1
00:00:00,560 --> 00:00:03,760
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

2
00:00:03,840 --> 00:00:13,720
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

3
00:00:13,800 --> 00:00:16,000
Speaker 1: I'm editor Candice Gifts in joint to Day by a

4
00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:21,000
Speaker 1: special guest, staff writer Dane McGrath. I can't, of course, Um,

5
00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:22,799
Speaker 1: my voice might be a little bit too bubble for

6
00:00:22,800 --> 00:00:25,680
Speaker 1: the topic we're about to discuss. Um. Some may call

7
00:00:25,720 --> 00:00:28,480
Speaker 1: it profane, some may call it sacred, some may call

8
00:00:28,560 --> 00:00:32,520
Speaker 1: it gross. I don't know, but there are some corpses

9
00:00:32,520 --> 00:00:37,280
Speaker 1: out there that don't rot. Yeah, it's a it's pretty weird. Um.

10
00:00:37,320 --> 00:00:39,959
Speaker 1: It's especially surprising because if you if you look at

11
00:00:39,960 --> 00:00:44,120
Speaker 1: how bodies usually decompose, it doesn't take too long for

12
00:00:44,280 --> 00:00:46,720
Speaker 1: a body to start showing somewhere and tear, like if

13
00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:49,200
Speaker 1: it's well embalming. I guess it's so popular. You don't

14
00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:53,240
Speaker 1: want to remember your loved ones rotting away. No, you don't.

15
00:00:53,440 --> 00:00:56,720
Speaker 1: And it's funny because after you die, your body is

16
00:00:56,800 --> 00:01:01,480
Speaker 1: nagara and it becomes host to hundreds of maggots and

17
00:01:01,960 --> 00:01:05,200
Speaker 1: other critters of the insect world. I don't even know

18
00:01:05,200 --> 00:01:08,200
Speaker 1: if maggots are insects, but they're gross. They settle in

19
00:01:08,280 --> 00:01:12,280
Speaker 1: they especially like really moist cavities, and you know, they

20
00:01:12,280 --> 00:01:17,040
Speaker 1: start eating your flesh and things start falling off bones

21
00:01:17,240 --> 00:01:20,840
Speaker 1: and you become an unrecognizable mass. That's true. And I

22
00:01:20,920 --> 00:01:24,480
Speaker 1: was frequently even with embalming. I remember hearing that even

23
00:01:24,480 --> 00:01:26,039
Speaker 1: if a body is embalmed, is the only takes a

24
00:01:26,080 --> 00:01:28,600
Speaker 1: year for a body to keep decomposed into a skeleton.

25
00:01:28,959 --> 00:01:31,840
Speaker 1: And that's why we either bury are dead, or we

26
00:01:31,880 --> 00:01:34,440
Speaker 1: put them in a crypt, or we cremate them so

27
00:01:34,480 --> 00:01:36,200
Speaker 1: that we don't have to see it. That's true. I

28
00:01:36,240 --> 00:01:39,840
Speaker 1: don't think we want to be reminded now, definitely not.

29
00:01:40,520 --> 00:01:44,560
Speaker 1: But there's a mystery in the universe. There's a couple

30
00:01:44,600 --> 00:01:49,680
Speaker 1: of corpses that don't rot, like I said, And rather

31
00:01:49,760 --> 00:01:53,360
Speaker 1: than look at these things as freaks of nature, the

32
00:01:53,440 --> 00:01:56,000
Speaker 1: Church has actually, and I should clarify that the Catholic

33
00:01:56,120 --> 00:02:00,400
Speaker 1: Church has pointed out that these are incorruptible bodies, which

34
00:02:00,520 --> 00:02:04,560
Speaker 1: is one requisite of being named a saint. And there's

35
00:02:04,560 --> 00:02:07,120
Speaker 1: a couple of different ways that you can become a saint.

36
00:02:07,200 --> 00:02:08,920
Speaker 1: And currently if I'm wrong, Jay, because I know that

37
00:02:08,960 --> 00:02:10,519
Speaker 1: you're more of an expert on this than I am,

38
00:02:10,840 --> 00:02:14,320
Speaker 1: but you can either perform a miracle, you can be

39
00:02:14,480 --> 00:02:17,359
Speaker 1: exhumed after death, and if your body is still intact.

