What Diseases Could You Get From A Corpse?

[Carryon]

I read about a mortician who didn’t use proper embalming techniques and caught TB from the deceased he was preparing.

What kind of diseases stick around long enough so if someone died from it, you could dig it up say a year or longer and still might be able to get it, if you say handled the corpse.

And no, I don’t need an answer quickly

[Sigene]

compelled to note user name/thread topic.

good job…I think…

[Poysyn]

I seem to recall Ebola can be transmitted that way, so proper disposal is really important. If that is outdated, I am sure someone will correct me.

[gnoitall]

My guess (uneducated) is “whatever communicable diseases the deceased had, if the vector is still practical for a dead person.”

A disease with airborne transmission needs a living victim to cough, sneeze, etc. to aerosolize the pathogen. Corpses don’t do that.

A pathogen that spreads by fluid contact would still be a risk, since a fresh corpse still has infected body fluids. (Hence the terrible spread of ebola in West Africa recently, partly blamed on funerary practices that encouraged the family to put themselves in contact with the decedent’s infected body fluids.)

[Walken_After_Midnight]

This page on the excavation of human remains within crypts and burial vaults lists the dangers of following diseases: “smallpox scabs, anthrax, cholera, bubonic plague, relapsing fever & typhys”.

[Sigene]

I’m also aware that old (1918) frozen corpses in the tundra caused concern for bringing back serious influenza viruses. I don’t know if that was resolved to be true or not

[ZipperJJ]

Ick. Cooties, for sure.

[grude]

Wasn’t there concern about long dead bodies, or preserved tissue samples of smallpox deaths still carrying live virus?

In March 2004 smallpox scabs were found tucked inside an envelope in a book on Civil War medicine in Santa Fe, New Mexico.[88] The envelope was labeled as containing scabs from a vaccination and gave scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention an opportunity to study the history of smallpox vaccination in the U.S.

In July 2014 several vials of smallpox were discovered in an FDA laboratory at the National Institutes of Health location in Bethesda, Maryland.[89]

Smallpox

Some viruses and bacteria that form spores can survive a shockingly long time, canine parvovirus can survive 7 years in soil and reinfect new dogs.

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

@Sigene

I’m also aware that old (1918) frozen corpses in the tundra caused concern for bringing back serious influenza viruses. I don’t know if that was resolved to be true or not

I believe that was the intended purpose – they wanted to find actual samples of the 1918 influenza virus for study. As I understand it, there are no actual samples available to use modern test methods on, and scientists don’t really know what strain if influenza that was or why it was so virulent.

[TriPolar]

@ZipperJJ

Ick. Cooties, for sure.

And a serious case of the creeps.

[Kenm]

@t-bonham@scc.net

As I understand it, there are no actual samples available to use modern test methods on, and scientists don’t really know what strain if influenza that was or why it was so virulent.

According to this Wiki article, it was found in 1998. Further work was done during the 20-oughts, and “On October 5, 2005[URL=“http://www.netipedia.com/index.php/2005”] researchers announced that the genetic sequence of the 1918 flu strain had been reconstructed using historic tissue samples.”

In February 1998, The Molecular Pathology Division of the US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) recovered samples of the 1918 influenza from the frozen corpse of a Native Alaskan woman buried for nearly eight decades in permafrost near Brevig Mission, Alaska. Brevig Mission lost approximately 85% of its population to the Spanish flu in November 1918. One of the four recovered samples contained viable genetic material of the virus.

[Kobal2]

Since prions are their own weird form of protein un-life , I’m guessing you can get Kreuzfeld-Jacob and/or Kuru from a corpse that’s not old enough for the brain to have turned to mush - or a well-preserved (i.e. flash frozen) one.

Of course, you’d also have to *eat *that brain. So you’d have to be already a sick, sick man :).

[nearwildheaven]

Anthrax spores stick around for quite a long time, which is why it’s a potential bioweapon.

Yellow fever can also be transmitted postmortem, for the same reason Ebola can be - the various bodily discharges are loaded with live virus.

“Childbed fever” (puerperal sepsis) can also be transmitted after death.

[markn_1]

@Kobal2

Since prions are their own weird form of protein un-life , I’m guessing you can get Kreuzfeld-Jacob and/or Kuru from a corpse that’s not old enough for the brain to have turned to mush - or a well-preserved (i.e. flash frozen) one.

Of course, you’d also have to *eat *that brain. So you’d have to be already a sick, sick man :).

I believe kuru can be transmitted by merely handling an infected brain, if you have open cuts or sores on your hands. So always wear gloves while you’re dismembering corpses.

OMG, is this the world’s worst brand name?

–Mark

[NinjaChick]

I imagine it depends on how old the corpse is. Still above room temperature? Probably anything you could catch were they not dead.

The following contains an anecdote taken from a newspaper published in 1880 about disease spreading from a corpse: it sounds like a lot like the poor guy contracted gas gangrene. It’s a morbidly interesting read but if you are squeamish at all about things like, well, gas gangrene, or twisting the head off a corpse, you probably want to give this one a pass. Proceed with caution.

[Siam_Sam]

@ZipperJJ

Ick. Cooties, for sure.

I wouldn’t be caught dead with a necrophiliac.

[Harvey_The_Heavy]

@Kobal2

Since prions are their own weird form of protein un-life , I’m guessing you can get Kreuzfeld-Jacob and/or Kuru from a corpse that’s not old enough for the brain to have turned to mush - or a well-preserved (i.e. flash frozen) one.

Of course, you’d also have to *eat *that brain. So you’d have to be already a sick, sick man :).

Mortician here. Yes, Kreuzfeld-Jacob is possible to get, especially if you handle the brain, such as when embalming an autopsied body. We’re told you can pass it to yourself through your eyes.

Others we’re prone to are Hep C (anyone coming into contact with remains or bodily fluids has to be vaccinated), scabies, and MRSA.

[Jackmannii]

Unless Harvey knows something I don’t, there currently is no commercially available vaccine for hepatitis C (immunization against hepatitis B is available). Hep C vaccines are in the research/testing phase.

i really did try to stay out of this thread. :smack:

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

I assume by “vaccine” he means a non-vaccine injection like Inferon.

[MacLir]

Reminds me of the story of a young necrophiliac who achieved his boyhood ambition by becoming coroner.

(Cribbed from Tom Lehrer.)