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Geology, conservation and dissolution of corpses by Paolo Gorini (1813-1881)
Abstract
Paolo Gorini (1813-1881), an Italian mathematician, is considered one of the fathers of experimental geology, and his work contributed to the evolution of medicine and hygiene. In 1844, he studied food conservation and worked out a method for conserving corpses and anatomical specimens, approved by the Medical School of Pavia. His geological studies mainly concerned mineralisation. At that time several researchers, including Jean Nicolas Gannal (1791-1852), Girolamo Segato (1792-1836), Ludovico Brunetti (1813-1899) and Efisio Marini (1835- 1900), experimented on the scientific conservation of corpses. Later (1851), Gorini studied the formation of mountains and suggested experiments and demonstrations to produce volcanoes artificially. These studies were fundamental to realizing the early methods of corpse cremation in order to solve the problem of hygiene in cities and cemeteries. Gorini also supervised the construction of the first crematorium (Woking, UK). Gorini conserved the corpse of the Italian politician Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872). Gorini's theories were not scientifically confirmed, but his attempt to understand the Universe and the origin of life and evolution by means of a single law is interesting as an early model for the emerging positivism of that time.
... Paolo Gorini (1831-1881) 10 , the third in order of time, is notable for the written testimony he leaves about his procedures. He could extend his production of preparations to the international context thanks to numerous travels. ...
Many techniques for preserving cultural heritage rely on mineralization, the process whereby an organic entity acquires stone-like consistency, thus being protected from the risk of degradation due to moisture, sunlight, or bio-deterioration. Petrification was developed in the 19th century to preserve human bodies and allow their use in human anatomy for educational and research purposes. This paper reflects on the early interest that Camillo Boito and the newborn Italian culture of restoration had in this topic. The authors trace the concept of mineralization in the restoration field along a historical perspective, from the development of chemical products for treating architectural surfaces to the most recent green techniques for consolidation. The conclusion highlights a shift in the contemporary preservation scenario: microorganisms are often a threat to be opposed, but also the basis of technological innovation.
... However, he is typical of the Positivistic period (even if he partially lived during Romanticism) and is a bridge between a time when the contributions of the natural sciences still provided the basic scientific structure and a time when science because more modern. 45 Mathematician, son of a mathematician, Gorini developed an interest in science at an early age and became involved in the characteristics of combustion and the preservation of foodstuffs. 24 These naive experiments were interrupted by the death of his father (1825), but show us some of the interests that Gorini would not abandon throughout his life-time. ...
Medicine in the second half of the nineteenth century takes on some characteristics of modernity. These characteristics are worthy of our attention because they help us to understand better some of the current problems of hygiene and public health. One of the topics that was most discussed in the scientific-academic milieu of the second half of the nineteenth century was cremation. There was a poetic precedent: the cremation of Percy Bysse Shelley (1792-1822). The earliest apparatus to completely destroy the corpse was made in Italy and Germany in the 1870s. As far as hygiene was concerned, the reasons for cremation were not to pollute the water-bearing strata and an attempt to streamline the cemetery structure. As in an apparent schizophrenia, scientists of the day worked to both destroy and preserve corpses. There is also the unusual paradox that when the first cremations took place, the corpses were first preserved then to be destroyed later. The catholic world (mainly in Italy) and forensic scientists opposed cremation. It was left to the hygienists to spread the practice of cremation. An analysis of scientific literature shows us that if we leave out the related forensic and ethical problems, recent years have seen attention paid to any harmful emissions from crematoria equipment which have poured into the environment. Another issue is the assessment of inadvertent damage which may be caused by the condition of the corpse. Some topics, however, such as the need for preventive autopsies (first proposed in 1884 in Milan) are still a subject of debate, and seem to pass virtually unchanged from one generation to the next.
If mediatization has surprisingly revealed the secret life of inert matter and the ‘face of things’, the flipside of this has been the petrification of living organisms, an invasion of stone bodies in a state of suspended animation. Within a contemporary imaginary pervaded by new forms of animism, the paradigm of death looms large in many areas of artistic experimentation, pushing the modern body towards mineral modes of being which revive ancient myths of flesh-made-stone and the issue of the monument. Scholars in media, visual culture and the arts propose studies of bodies of stone, from actors simulating statues to the transmutation of the filmic body into a fossil; from the real treatment of the cadaver as a mineral living object to the rediscovery of materials such as wax; from the quest for a ‘thermal’ equivalence between stone and flesh to the transformation of the biomedical body into a living monument.
Medicine in the second half of the nineteenth century takes on some characteristics of modernity. These characteristics are worthy of our attention because they help us to understand better some of the current problems of hygiene and public health. One of the topics that was most discussed in the scientific-academic milieu of the second half of the nineteenth century was cremation. There was a poetic precedent: the cremation of Percy Bysse Shelley (1792-1822). The earliest apparatus to completely destroy the corpse was made in Italy and Germany in the 1870s. As far as hygiene was concerned, the reasons for cremation were not to pollute the water-bearing strata and an attempt to streamline the cemetery structure. As in an apparent schizophrenia, scientists of the day worked to both destroy and preserve corpses. There is also the unusual paradox that when the first cremations took place, the corpses were first preserved then to be destroyed later. The catholic world (mainly in Italy) and forensic scientists opposed cremation. It was left to the hygienists to spread the practice of cremation. An analysis of scientific literature shows us that if we leave out the related forensic and ethical problems, recent years have seen attention paid to any harmful emissions from crematoria equipment which have poured into the environment. Another issue is the assessment of inadvertent damage which may be caused by the condition of the corpse. Some topics, however, such as the need for preventive autopsies (first proposed in 1884 in Milan) are still a subject of debate, and seem to pass virtually unchanged from one generation to the next.
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