He won the competition and his definition of “clinical death” stuck, eventually to be immortalised in films, books and popular wisdom. He suggested using the newly invented stethoscope to listen for a heartbeat – if the doctor didn’t hear anything for two minutes, they could be safely buried. Eugène Bouchut figured that if a person’s heart had stopped beating, they were surely dead. Then in 1846, the Academy of Sciences in Paris launched a competition for “'the best work on the signs of death and the means of preventing premature burials” and a young doctor tried his luck. Suffice to say, the medical establishment wasn’t convinced about any of them. Elsewhere, the most reliable methods included yelling a patient’s name (if the patient ignored them three times, they were dead) or thrusting mirrors under their noses to see if they fogged up. In 19th Century France there were 30 theories about how to tell if someone had passed away – including attaching pincers to their nipples and putting leeches in their bottom. Identifying the dead has never been easy. How is this possible? Why does this happen? And how do doctors know they’re really dead? Their medical costs are astronomical ( up to $217,784 for just a few weeks), but with a bit of luck and a lot of help, today it’s possible for the body to survive for months – or in rare cases, decades – even though it’s technically dead. These are the beating heart cadavers brain-dead corpses with functioning organs and a pulse. They can blush and sweat – they can even have babies.Īnd yet, according to most legal definitions and the vast majority of doctors these patients are thoroughly, indisputably deceased. They can have heart attacks, catch a fever and suffer from bedsores. Their bodies don’t decompose and they are warm to the touch their stomachs rumble, their wounds heal and their guts can digest food.
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