4 ms·
I'm surprised that none of them found it more effective to simply wait a day or two before burying someone who had fallen unconscious for no obvious reason.
by Natsu 11y ago
I'm surprised that none of them found it more effective to simply wait a day or two before burying someone who had fallen unconscious for no obvious reason.
- A_Beer_Clinked 11y agoYou don't want a body lying around for a few days spreading whatever they died off. Apparently plague victims were often buried in haste.
- cstross 11y agoThese practices predate refrigeration, antibiotics, and -- believe it or not -- the stethoscope (which in its recognizable binaural modern form only dates to the 1850s, and took some years to catch on after being invented). With no easy way to detect a weak heartbeat, you don't want to leave corpses lying around unrefrigerated in summer!
- TeMPOraL 11y agoI'm surprised as well; as far as I know, in many places around the world it was standard practice for people in villages to have a dedicated room in which a body would be stored for ~4 days before the burial, to make sure the person is actually dead. That technique was widely known for many centuries, if not millenia.
- kibibu 11y agoOr just go straight to cremation