40
00:02:17,480 --> 00:02:20,440
Speaker 1: That's a sign that you're saint. You can commit some

41
00:02:20,520 --> 00:02:23,280
Speaker 1: big act of virtue. You can die a martyr, right,

42
00:02:23,320 --> 00:02:27,160
Speaker 1: I like these holy people. I think UM prerepresentative I

43
00:02:27,160 --> 00:02:29,880
Speaker 1: think is three miracles have to be um shown to

44
00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:33,560
Speaker 1: be attributed to you, like during life or after death.

45
00:02:33,960 --> 00:02:35,800
Speaker 1: And I think, UM, when they discovered that a lot

46
00:02:35,800 --> 00:02:38,760
Speaker 1: of these holy people were being their corpses were rotting,

47
00:02:38,760 --> 00:02:41,320
Speaker 1: they found this as one of these types of miracles

48
00:02:41,320 --> 00:02:44,320
Speaker 1: attributed to them. So let me make sure I understand this.

49
00:02:44,960 --> 00:02:48,560
Speaker 1: After saints were varied either if they perform miracles in

50
00:02:48,639 --> 00:02:51,840
Speaker 1: life or they somehow performed miracles after that that were

51
00:02:51,880 --> 00:02:55,280
Speaker 1: attributed to them. Their bodies had been interred, but then

52
00:02:55,320 --> 00:02:59,320
Speaker 1: they were exhumed. That's right, like they became interested. Especially um.

53
00:02:59,400 --> 00:03:02,960
Speaker 1: There have been cases where the grave site has been

54
00:03:02,960 --> 00:03:07,200
Speaker 1: known to emit a fragrance, fragrance like flowers or something

55
00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:11,320
Speaker 1: like that, or um or miracles happen around the grave site. Though,

56
00:03:11,360 --> 00:03:13,400
Speaker 1: so they have exhumed the body and taking a look

57
00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:16,120
Speaker 1: at it, and they found that it's actually as as

58
00:03:16,160 --> 00:03:19,120
Speaker 1: if it were just falling asleep. And that's so strange

59
00:03:19,240 --> 00:03:22,959
Speaker 1: because I wouldn't say that these corpses, some of the

60
00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:25,639
Speaker 1: more famous ones, I should say, someone like Saint Sylvan

61
00:03:25,800 --> 00:03:27,919
Speaker 1: for instance. So that's yeah, that's a good one. Young

62
00:03:28,080 --> 00:03:31,760
Speaker 1: he's on displaying croatia, and he doesn't look as a

63
00:03:31,880 --> 00:03:35,520
Speaker 1: fresh as you know, the day he turned eighteen. I'm

64
00:03:35,560 --> 00:03:37,400
Speaker 1: sure if he if he did take tanteina, I'm not

65
00:03:37,400 --> 00:03:39,800
Speaker 1: sure when he did. I think his skin has taken on,

66
00:03:39,960 --> 00:03:43,480
Speaker 1: you know, I slightly like leathery look maybe, and it's

67
00:03:43,520 --> 00:03:47,520
Speaker 1: a little bit sallow, but he doesn't look dead. That's

68
00:03:47,560 --> 00:03:50,880
Speaker 1: journey doesn't look seventeen hundred years did either. I think

69
00:03:50,880 --> 00:03:53,760
Speaker 1: that's how old he is. And it's it's it's pretty

70
00:03:53,800 --> 00:03:56,600
Speaker 1: crazy to see. And so the question that a lot

71
00:03:56,640 --> 00:04:00,200
Speaker 1: of people are wondering is how could a corpse really

72
00:04:00,280 --> 00:04:04,240
Speaker 1: be incorruptible? Is it a matter of miracle? Is it

73
00:04:04,280 --> 00:04:08,200
Speaker 1: a matter of science? And there's some instances in which

74
00:04:09,080 --> 00:04:11,440
Speaker 1: the scientific community has pointed out this is not a

75
00:04:11,440 --> 00:04:15,840
Speaker 1: religious phenomenon, this is sheer scientific fact. We take, for instance,

76
00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:21,200
Speaker 1: a group of people buried in Guanahata, Mexico. They were

77
00:04:21,240 --> 00:04:25,400
Speaker 1: mummified because the soil there was so salty and dry

78
00:04:25,440 --> 00:04:28,839
Speaker 1: that they were essentially sort of embalmed by it. So

79
00:04:28,880 --> 00:04:32,080
Speaker 1: it sort of happened by accident, but yeah, definitely by accident.

