and the human body begins to rot. However, some human bodies simply don't seem to decompose, and scientists have yet to figure out why. Check out this podcast to learn more about incorruptible corpses.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor Candice Gifts in joint to Day by a
special guest, staff writer Dane McGrath. I can't, of course, Um,

(00:21):
my voice might be a little bit too bubble for
the topic we're about to discuss. Um. Some may call
it profane, some may call it sacred, some may call
it gross. I don't know, but there are some corpses
out there that don't rot. Yeah, it's a it's pretty weird. Um.
It's especially surprising because if you if you look at
how bodies usually decompose, it doesn't take too long for

(00:44):
a body to start showing somewhere and tear, like if
it's well embalming. I guess it's so popular. You don't
want to remember your loved ones rotting away. No, you don't.
And it's funny because after you die, your body is
nagara and it becomes host to hundreds of maggots and
other critters of the insect world. I don't even know

(01:05):
if maggots are insects, but they're gross. They settle in
they especially like really moist cavities, and you know, they
start eating your flesh and things start falling off bones
and you become an unrecognizable mass. That's true. And I
was frequently even with embalming. I remember hearing that even
if a body is embalmed, is the only takes a

(01:26):
year for a body to keep decomposed into a skeleton.
And that's why we either bury are dead, or we
put them in a crypt, or we cremate them so
that we don't have to see it. That's true. I
don't think we want to be reminded now, definitely not.
But there's a mystery in the universe. There's a couple
of corpses that don't rot, like I said, And rather

(01:49):
than look at these things as freaks of nature, the
Church has actually, and I should clarify that the Catholic
Church has pointed out that these are incorruptible bodies, which
is one requisite of being named a saint. And there's
a couple of different ways that you can become a saint.
And currently if I'm wrong, Jay, because I know that
you're more of an expert on this than I am,

(02:10):
but you can either perform a miracle, you can be
exhumed after death, and if your body is still intact.
That's a sign that you're saint. You can commit some
big act of virtue. You can die a martyr, right,
I like these holy people. I think UM prerepresentative I
think is three miracles have to be um shown to
be attributed to you, like during life or after death.

(02:33):
And I think, UM, when they discovered that a lot
of these holy people were being their corpses were rotting,
they found this as one of these types of miracles
attributed to them. So let me make sure I understand this.
After saints were varied either if they perform miracles in
life or they somehow performed miracles after that that were
attributed to them. Their bodies had been interred, but then

(02:55):
they were exhumed. That's right, like they became interested. Especially um.
There have been cases where the grave site has been
known to emit a fragrance, fragrance like flowers or something
like that, or um or miracles happen around the grave site. Though,
so they have exhumed the body and taking a look
at it, and they found that it's actually as as

(03:16):
if it were just falling asleep. And that's so strange
because I wouldn't say that these corpses, some of the
more famous ones, I should say, someone like Saint Sylvan
for instance. So that's yeah, that's a good one. Young
he's on displaying croatia, and he doesn't look as a
fresh as you know, the day he turned eighteen. I'm
sure if he if he did take tanteina, I'm not

(03:37):
sure when he did. I think his skin has taken on,
you know, I slightly like leathery look maybe, and it's
a little bit sallow, but he doesn't look dead. That's
journey doesn't look seventeen hundred years did either. I think
that's how old he is. And it's it's it's pretty
crazy to see. And so the question that a lot
of people are wondering is how could a corpse really

(04:00):
be incorruptible? Is it a matter of miracle? Is it
a matter of science? And there's some instances in which
the scientific community has pointed out this is not a
religious phenomenon, this is sheer scientific fact. We take, for instance,
a group of people buried in Guanahata, Mexico. They were

(04:21):
mummified because the soil there was so salty and dry
that they were essentially sort of embalmed by it. So
it sort of happened by accident, but yeah, definitely by accident.
When people dug them up, they were really confused. They're like,
why are the people say, well preserved? And they're actually
on display. And it's rather unsettling, especially to see the
very very small corpses like the babies and the children.

(04:43):
And then there was another instance of the talent man.
And this man was hanged in Denmark and his body
fell into a peat bog and it's so much intact
that you can even see hairs beer. Isn't that strange?
But and there are instances of corpses like the ones
of the of the Catholic Saints, where there is no

(05:05):
such explanation, like the community of people in Mexico, and uh,
it sort of makes sense to Catholics. It made sense
at least, uh that the idea that bodily corruption, like
your body rotting after you die, is actually a result
of sinfulness. It's a consequence of it. And these people
had such holy lives that they didn't get the consequences

(05:26):
that came with sin. This sort of makes sense with
with Mary, the Mary, mother of Jesus, who is supposed
to be a virgin and sinless all through her life. Um,
Catholics believe that, like Elijah in the Old Testament, God
sort of assumed her into Heaven, sort of like a
go directly to Heaven card, you know, don't pass go.

