Dr. Duncan MacDougall believed that if there's a soul that
exists separately from our brains and bodies, then it has to
take up physical space and have weight, and this can be
measured. The way to find out is to weigh a person shortly
before and after death.
According science, space-occupying material can be
classified into solids, liquids or gases, which are all affected
by gravity. MacDougall thought the soul may belong to a new
category?one which we're not aware of.
He began testing his theory in 1907. He said, "My first
subject was a man dying of tuberculosis?The patient was
under observation for three hours and forty minutes before
death, lying on a bed arranged on a light framework built
upon very delicately balanced platform beam scales.
"The patient's comfort was looked after in every way,
although he was practically moribund when placed upon the
bed. He lost weight slowly at the rate of one ounce per hour
due to evaporation of moisture in respiration and evaporation
of sweat.
"?At the end of three hours and forty minutes he expired and
suddenly coincident with death the beam end dropped with
an audible stroke hitting against the lower limiting bar and
remaining there with no rebound. The loss was ascertained to
be three-fourths of an ounce.
"This loss of weight could not be due to evaporation of
respiratory moisture and sweat, because that had already
been determined to go on, in his case, at the rate of one
sixtieth of an ounce per minute, whereas this loss was
sudden and large, three-fourths of an ounce in a few seconds.
"?My second patient was a man moribund from tuberculosis.
He was on the bed about four hours and fifteen minutes
under observation before death?The weight lost was found
to be half an ounce?My third case, a man dying of
tuberculosis, showed a weight of half an ounce lost,
coincident with death, and an additional loss of one ounce a
few minutes later." In his next case, "A man dying of
tuberculosis showed a distinct drop in the beam requiring
about three-eighths of an ounce which could not be
accounted for."
When he did the same experiments with dying dogs, he found
no weight loss. MacDougall said, "The net result of the
experiments conducted on human beings, is that a loss of
substance occurs at death not accounted for by known
channels of loss. Is it the soul substance? It would seem to
me to be so?We have experimental demonstration that a
substance capable of being weighed does leave the human
body at death."
Can we communicate with the dead? Some scientists
think we can.
For more information, click here.