80
00:04:32,080 --> 00:04:34,279
Speaker 1: When people dug them up, they were really confused. They're like,

81
00:04:34,279 --> 00:04:36,719
Speaker 1: why are the people say, well preserved? And they're actually

82
00:04:36,760 --> 00:04:39,960
Speaker 1: on display. And it's rather unsettling, especially to see the

83
00:04:40,240 --> 00:04:43,159
Speaker 1: very very small corpses like the babies and the children.

84
00:04:43,600 --> 00:04:45,880
Speaker 1: And then there was another instance of the talent man.

85
00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:50,480
Speaker 1: And this man was hanged in Denmark and his body

86
00:04:50,520 --> 00:04:53,880
Speaker 1: fell into a peat bog and it's so much intact

87
00:04:54,240 --> 00:04:59,359
Speaker 1: that you can even see hairs beer. Isn't that strange?

88
00:04:59,760 --> 00:05:02,800
Speaker 1: But and there are instances of corpses like the ones

89
00:05:02,880 --> 00:05:05,280
Speaker 1: of the of the Catholic Saints, where there is no

90
00:05:05,360 --> 00:05:10,000
Speaker 1: such explanation, like the community of people in Mexico, and uh,

91
00:05:10,120 --> 00:05:13,000
Speaker 1: it sort of makes sense to Catholics. It made sense

92
00:05:13,040 --> 00:05:17,040
Speaker 1: at least, uh that the idea that bodily corruption, like

93
00:05:17,320 --> 00:05:20,040
Speaker 1: your body rotting after you die, is actually a result

94
00:05:20,200 --> 00:05:23,320
Speaker 1: of sinfulness. It's a consequence of it. And these people

95
00:05:23,400 --> 00:05:26,839
Speaker 1: had such holy lives that they didn't get the consequences

96
00:05:26,880 --> 00:05:29,600
Speaker 1: that came with sin. This sort of makes sense with

97
00:05:29,600 --> 00:05:33,400
Speaker 1: with Mary, the Mary, mother of Jesus, who is supposed

98
00:05:33,440 --> 00:05:37,560
Speaker 1: to be a virgin and sinless all through her life. Um,

99
00:05:37,760 --> 00:05:41,960
Speaker 1: Catholics believe that, like Elijah in the Old Testament, God

100
00:05:42,080 --> 00:05:45,280
Speaker 1: sort of assumed her into Heaven, sort of like a

101
00:05:45,600 --> 00:05:48,200
Speaker 1: go directly to Heaven card, you know, don't pass go.

102
00:05:48,560 --> 00:05:51,360
Speaker 1: So it would make sense that Catholics would dig up

103
00:05:51,400 --> 00:05:54,280
Speaker 1: these holy people and see that they're not um corrupting

104
00:05:54,279 --> 00:05:57,920
Speaker 1: at all and attribute it to a holy life of

105
00:05:58,440 --> 00:06:01,919
Speaker 1: not sinning. So when they exhume the corpses, they're fully

106
00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:05,840
Speaker 1: expecting to see that their bodies are intact, and it's

107
00:06:05,880 --> 00:06:10,920
Speaker 1: a very reverent process. And after the saints were found

108
00:06:11,440 --> 00:06:14,440
Speaker 1: intact and they were discovered to be incorruptible, a lot

109
00:06:14,480 --> 00:06:17,240
Speaker 1: of them are placed in reliquaries on display. Sure you

110
00:06:17,279 --> 00:06:19,960
Speaker 1: can go there. You can go to churches in Europe

111
00:06:19,960 --> 00:06:23,880
Speaker 1: and see either whole saints or pieces of saints. Actually,

112
00:06:24,040 --> 00:06:26,120
Speaker 1: that's where it gets a little bit odd to me,

113
00:06:26,240 --> 00:06:30,800
Speaker 1: this pieces of saint thing. Um, I guess there's so

114
00:06:30,880 --> 00:06:34,200
Speaker 1: many people out there who would want to see a

115
00:06:34,400 --> 00:06:38,120
Speaker 1: saint who's incorrupted and continues to be of a fleshly

116
00:06:38,279 --> 00:06:42,719
Speaker 1: being that they dismembered them and sent them to different

117
00:06:42,800 --> 00:06:45,120
Speaker 1: churches so you can see like a part of a

118
00:06:45,200 --> 00:06:49,760
Speaker 1: saint here maybe another limb here. And these are also

119
00:06:49,880 --> 00:06:51,840
Speaker 1: enclosed in reliquaries. It's not like you go in and