(05:48):
So it would make sense that Catholics would dig up
these holy people and see that they're not um corrupting
at all and attribute it to a holy life of
not sinning. So when they exhume the corpses, they're fully
expecting to see that their bodies are intact, and it's
a very reverent process. And after the saints were found

(06:11):
intact and they were discovered to be incorruptible, a lot
of them are placed in reliquaries on display. Sure you
can go there. You can go to churches in Europe
and see either whole saints or pieces of saints. Actually,
that's where it gets a little bit odd to me,
this pieces of saint thing. Um, I guess there's so
many people out there who would want to see a

(06:34):
saint who's incorrupted and continues to be of a fleshly
being that they dismembered them and sent them to different
churches so you can see like a part of a
saint here maybe another limb here. And these are also
enclosed in reliquaries. It's not like you go in and
they hand you a hand. That would be rather off putting,

(06:55):
and that's not the case. And when you look at
some of the saints, and we have a couple of
pictures in our article about it, and there's certainly many
more out there that you can see Um. Again, think
we mentioned before with St. Selvin. They aren't always alive
and well. And there are some scandals around the idea
of the incorruptible saying, because some churches have gone so

(07:17):
far as to cover their bodies with wax or to
go ahead and embolve in them anyway, they make sure
to preserve them and that gets a little bit troublesome too,
because if you're preserving a saint, are you somehow doubting
that will continue to be incorruptible. Yeah, I think the
Catholic churches started to be very skeptical of these um

(07:38):
of these reports that that it is a work of
God that they're incorruptible, just because their instances where um
saints have been exhumed, and at first they seem like
they have not been in corrupting but as soon as
they get exhumed, they start corrupting very quickly, and so
they they attributed to the way that they were buried
or the the the casket that was containing them. So

(07:59):
isn't a matter of what people want to believe or
the historical precedence for mommification versus embalming. And is it
that religion is changing in our world's day and people
want to see this evidence a little bit of everything.
That's a really tough question and answer myself. There's one
saint in particular who just fascinates me and not St. Bernadette,

(08:20):
And she was born in France to a very humble family,
and she was very sick all of her life. I'm
talking everything from tuberculosis to colora, to asthma, to digestive trouble.
I mean, you name it, she had it. And she
was asked to enter nunnery and someone argued that she
shouldn't even be there because she was, how they put it,

(08:41):
going to be a pillar of the infirmary. And it's
true she was there all the time. You know, like
the kid in your class, he was always asking to
go see the nurse because he just sniffly knows you're
scratching me always something. She was always in there, and
the actual idea of an imperfect body I mean no,
definitely not, you know, riddled with sickness and disease. And
I think she was actually read her last sacraments three

(09:02):
times and she finally died, and her corpse turned out
to be incorruptible. And what's more, she had visions from
the Virgin Mary supposedly that there was a spring, a
healing and holy spring near this grotto, and she was
able to direct people toward it. And I think that's
where her body is enshrined today. Is that right? I

(09:25):
think it is in France. I don't think it's in
the town of Lords, but the spring is there in
Lords today, um where people go there to this day.
They take pilgrimage to it and they take the water
with them, and the water is said to have healing
powers and of itself. So it's a part of history
that lives on even though these corpses don't but kind

(09:46):
of look like they do. It's very interesting topic. And
one thing that's interesting to me is the idea that
these incorruptible corpses are sometimes supposed to emit very nice
smells and I find that really interesting. Um that. And
at one point, um a saint actually, when he was exhumed,
they cut off his finger and it bled um as

(10:07):
if as if it were a living body. And it's
just a science. You know. They can't not yet at least,
they can't explain all of this. And it's pretty miraculous
to say at least. And well, I actually know I
have two incorruptibles who turned out to be quite corruptible. Um.
The first Maximilian revs. Pierre, a semi hero turned villain

(10:30):
of the French Revolution. He was called the Incorruptible, and
he turned out to be um sort of a warmonger
and put many many, many thous and the people could
dad under the hands of the guillotine. And then there's
the fictional Harvey Dent, who didn't turn out to be
as incorruptible as everyone thought. He did, the golden Boy
of Gotham City. Uh, it turned a bitter when he
lost his love and faith. Oh, Harvey Dunn, it's not

(10:54):
so incorruptible after all. Well. You can read even more
about incorruptible courts as and other topics on how Stuff
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