Brain Stuff is sponsored by Harry's dot Com. Get a great shaving experience for a fraction of the price. The quality of the shave is so important that Harry's purchased the factory that makes their blades. Fifteen dollars gets you a set that includes a handle, three blades, and shave cream. Go to Harry's dot com use the code brain stuff to say five dollars off your first purchase. Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff works dot com where smart happens.
This podcast is brought to you by Audible dot com, the Internet's leading provider of spoken word entertainment. Get a free audio book download of your choice when you sign up today. Log on to audible podcast dot com slash brain Stuff today for details. High and Marshall brain a listener wrote in with a question this week, and it's perfect for Halloween. The question is what happens to a person's blood when they are embalmed, which gets into the
whole topic of embalming in general and how it works. Now, this is not the subject for the week of stomach and if you're weak of stomach, please stop listening now and avoid the upcoming grossness. If you don't mind it. Here we go. The general idea behind embalming is pretty simple. You want to fill a body with enough preservatives so that it doesn't start rotting or bloating or smelling before
the funeral. There are two steps to the process. The first step is to pump embalming fluid through the circulatory system of the body. The embalming fluid is normally formaldehyde with some dyes and perfumes added. There's an embalming machine that pumps the fluid in. The mortician will cut open one of the major arteries to run a tube from the embalming machine into the artery. The mortician will also attach a tube to one of the major veins to
let blood and embalming fluid run out. All the blood flushed out during this process goes into the sewer system. There's nothing special done with it. Embalming fluid preserves the skin in the muscles. So the second part of the embolming process is major organs like the stomach and testines, etcetera, in the abdomen and the thorax. They have to be handled separately because they're filled with partly digested food and bacteria,
and if they're left by themselves they'll bloat. The basic idea is to use a section to fitted with blades to cut open the organs and suck everything out. Then the abdomen is filled with embolming fluid. Once this process is complete, the body will last. It's dressed quoift, made up to look realistic, and arranged in the casket for presentation at the funeral. Do you have any ideas or suggestions for this podcast? If so, please send me an
email at podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, go to how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is sponsored by Harry's dot com. Get a great shaving experience for a fraction of the price. The quality of the shave is so important that Harry's purchase the factory that makes their blades fifteen dollars gets you a set that includes a handle,
three blades, and shave cream. Go to Harry's dot com use the code brain stuff to save five dollars off your first purchase.