120
00:06:51,839 --> 00:06:55,440
Speaker 1: they hand you a hand. That would be rather off putting,

121
00:06:55,800 --> 00:06:59,920
Speaker 1: and that's not the case. And when you look at

122
00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:01,120
Speaker 1: some of the saints, and we have a couple of

123
00:07:01,120 --> 00:07:03,760
Speaker 1: pictures in our article about it, and there's certainly many

124
00:07:03,760 --> 00:07:06,840
Speaker 1: more out there that you can see Um. Again, think

125
00:07:06,839 --> 00:07:11,000
Speaker 1: we mentioned before with St. Selvin. They aren't always alive

126
00:07:11,120 --> 00:07:15,160
Speaker 1: and well. And there are some scandals around the idea

127
00:07:15,160 --> 00:07:17,520
Speaker 1: of the incorruptible saying, because some churches have gone so

128
00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:20,720
Speaker 1: far as to cover their bodies with wax or to

129
00:07:20,800 --> 00:07:23,120
Speaker 1: go ahead and embolve in them anyway, they make sure

130
00:07:23,160 --> 00:07:26,760
Speaker 1: to preserve them and that gets a little bit troublesome too,

131
00:07:26,800 --> 00:07:30,720
Speaker 1: because if you're preserving a saint, are you somehow doubting

132
00:07:30,840 --> 00:07:33,360
Speaker 1: that will continue to be incorruptible. Yeah, I think the

133
00:07:33,680 --> 00:07:38,040
Speaker 1: Catholic churches started to be very skeptical of these um

134
00:07:38,040 --> 00:07:40,160
Speaker 1: of these reports that that it is a work of

135
00:07:40,200 --> 00:07:44,160
Speaker 1: God that they're incorruptible, just because their instances where um

136
00:07:44,400 --> 00:07:46,600
Speaker 1: saints have been exhumed, and at first they seem like

137
00:07:46,640 --> 00:07:49,120
Speaker 1: they have not been in corrupting but as soon as

138
00:07:49,120 --> 00:07:51,640
Speaker 1: they get exhumed, they start corrupting very quickly, and so

139
00:07:51,760 --> 00:07:54,440
Speaker 1: they they attributed to the way that they were buried

140
00:07:54,480 --> 00:07:59,080
Speaker 1: or the the the casket that was containing them. So

141
00:07:59,280 --> 00:08:01,320
Speaker 1: isn't a matter of what people want to believe or

142
00:08:01,360 --> 00:08:07,040
Speaker 1: the historical precedence for mommification versus embalming. And is it

143
00:08:07,200 --> 00:08:09,720
Speaker 1: that religion is changing in our world's day and people

144
00:08:09,800 --> 00:08:13,760
Speaker 1: want to see this evidence a little bit of everything.

145
00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:16,520
Speaker 1: That's a really tough question and answer myself. There's one

146
00:08:16,560 --> 00:08:20,600
Speaker 1: saint in particular who just fascinates me and not St. Bernadette,

147
00:08:20,960 --> 00:08:23,720
Speaker 1: And she was born in France to a very humble family,

148
00:08:23,760 --> 00:08:26,000
Speaker 1: and she was very sick all of her life. I'm

149
00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:30,720
Speaker 1: talking everything from tuberculosis to colora, to asthma, to digestive trouble.

150
00:08:30,760 --> 00:08:33,640
Speaker 1: I mean, you name it, she had it. And she

151
00:08:33,720 --> 00:08:37,839
Speaker 1: was asked to enter nunnery and someone argued that she

152
00:08:37,880 --> 00:08:40,920
Speaker 1: shouldn't even be there because she was, how they put it,

153
00:08:41,200 --> 00:08:44,679
Speaker 1: going to be a pillar of the infirmary. And it's

154
00:08:44,720 --> 00:08:46,760
Speaker 1: true she was there all the time. You know, like

155
00:08:46,800 --> 00:08:48,600
Speaker 1: the kid in your class, he was always asking to

156
00:08:48,600 --> 00:08:50,600
Speaker 1: go see the nurse because he just sniffly knows you're

157
00:08:50,600 --> 00:08:53,160
Speaker 1: scratching me always something. She was always in there, and

158
00:08:53,200 --> 00:08:56,000
Speaker 1: the actual idea of an imperfect body I mean no,

159
00:08:56,520 --> 00:08:59,839
Speaker 1: definitely not, you know, riddled with sickness and disease. And

