# Weight loss at time of death **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 20, 2007, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weight-loss-at-time-of-death/416293 "2007-08-20T20:42:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![arcticfox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/47e85d/32.png) [@arcticfox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/arcticfox)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2007, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weight-loss-at-time-of-death/416293/1 "2007-08-20T20:42:02Z")
Does anyone have hard evidence for a sudden weight loss at the time of death? I am not talking about bodily fluids. I am assuming the entire patient is on the scale, fluids and all. The reason I ask is the implication that the soul leaving the body has a mass that can be measured. I have heard the rumors but can’t find any facts in any medical journals to support this claim. I would be grateful if someone could site the source. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2007, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weight-loss-at-time-of-death/416293/2 "2007-08-20T20:47:25Z")
This was the premise of the movie _21 Grams_, or so the trailer would have you believe. I’m in search lockout at the moment, but I’m pretty sure we’ve done this before. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2007, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weight-loss-at-time-of-death/416293/3 "2007-08-20T20:48:47Z")
Ah, yes. Here it is: > **[Weight loss at the moment of death - 21 grams](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=249585)** > > In the movie 21 Grams it is claimed people loss 21 grams at the moment of death. Is there any truth to this? What is is the origin of this belief.? And I do see that you’re a guest, so let me say that I wasn’t trying to be snarky and suggest you should have searched first. I was just trying to save everyone else the search. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2007, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weight-loss-at-time-of-death/416293/4 "2007-08-20T21:01:44Z")
What appears to be [the text of the original paper](http://www.ghostweb.com/soul.html) has been posted on the net in a couple of places. It’s a pretty vague report and hardly what anyone would now consider a well-controlled experiment. (In her _Dying to Live_ (Grafton, 1993, p181), Susan Blackmore gives the reference as MacDougall, D., 1907, “Hypothesis concerning soul substance together with experimental evidence of the existence of such substance”, _Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research_ **I** , 237-44. How this relates to the more commonly cited _American Medicine_ article I don’t know, but I suspect it may be the original report with the latter a reprinting.) ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2007, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weight-loss-at-time-of-death/416293/5 "2007-08-20T21:09:44Z")
[QUOTE=arcticfox] Does anyone have hard evidence for a sudden weight loss at the time of death? I am not talking about bodily fluids. I am assuming the entire patient is on the scale, fluids and all. The reason I ask is the implication that the soul leaving the body has a mass that can be measured. I have heard the rumors but can’t find any facts in any medical journals to support this claim. I would be grateful if someone could site the source. [/QUOTE] Well many would look elsewhere since the existence of a soul has not been recognized by any legitimate medical researcher that I have heard of. ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2007, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weight-loss-at-time-of-death/416293/6 "2007-08-20T21:11:55Z")
[QUOTE=drachillix] Well many would look elsewhere since the existence of a soul has not been recognized by any legitimate medical researcher that I have heard of. [/QUOTE] I think I would amend this to “the ability to create a valid measure of the existence of a soul has not been recognized…” ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2007, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weight-loss-at-time-of-death/416293/7 "2007-08-20T21:25:28Z")
So if the soul has a mass that can be scientifically measured as it leaves at death, then surely the same mass can be measured as it enters the newly-formed body, right? I’m looking for some female volunteers to help with this research… (Really, my funding is coming through any day now… We should go ahead and start rehearsing the experimental procedure now). It’ll take a while to get complete data (say, nine months), but on the positive side, we could solve some important theological debates. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2007, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weight-loss-at-time-of-death/416293/8 "2007-08-20T22:44:48Z")
**Lekatt** should be here in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2007, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weight-loss-at-time-of-death/416293/9 "2007-08-20T23:14:51Z")
Some modern hospital beds have scales built in to them. They weigh in pounds and ounces or kilos and grams. They take some preparation to get an accurate weight, such as being sure the exact same items are on the bed as when it was zeroed. Because the beds are more expensive, they are rarely found outside the ICU. Most times when someone dies in ICU, they are the focus of a great deal of activity for a variable length of time. Things get pulled off the bed, things get added. Fluids come and go. (Ivs in, Blood samples out.) Finding the exact weight of those fluids would be near impossible, since the focus is on quick action to help the person who is trying to die. The idea of weighing someone immediately after death probably doesn’t occur to most healthcare professionals, but it’s possible it has happened. Unfortunately, I doubt the scales are sensitive enough to weigh ectoplasm, or the lack thereof. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2007, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weight-loss-at-time-of-death/416293/10 "2007-08-21T04:43:46Z")
[QUOTE=cher3] I think I would amend this to “the ability to create a valid measure of the existence of a soul has not been recognized…” [/QUOTE] No, \*\*drachillix \*\*had it right. ---
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2007, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weight-loss-at-time-of-death/416293/11 "2007-08-21T04:55:58Z")
[QUOTE=picunurse] The idea of weighing someone immediately after death probably doesn’t occur to most healthcare professionals, but it’s possible it has happened. Unfortunately, I doubt the scales are sensitive enough to weigh ectoplasm, or the lack thereof. [/QUOTE] Hell, my digital scale sometimes reads as much as a pound of difference a matter of seconds later. Without any intervening ingestion or evacuation of material, nor (I hope!) any increase or decrease in my ‘soul-stuff’.