When people are buried do they rot or do undertakers put chemicals on them to stop rotting & smelling?

Answer 1

The embalming process can slow decomp significantly, but they will still decompose. Decomposition begins immediately after death because the bacteria living in your mucus membranes and intestines do not die with you. A body that has been embalmed and buried in a coffin will reduce to brittle skeleton after about 40 years.

Answer 2

It depends where (what country) they are buried; Many countries require bodies be "embalmed" before burial, which basically means the soft organs have been discarded and the blood drained out & replaced with what amounts to a pickling agent. This retards the rotting process considerably. Since "smell" is a function of tiny droplets of compounds in the air, even an untreated body buried under several feet of dirt without a coffin typically won't smell (to you & me, though a dog might find it) unless it is dug up or disturbed.

You should read an EXCELLENT book on the subject called "Stiff" by a writer called Mary Roach. Burying dead people in expensive boxes is a waste of wood, money, space, and bio-resources.

Answer 3

When people are embalmed (usually what happens when buried in a casket), a lot of chemicals are used and there is minimal rotting and smelling. People are usually embalmbed fore funerals - because the body looks a whole lto better to the family and friends...

Answer 4

Undertakers enbalm you with formaldehyde, which doesn't stop your body from rotting, it only slows down the process enough where you wont be stinking at your wake or your funeral. As soon as your body is submitted into the ground though, yes...you will begin to rot. The only was your body can be perfectly preserved is for it to be plasticised, where they inject this chemical into you that sorta turns your flesh into plastic, But there's only two people known to have mastered plastination, and neither of them are available for private hiring.

Answer 5

Embalming is meant to disinfect, preserve and resore to a life-like state. Embalming simply retards decomposition, it does not prevent it. There is no definite answer as to how long a body will last until it is completely decomposed. It depends on the body, the embalmer, the fluid, the soil and about 100 other factors to say how long they will last before decomposing. And no, we DO NOT remove the organs, as someone answered. And there is no difinitive amount of time a body will last (whoever said 40 yrs. is wrong) because I have disinterred many people, one man who had been dead for 70 years, and he was perfect, they actually had another viewing for him!! And we do not "con" people into buying expensive sealed caskets, because guess who doesn't get paid for this casket that we supposedly "conned" them into buying? ME!! And as far as bodies turning to soup, there are so many facors that play a role into that happening that no one,and I mean no one, has the right to say that that does occur unless they have actually done studies and exhumed hundreds of bodies to be able to make that statement difinitively.

Answer 6

Here's a gross out for you....with the relatively new practice of using expensive coffins that are nearly hermetically sealed, a body will actually liquefy! rather than decompose in a normal fashion. The liquid will eventually dry up, and all that's left will be bones. The simple wood box is the way to go as far as I am concerned

Answer 7

People are often conned by funeral homes into buying more expensive caskets, with airtight seals. They tell them they're protecting their loved one from decay, bacteria and bugs. What they don't know is that decay, bacteria and bugs leave a nice skeleton, while a sealed casket makes the corpse bloat and eventually turn to a soupy mess.

Answer 8

They "decompose". Embalming just slows down the process long enough to have a funeral and get them in the ground...or wherever..

Answer 9

I wont go into great details (which can be kind of messy), but the links below will give a lot of the information you are seeking.

Answer 10

THEY ROT -
ASHES TO ASHES
DUST TO DUST
THE CHEMICALS JUST SLOWS IT DOWN A BIT