When most of us die, a few tears might be shed over our bodies. Within a few days, we will likely be buried or cremated, our physical form reduced to a mere memory. But some of us will continue on in our adventures. Below is a collection of stories about corpses that eschewed tradition, from crash test dummies to bodies that became drug paraphernalia.
我们大多数人死的时候, 人们可能只会洒一些眼泪洒在我们身上。几天之内, 尸体就可能会被埋葬或火化,身体的物理形式只幻化成了一个记忆。下面是与传统方式截然不同的、有关人类尸体的故事集合, 从碰撞试验假人到成为吸毒用具的人的尸体……
10.石化尸体
Mankind has been taken with the idea of preserving corpses. The oldest known mummy is that of a child of the Chinchorro people, a prehistoric fishing culture that lived along the arid coast of present-day Chile and Peru. It was carbon dated to approximately 5050 B.C., long before the Egyptians began their practice.
人类一直有保存尸体的想法。已知最早的木乃伊是新克罗人的一个孩子，他们诞生于史前钓鱼文明，生活在现在干旱的智利和秘鲁沿岸。从碳测试中可以追溯到公元前5050年，早在埃及人开始他们的木乃伊实践之前。
Born in 1792, Italian anatomist Girolamo Segato was rather obsessed with Egyptian funerary practices. He went on several archaeological expeditions to Egypt, where he became intimately acquainted with the process of mummification. Upon his return to Italy, Segato unveiled an extraordinary technique of preserving flesh—artificial petrifaction. According to pioneering American surgeon Valentine Mott, who spent some time in Europe in the company of Segato, the Italian "had discovered a chemical process by which he could actually petrify, in very short time, every animal substance, preserving permanently, and with minute accuracy, its form and internal texture, and in such a state of stony hardness that it could be sawed into slabs and elegantly polished!" Segato died in 1836, destroying all his notes before his passing. His collection of preserved remains was scattered, with the largest concentration located at the Museum of the Department of Anatomy in Florence. Despite extensive study, Segato's petrification method remains a mystery to this day.
生于1792年,意大利解剖学家Girolamo Segato相当痴迷于埃及葬礼习俗。他曾数次去埃及考古探险,在那里他熟悉了木乃伊制造的整个过程。回到意大利后, Segato揭示了一个保存肉体的非凡技术——人工石化。先驱者美国的外科医生瓦伦丁·莫特，他在欧洲的Segato公司工作过一段时间，他认为Segato这个意大利人"发现了一种在很短的时间内可以真正实现石化的化学过程，任何动物的物质，都可以永久地保存它的形状和内部结构，而且伴随着时间的精准，在这样石头般坚硬的状态下，它可以锯成板和轻柔地抛光"。Segato在1836年去世，死前销毁了他所有的笔记。他的遗稿仍然散落各处，其中最多的收藏在佛罗伦萨解剖教研室的博物馆里。尽管进行了广泛的研究， Segato 的石化法在今天仍然是一个谜。
9.腌制尸体
A half century before the Panama Canal was constructed, a railway was built to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The chief inspiration for this project was the California Gold Rush of 1849 and the mad rush to stake a claim to fortune. Men came from across the globe to work on the railway, many without any identification or known next of kin.
巴拿马运河建好的前半世纪，曾修建了一条铁路来连接大西洋和太平洋。建造的灵感主要来自1849年的加州淘金热，人们狂奔着索要财富。世界各地的人前来建造铁路，许多人身份不明也没有已知的近亲。
This feat of engineering would come at great cost to many—diseases like yellow fever, malaria, and cholera plagued the workers, and thousands died. A ban on opium caused many of the Chinese workers, who had become addicted to the drug in their homeland, to commit suicide. No official records were kept, but the death toll could have easily exceeded 10,000. It might seem natural that the Panama Railroad Company would simply bury their dead and move on, but they had other plans. Keeping their eye on the bottom line, they pickled many of the corpses and sold them off to medical schools for experimentation. It was an exciting time in medicine—anesthesia had just been discovered, and surgeries, which had previously been hack jobs performed as swiftly as possible, became far more intricate. Bodies were in high demand, and for over five years, the Panama Railroad Company was a leading supplier.
这一工程付出了极大地代价——疾病，如黄热病，疟疾以及霍乱困扰着工人，造成了数千人的死亡。鸦片禁令引来了许多中国工人，他们在自己的国家沉迷于鸦片，试图自杀。官方的记录没有被保留，但死亡人数可以很容易判断超过了1万。巴拿马铁路公司只会埋葬死者，继续前进，这似乎很自然，但他们有其他的计划。他们腌了许多尸体，然后卖给医学院做实验。那是一个医学极度活跃的年代——麻醉方才发现，手术，已被当时的黑市医生尽可能迅速地进行，变得更为复杂。尸体需求量剧增，五年来，巴拿马铁路公司是领先的尸体供应商。
8.尸体做成的烟筒
Those given to the frequent consumption of marijuana are rarely lauded for the motivation. But potheads tend to have the engineering prowess of MacGyver when it comes to manufacturing smoking implements, utilizing everything from apples to soda cans. In 2008, three teens in Humble, Texas used a truly ghoulish method to get high. They dug up the grave of a child named Willie Simms who'd died in 1921, severed the corpse's head, and used the skull as a bong.
