by Tanada » Fri 07 Aug 2009, 17:42:59
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ferretlover', '&')quot;Cash for corpses" -that is funny!
Do we have any funeral directors or public health people here? My question: If a human or animal dies of something that is, at some time in its existence contagious, and the body is buried sans coffin, how likely is it that the contagion can be picked up by later using that soil, or, by drinking the groundwater?
Funerals and coffins are very expensive, often costing thousands of dollars. When people decide that burials are a good DIY project, how might this affect people and animals nearby?
If you add something to the body to kill off all the germs, microbes, fungi and bacteria then let the soil bacteria do the decomposing it won't be a problem. I would recommend ethanol as your preservative/disinfectant. Currently embalming fluid does the trick, but it usually has a lot of formaldehyde in it as the disinfectant/preservative. Ethanol if used as an embalming agent rids the body of almost all disease agents, however it has a very profound dehydrating effect making the flesh shrink up and the deceased person to look emaciated, which is why they switched many years ago to Formaldehyde solution mixtures.
If you are going high tech you could use a radiation source like an X-Ray tube or a Cobalt-60 capsule to kill off everything and bury the deceased disease free without embalming at all. Guaranteed the soil bacteria will start breaking those ones down soon after burial, the ethanol embalmed ones will decay more slowly until all of the ethanol is broken down by oxidation.
If you want to know if I know what I am talking about PM me FL.