Miracles of the Gods: A New Look at the Supernatural (380 page)

Cold water flowing in the vicinity of the corpse keeps the temperature down and drives flies and insects away.

This preservative bacteria-reducing cold can be increased by ice. (Bodies have been recovered from glaciers completely undamaged after many years.)

Forensic medicine has histories of corpses found in pitch lakes that were discoloured, but perfectly preserved.

Also well known are bog corpses which are preserved by humus acids resistant to putrefaction. Carbon dioxide prevents the coagulation of the blood. In cases of carbon dioxide poisoning blood can flow from cuts long after death.

Metal coffins cause the formation of metallic salts, which slow down decomposition for as much as ten years. Salts in the earth (arsenic from the iron sources), or sea salts in combination with the dry climate accounted for the hundreds of skulls buried during the Inca period which were found with undamaged flesh and all their hair during excavations in the Lima region. The preservation of bodies by treating them with natron, asphalt and cedar products was known in Egypt from the third century B.C. (Today it is simpler. We mummify with formalin, a germ-killing medium. In many American Memorial Parks relatives can pull their beautifully made-up dead out of compartments and contemplate them in all their living beauty. ... Death in Hollywood!)

Dr. Kaiser has no doubt that the majority of incorruptible saints were buried in such conditions.

The survival of Rose of Lima's flesh was unquestionably due to salts. (The nun, who remained undamaged for eighteen months, lay in the same salt-bearing earth in which the Inca skulls were found.)

St. Clara of Monte Falco was mummified by dry air and found with an 'exceptionally beautiful face'.

Her shorn hair hung above her as a relic 'apparently dried out and showing the face of the crucified Christ'.

The 'smoked Parson of St. Thomas' in lower Austria was rendered incorruptible by chemicals - tar products.

Was it pure chance that saintly people found their burial place in surroundings so favourable to their preservation? There is evidence that suitable methods were used to help preserve the bodies of saints

'in the flesh'. Capuchins in Italy and Moravians laid out the burial chambers of their monasteries in such a way that a constant draught of dry air swept through them. Dr. Kaiser's supposition that the bodies of many saints were not only embalmed with essences, sweet-smelling oils, salves and aromas to drive away the smell of death, but also because the preservative effect of 'cosmetics' was known, can be accepted as a certainty.