To be fair, there is a smell, albeit a more subtle one than full decomposition, right after death. I’m not talking about excrement, I’m talking about the other smell. When a body dies, think of it not just as a release of the bowels but everything else as well. Cellular release begins such that kissing a corpse goodbye, on the forehead, as often takes place in movies and such, would also be taking on a corpse-y bacterial load. Viral if otherwise infected. In the most benign sense, probably just staph In the unrefridgerated, small enclosed space of a plane you’re going to want to get the corpse hauled off asap.
Not the best article to convey this breakdown, but it illustrates the potential here.
Well before I met her, my wife was somewhere in the funeral industry. (She said she left because it was too morally bankrupt.) As a result, I’ve heard way more about dead people - newly so and otherwise - than I ever expected.
Once, well after I met her but still long ago, we were house shopping for the first time. When we entered one house we went into the basement and encountered a room that had clearly been a hospice room for a while. She got uncomfortable and discreetly whispered to me that she wanted to go.
Once we left the house, she explained that someone had recently died in that room. She also explained that she knew because of basically what you describe here. Neither of us were overly superstitious but it just made her not want to be there, which I consider fair.
Amusingly, previously - I think actually earlier the same day - we had looked at another home that the previous owner had operated as a funeral home. We declined it for a few reasons (primarily part of the property housed a small barber shop and we would have had to decide whether or not to kick him out) but sometimes I wonder about the usefulness of the utilities and hookups that were still in the main house.
edit: Remove an unneeded and inaccurate word. Correct another one.
To be fair, there is a smell, albeit a more subtle one than full decomposition, right after death. I’m not talking about excrement, I’m talking about the other smell. When a body dies, think of it not just as a release of the bowels but everything else as well. Cellular release begins such that kissing a corpse goodbye, on the forehead, as often takes place in movies and such, would also be taking on a corpse-y bacterial load. Viral if otherwise infected. In the most benign sense, probably just staph In the unrefridgerated, small enclosed space of a plane you’re going to want to get the corpse hauled off asap.
Not the best article to convey this breakdown, but it illustrates the potential here.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360132325006419
Well before I met her, my wife was somewhere in the funeral industry. (She said she left because it was too morally bankrupt.) As a result, I’ve heard way more about dead people - newly so and otherwise - than I ever expected.
Once, well after I met her but still long ago, we were house shopping for the first time. When we entered one house we went into the basement and encountered a room that had clearly been a hospice room for a while. She got uncomfortable and discreetly whispered to me that she wanted to go.
Once we left the house, she explained that someone had recently died in that room. She also explained that she knew because of basically what you describe here. Neither of us were overly superstitious but it just made her not want to be there, which I consider fair.
Amusingly, previously - I think actually earlier the same day - we had looked at another home that the previous owner had operated as a funeral home. We declined it for a few reasons (primarily part of the property housed a small barber shop and we would have had to decide whether or not to kick him out) but sometimes I wonder about the usefulness of the utilities and hookups that were still in the main house.
edit: Remove an unneeded and inaccurate word. Correct another one.