160
00:09:00,160 --> 00:09:02,880
Speaker 1: I think she was actually read her last sacraments three

161
00:09:02,920 --> 00:09:07,719
Speaker 1: times and she finally died, and her corpse turned out

162
00:09:07,760 --> 00:09:12,840
Speaker 1: to be incorruptible. And what's more, she had visions from

163
00:09:12,880 --> 00:09:16,120
Speaker 1: the Virgin Mary supposedly that there was a spring, a

164
00:09:16,280 --> 00:09:19,480
Speaker 1: healing and holy spring near this grotto, and she was

165
00:09:19,520 --> 00:09:21,839
Speaker 1: able to direct people toward it. And I think that's

166
00:09:21,880 --> 00:09:25,600
Speaker 1: where her body is enshrined today. Is that right? I

167
00:09:25,640 --> 00:09:27,559
Speaker 1: think it is in France. I don't think it's in

168
00:09:27,600 --> 00:09:29,800
Speaker 1: the town of Lords, but the spring is there in

169
00:09:29,840 --> 00:09:33,400
Speaker 1: Lords today, um where people go there to this day.

170
00:09:33,440 --> 00:09:36,240
Speaker 1: They take pilgrimage to it and they take the water

171
00:09:36,360 --> 00:09:39,320
Speaker 1: with them, and the water is said to have healing

172
00:09:39,360 --> 00:09:42,880
Speaker 1: powers and of itself. So it's a part of history

173
00:09:42,880 --> 00:09:45,960
Speaker 1: that lives on even though these corpses don't but kind

174
00:09:46,000 --> 00:09:49,360
Speaker 1: of look like they do. It's very interesting topic. And

175
00:09:49,400 --> 00:09:52,439
Speaker 1: one thing that's interesting to me is the idea that

176
00:09:53,120 --> 00:09:57,160
Speaker 1: these incorruptible corpses are sometimes supposed to emit very nice

177
00:09:57,160 --> 00:10:01,000
Speaker 1: smells and I find that really interesting. Um that. And

178
00:10:01,160 --> 00:10:04,360
Speaker 1: at one point, um a saint actually, when he was exhumed,

179
00:10:04,559 --> 00:10:07,320
Speaker 1: they cut off his finger and it bled um as

180
00:10:07,360 --> 00:10:09,560
Speaker 1: if as if it were a living body. And it's

181
00:10:09,640 --> 00:10:13,640
Speaker 1: just a science. You know. They can't not yet at least,

182
00:10:13,640 --> 00:10:16,560
Speaker 1: they can't explain all of this. And it's pretty miraculous

183
00:10:16,600 --> 00:10:20,760
Speaker 1: to say at least. And well, I actually know I

184
00:10:20,760 --> 00:10:25,720
Speaker 1: have two incorruptibles who turned out to be quite corruptible. Um.

185
00:10:25,800 --> 00:10:30,280
Speaker 1: The first Maximilian revs. Pierre, a semi hero turned villain

186
00:10:30,360 --> 00:10:32,760
Speaker 1: of the French Revolution. He was called the Incorruptible, and

187
00:10:32,760 --> 00:10:35,280
Speaker 1: he turned out to be um sort of a warmonger

188
00:10:35,320 --> 00:10:37,840
Speaker 1: and put many many, many thous and the people could

189
00:10:37,880 --> 00:10:40,560
Speaker 1: dad under the hands of the guillotine. And then there's

190
00:10:40,559 --> 00:10:43,080
Speaker 1: the fictional Harvey Dent, who didn't turn out to be

191
00:10:43,200 --> 00:10:47,000
Speaker 1: as incorruptible as everyone thought. He did, the golden Boy

192
00:10:47,120 --> 00:10:50,000
Speaker 1: of Gotham City. Uh, it turned a bitter when he

193
00:10:50,080 --> 00:10:54,640
Speaker 1: lost his love and faith. Oh, Harvey Dunn, it's not

194
00:10:54,679 --> 00:10:57,520
Speaker 1: so incorruptible after all. Well. You can read even more

195
00:10:57,559 --> 00:11:00,800
Speaker 1: about incorruptible courts as and other topics on how Stuff

196
00:11:00,800 --> 00:11:05,000
Speaker 1: Works dot com for more on this and thousands of

197
00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:08,480
Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com. Let

198
00:11:08,520 --> 00:11:11,160
Speaker 1: us know what you think. Send an email to podcast

199
00:11:11,440 --> 00:11:18,959
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. M