FYI: How Do You Keep A Dead Political Leader Fresh For Public Viewing?
Hugo Chavez Wikimedia CommonsThe corpse of Hugo Chavez is on display for a week. The death of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has been met with mixed feelings here in the US. But he was adored in his country, at least by those who didn't despise him, so after his death, his vice-president, Nicolas Maduro, stated that his body would be embalmed "like Lenin and Mao Zedong," and displayed for a week. But how do you display a body for an entire week? The Ugliness of Death Decomposition begins from the second of death in human bodies. The first stage of decomposition, called the "fresh" stage, begins when the heart stops beating. Blood stops pumping to the extremities and settles due to gravity, causing the skin to become bluish-purple. After a few hours, rigor mortis kicks in. At the same time, the body begins the process of autolysis, in which pH changes in the...