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Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
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West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.
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Dead bodies pose no epidemic threat, say experts |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Friday, 07 January 2005 |
January 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Debora MacKenzie
As the horrifying death toll of the south east Asian tsunami continues to mount, the affected countries are facing a macabre problem: what to do with thousands of dead bodies. In Sri Lanka and Indonesia, many are reported to have been dumped in mass graves, with the aim of preventing disease.
But scientists say that, contrary to popular belief, bodies do not pose a risk of infectious disease. The mass graves, however, could simply worsen the suffering of survivors.
The tsunami is now feared to have caused more than 150,000 deaths, mainly in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. The World Health Organization is warning that cholera, dysentery, malaria and other infectious diseases could kill a further 150,000 homeless survivors who lack clean water, food or sanitation.
But they do not expect such diseases to come from unburied bodies - diseases and putrefaction are caused by different microorganisms.
Dying infections
"Someone who died without cholera isn't suddenly going to generate it," says Jean-Luc Poncelet of the Pan-American Health Organization, a WHO regional organisation, which in September 2004 published a scientific review of the health risks posed by bodies after disasters (New Scientist print edition, 2 October 2004). Even in people who died with infections, he says, the germ also dies quickly, certainly after several days of decomposition.
"People repeat so often that bodies have to be disposed of to protect public health, that people assume it must be true," says Oliver Morgan, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
This causes problems, Morgan says, when disposing of bodies takes resources away from survivors - as when hospital wards are converted into morgues, as has been reported in Sri Lanka.
Dead bodies can release faecal bacteria into water, which can cause problems if people drink the water. But removing dead bodies will not stop this: flooded sewers and the living release also faecal bacteria, usually in closer proximity to survivors. Better, says Poncelet, to concentrate on getting clean water to the living.
Emotional trauma
Meanwhile, mass graves cause their own problems. "Dumping them in pits is the worst possible practice," says Roger Yates, head of emergency relief for the charity Action Aid. "It's a bad thing. It happens every single time and causes enormous emotional trauma later on," he told New Scientist from Chennai in southern India.
"In human terms, certainly no one wants bodies lying around. They should be collected," he adds. But if bodies are simply dumped in mass graves relatives never know what happened to their loved ones, which can also cause long-term distress.
And in countries where survivors are paid compensation, such as India, people cannot get it without an identified body and death certificate. After the El Salvador earthquake of 2001, says Yates, mass graves had to be exhumed for this reason.
The message is starting to get across, Yates says. In relatively prosperous Thailand, bodies are being buried with identifying tags in ways that allow later recovery, and tissue samples are being frozen for DNA analysis.
"That is not realistic elsewhere," says Yates. "But people can at least be photographed, and identifying marks such as rings or tattoos recorded." In Sri Lanka, bodies are reportedly fingerprinted and photographed before mass burial, but in Indonesia, military teams are reported to be simply bulldozing bodies into pits.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6849 |
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Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Quote Repository
“Even at our birth, death does but stand aside a little. And every day he looks towards us and muses somewhat to himself whether that day or the next he will draw nigh.” Robert Bolt
Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
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