At a funeral last weekend, my family was wondering how the body stayed so chilly. My dad pointed out that a bottle of water with the same mass, after spending a day out in a room, should be approaching room temperature.
But the body stayed icy to the touch.
We weren’t in the room the whole time… perhaps the body is put into a refrigerator between viewings? Or, as my brother suggested, maybe the embalming fluids have a chilling chemical reaction?
In any case, I promised to take that question to a forum where it wouldn’t be considered quite as inappropriate. So here I am…
First of all, you are not supposed to feel up the corpse. They are to look at and not touch. They hate that and it messes up their makeup.
Second, the perception of an extra-cold corpse is an illusion to the feeler. You can observe the same effect if you or someone you know has poor circulation in their hands of feet. Has someone like that ever grabbed you under your shirt when you weren’t expecting it or put their feet against you in bed? If so, you will get the exact same sensation even though their hands or feet are still above room temperature.
The body seems cold because you expect it to be living and thus warm.
Embalming fluid may naturally remain cold when in the corpse which acts as an insulator. Typically, morgues are kept fairly cold (I believe to keep bodies from decomposing) and everything there would likely be cold as well. A plastic bottle of water doesn’t have several inches of fat/insulator around it and will thus acclimate to the surrounding temperature faster even if it was of a similar size as the body. I don’t think the embalming fluids are anything other than room temperature, however, they would be room temperature from the place they were put in.
I believe, but am not sure, that during the wake that the bodies are kept in a cold room (to also help prevent decomposition) before the viewing is done. This further maintains the temperature of the body to the colder degree.
Perception of temperature deals with both the actual temperature of an item and it’s conductivity of heat. A steel ball bearing will feel colder to the hand then a rubber superball, because the steel conducts the heat of the hand away faster than the rubber. Maybe the body is a decent conductor of heat, and we just don’t notice because it’s also typically not at room temperature?
Maybe this was an unusual funeral… touching the body was encouraged. I can’t really decide if that’s sweet in a morbid sort of way, or sweet in a morbid sort of way. That would go to IMHO.
Back to the question -
This wasn’t the time or place to do good science, but we were all quite sure that the skin was objectively cooler than the smooth sides of the coffin, and well below room temperature. Something clearly was being done to maintain a cool temp.
Dramatic deaths such as suicides and children dying before the parents often have the parents expressing their grief and crying over/touching the child/suicide victem.
In my experience, relatively freshly deceased people, pre-embalming, not in funeral homes, feel distinctly cool to the touch. About as cool as embalmed corpses in funeral homes. While bodies in funeral homes are refrigerated, and that may contribute to the perception, I really think, as mentioned above, that the expectation of how warm a human ought to feel is the biggest part of it.
Have you ever touched unrefrigerated meat? Or better, touched jello?
Seriously. If you leave jello out, it doesn’t cool down to room temperature. It gets even colder because of evaporation. The same is true of a simple pan of water (but you can stop this by putting a drop of oil on the water, or by greasing up the lump of jello.)
I bet the skin on a dead body doesn’t halt evaporation, so the whole body cools down below room temperature. Hey, you could test this at your next unconventional funeral: blast one dead hand with a fan while putting a mitten on the other hand. After an hour see which hand feels colder! Or to keep a corpse from cooling below room temperature, give it a coating of oil.
Embalming fluid is mostly formaldehyde, which I understand is a solution containing alcohol and water. Sounds like it has lower boiling point than water, which means more evaporative cooling.
I should also point out that anything with high thermal conductivity (e.g. metal and liquid) feels cold to the touch. It may be room temperature but it’s still cooler than your body temperature, and the high thermal conductivity means it sucks more heat off your hand than air does.
Indeed. But I’ve been brought up in the countryside, so perhaps people there have a more traditionnal approach of death and funerals. It could be different in cities, where death is possibly more “concealed”.
It must be like ceramic tile stealing heat from your hand when touched, but when you think about it, why should it??? Hasn’t it been exposed to ambient air long enough to have reached thermal equilibrium with the air? Especially consider a case where a ceramic tile floor does NOT have a cold, cement sub-flooring beneathe it to act as a heat-sink. Why? Does the ceramic tile ever reach thermal equilibrium? - Jinx
i touched my dad when he passed away last month and it helped me with the grief but it was very very very odd the feel of his hand and forehead. very sad
For all of my relatives and close family friends that died at home or in the hospital, the final hand holding seemed almost a requirement from deep within me. Our family, though, has never had an open casket funeral. We all get cremated and have a “memorial service.” Not a religious requirement, just a family way.
At all of the open casket funerals I have attended in recent memory, not once did I see anyone touch the body. But, like I said, different areas, different codes. And I don’t think I ever attended a pre or post funeral viewing, so I can’t comment on that.
When saying goodbye in my heart to a deceased friend or relative, the last thing on my mind was tactile sensation. But that’s just me. I’m not implying anything about anybody.
Or to keep a corpse from cooling below room temperature, give it a coating of oil.