那些频繁消费大麻的人很少因其动机而获得称赞。但当涉及到制造吸烟工具时，瘾君子往往有马盖先工程技术般的力量，利用一切资源，从苹果到汽水罐。2008年，在德克萨斯的Humble, 有三个少年用一种极为残忍的方法达到了制作吸烟工具的极致。他们挖了一个死于1921年，名叫威利·西姆斯的孩子的坟墓，切断了尸体的头颅，将它用作大麻烟筒。
The teens may very well have gotten away with this gruesome crime if they hadn't later been caught during a vehicle break-in investigation. One of them confessed to desecrating Simms's corpse. At first, the story seemed so bizarre that the police did not believe it, but a visit to the cemetery yielded a disturbed grave filled with rainwater, its headstone broken. All three were charged with abuse of a corpse, a misdemeanor, along with other crimes.
如果不是因为汽车非法闯入遭到调查，这些青少年很可能逃脱这可怕的罪行。其中一个供认亵渎了西姆斯的尸体。起初,警察不相信这个离奇的故事,但探查发现墓地受雨水的冲刷很严重，墓碑也被打破，他们才不得不信。这三个少年被控告虐待尸体,一个获轻罪,连同其他两个重度犯罪。
7.The Unclaimed Corpse Indicator
7.无人认领的尸体指标
Funerals can be extraordinarily expensive. According to the National Funeral Directors Association, a traditional funeral and burial can easily approach $10,000. Even a comparatively cheap cremation exceeds $3,000.
葬礼可能是非常昂贵的。据全国殡葬董事协会所说，传统的殡葬可以轻易地花费近1万美元，即使是相对便宜的火化也超出了3000美元。
In 2009, when the economy was in dire straits, cities across America reported a vast increase in unclaimed bodies, an indicator that the financial outlook of the nation was indeed grim. Los Angeles experienced a 36 percent rise in unclaimed dead over the previous fiscal year. Even in the most dire financial circumstances, most deceased are claimed by their loved ones, but in certain circumstances, it can be seen how a body could go unclaimed. Faced with the choice, would an impoverished single mother take on the staggering debt of burying a great uncle she'd never met? One of the cities hardest hit by this phenomenon was Detroit, an area plagued by unemployment and poverty. Here, the state of Michigan pays for indigent burials, which cost $750 each. Unfortunately, these payments were rarely timely, as the state struggled through its own financial woes. Meanwhile, the unclaimed bodies piled up in refrigerated storage rooms. In October and November 2008, Michigan paid for 637 indigent burials. A year later, the economy tanked so badly that this number nearly doubled, swelling to 1,268 in the same time period.
2009年，当时经济正处于水深火热之中，美国各地的城市无人认领尸体的报告大量增加，这是该国的财政前景确实严峻的一个指标。洛杉矶无人认领的尸体比上一财年上涨了36％。即使在最糟糕的金融环境下，大多数死者都是会被自己的亲人认领的，但在某些情况下，可以看到尸体是如何无人认领的。面临选择，一个贫困的单身母亲如何承担惊人的债务去埋葬一个她从未见过的叔叔？这种现象的重灾区是底特律，一个饱受失业和贫穷困扰的城市。这里，密歇根州支付贫困墓葬，每个花费750美元。不幸的是，这些款项是很少能及时到账，因为州政府挣扎在自身的财务困境中。同时，无人认领的尸体在冷冻储藏室堆放。在2008年的10月和11月里，密歇根州支持了637项贫困墓葬。一年后，经济重挫极为糟糕，这个数字却几乎翻了一倍，在同一个时期暴涨到1268。
6.Audrey Mountford, The Jilted Bride
6.奥黛丽·芒福德，被抛弃的新娘
One of Charles Dickens's most celebrated works is the novel Great Expectations, in which a boy is subjected to the sinister machinations of a jilted bride. Real life has its own strange tales of jilted brides, including Australian Audrey Mountford. Audrey fell in love with a Canadian man, and the two planned to marry. However, their union was not to be. Heartbroken, she left her home in Sydney in 1969.
查尔斯·狄更斯最著名的作品之一是小说《远大前程》,一个男孩被一个被抛弃的新娘欺负。现实生活中也有被抛弃的新娘的离奇故事,包括澳大利亚的奥黛丽·芒福德。奥黛丽爱上了一个加拿大人, 并且两人计划结婚。然而, 他们的结合没有成功。伤心中, 她在1969年离开了悉尼的家。
Mountford frequently traveled and was described by her family as "flighty," so though they looked for her, they didn't worry that anything was amiss. It was believed that she had gone overseas to recover from the failed relationship. However, a teenager discovered her remains in a cave in Australia's Blue Mountains in 1981. She wore her mother's wedding ring and was surrounded by various items like toothpaste and utensils. The body could not be identified, and the case was dropped in 1983. A coroner's inquiry in July 2009 finally confirmed the fate of Audrey Mountford. Her family was devastated by the news. Her younger sister, 84-year-old Nola Stewart, had been the last family member to see Audrey alive. She said, "Actually it saddens me more to find out what happened to her because I thought that she was living somewhere and not bothering to get back in touch with me."
芒福德经常旅行，她的家人形容她为"轻浮"，虽然他们会寻找她，但他们从不担心有什么不对劲。他们只是认为她已经去了国外，试图从失败的恋情中恢复过来。然而，1981年，一个少年在澳大利亚蓝山的洞穴中发现了她的遗体。她戴着她妈妈的结婚戒指，周围散落各种物品，如牙膏和餐具。尸体无法查明，案件在1983年被搁置。2009年7月，验尸官的调查最终确定奥黛丽芒福德的命运。她的家庭被这个消息摧毁。她的妹妹，84岁的诺拉·斯图尔特，是最后能看到奥黛丽活着的人。她说，"其实找出发生在她身上的事，这令我非常难过，因为我一直以为她住在某个地方，并没有打算跟我联系。"
评论
打印
