Watched a fascinating program on PBS tonight, called “secrets of the Dead”. In Queens, NYC, a body was dug up on a construction site. Police were called in but a forensics specialist determined that the body was at least 100 years old, and was buried in an iron coffin!
They took it back to a lab, where they found that she was a black woman, but were very curious as to why she was buried in an iron coffin. Upon carefully examining the body, he found that the entirety of it was covered with small nodules. Taking into consideration of the time she was determined to have died, it was concluded that the woman had died of smallpox. This brought the entire process to a screeching halt until they decided whether or not the smallpox was still viable. Specialists from the CDC in Atlanta were brought in and, after thorough examination and testing, concluded that it was not. The iron coffin had been air tight and had killed the virus.
The forensics specialist decided to do more research, and requested the assistance of a forensics professor, who was from a local university. The professor used a scanning x-ray that could basically do an autopsy without cutting into the body. Then, on a special digital screen, they could “peel away” layers and look at not only her skin, but muscles, organs and skeleton! What was the most incredible was that, in peeling away the layers on her head and being able to “see” inside the cavity of her brain, they found that the smallpox virus had penetrated into her brain, as shown by the dozens of nodules not only on the interior of her brain cavity, but on tissue itself. Wow…
Smallpox was like a cancer, creeping and spreading into every single are of the body.
Upon further investigation into census records and historical maps of the area, the forensics specialist found not only that the area where she was found had been a cemetery, but also discovered her name, and that she had been married to a man who was the business partner of the man who invented and built the iron coffins!
It all came full circle.
The smallpox vaccine was first used in 1798. In 1977 it was declared to have been eradicated
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