15 Bizarre Things People Did With Corpses

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7 – How He Died,

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  • The Shroud of Turin is a sacred Christian artefact that the church believes to be the burial shroud of Jesus and it has been the subject of a lot of debate, regarding its authenticity and in one case, how Jesus spent his final hours.
  • Frederick Thomas Zugibe used the shroud to study how Jesus died, but he didn’t only use the shroud, he also got in volunteers and strapped them to a cross.
  • Of course that’s not all he did, he also used corpses and did a more authentic replication of Jesus’s crucifixion.

6 – One Last Snap,

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  • When photography was made cheaper than portraiture in the Victorian era a lot of the lower classes ended up getting a chance to get their likeness preserved beyond their own mortality.
  • But some people took this idea to the next extreme, deciding to take pictures of the recently departed, all dressed up and seated carefully, sometimes they were attempts to make them look lifelike.
  • This was most common with children, as infant mortality was still incredibly high with no small thanks to the fact that most Victorians believed that smell and not germs was what spread disease.

5 – Mummy Medicine,

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  • Speaking of the crappy medicine of yesteryear, mummies really had a hard time with it all, the frankly arcane aspects of medicine had many of them suffering well beyond what they should have to endure.
  • For some reason people thought that it was a good idea to grind up Egyptian mummies and turn them into a ‘medicine’, as they thought the bodies turning black was caused by a large amount of asphaltum.
  • In reality the blackening was caused by the process of decay and besides all of that asphaltum has no medicinal properties.

4 – Sold into Marriage,

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  • While arranged marriages were much more popular in the old days they’re still very much practiced to this day throughout the world, although not so much in western countries.
  • The classic line in the vows is ‘til’ death does us part’ but this isn’t so with all weddings, there are cases when it’s practiced with one or more of the participants being dead, that’s right some people are currently married to a corpse.
  • This is mostly done in China, but it’s been found very much world-wide, including countries like France.
  • It’s not done for shits and giggles or dare I say an unholy love, it’s actually done with the same reasoning behind arranged marriages, to wed two different families and to exchange dowries and land.

3 – Frankenstein,

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  • You probably groaned inwardly when you heard me say that name, just waiting with dread for me to get it wrong, don’t worry I know Frankenstein was actually the beloved puppy of the scientist.
  • Anyways, onto a more serious topic, George Forster was found to be guilty of killing his wife and child, although later examination of the trial deems it unfair, he was sentenced to death by hanging.
  • After his death his body was given to the scientist Giovani Aldini for experimentation, Aldini was interested in something called galvanisation, to which he applied onto Forster.
  • Galvanisation is just another term for ‘zap the shit out of that body’ which he did, as he did to others, his corpse was described as having a quivering jaw, contorting muscles, a clenched fist and an opened eye.

2 – Snow White,

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  • This picture turned up on the internet a while ago, where a teen mother is holding her presumed miscarried, underdeveloped daughters long gone corpse and posting it on Facebook in a Snow White costume.
  • It’s hard to tell if she’s in massive denial or not, or she’s just really not taking it well, but either way it’s one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever come across.
  • Obviously it’s also incredibly depressing, nothing in that picture speaks of someone who’s of her right mind, but hopefully she’s feeling better about the whole thing now, or is at the very least getting the help she needs.

1 – Corpse Pants

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  • Now to lighten the mood back up, what say you to some fancy leather pants, what kind of leather you ask? Well only the best kind, as the previous skin owner has to give permission for his skin to be used.
  • This is an Icelandic tradition where you flay the skin of a permissive dead, put on his, yes it has to be a guy, skin and place a coin from a stolen widow in the bollix along with this magical sign.
  • When you’re done you’ve got a magical scrotum that will always have money in it, but in order to take the pants off you need to convince someone else to overtake the pants and step into each leg as the other person climbs out.
  • If you do it right you’ll keep the money-gathering nature going on for generations! If you can find something more bizarre than a magic corpse pants with money giving scrotums I’ll be amazed.

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