Dr. Duncan MacDougal, the Scientist Who Measured DeathIn 1901 an American scientist named Dr. Duncan

Dr. Duncan MacDougal, the Scientist Who Measured DeathIn 1901 an American scientist named Dr. Duncan MacDougall set out to prove one of the greatest mysteries of mankind; the existence of the soul.  MacDougall, a deeply religious Christian, believed that the soul was tangible and real.  However, he took this belief one step further, theorizing that the soul must have mass.  Hence, to prove the existence of the soul MacDougall postulated that when the soul left the body at death, the remaining corpse of the deceased should weigh less than the previous alive person.  To prove his theory, MacDougall would conduct one of the most bizarre experiments in history.To prove his hypothesis MacDougal created an experiment in which he would weigh subjects as they died.  First MacDougal had to find willing participants.  He asked door to door at hospitals, sanitariums, and homes for permission to conduct his research.  All rebuffed his requests, seeing the experiment to be macabre and disrespectful to the dying.  Finally MacDougall was able to secure a willing host to his experiments at a home for terminal tuberculosis victims as well as six volunteers.  To weigh his subjects MacDougall  invented new technology for his purpose.  Most heavy scales of the day were spring scales used to weigh large pieces of meat such as pork or beef.  Unfortunately they were not designed to weigh minute differences in weight.  To conduct his experiment MacDougall invented a new type of scale which used a balance rather than a spring, much like the scale used in a doctor’s office but installed into a hospital bed.  The new scale was so accurate it could accurately measure differences in weight down to the gram, an incredible feat for the early 1900’s.  The results of MacDougall’s experiments were interesting.  In the moments leading up to death the patient lost one ounce of weight per hour due to perspiration.  Then at the exact moment of death was followed by an instant loss of weight. MacDougall describes what happened,During all three hours and forty minutes I kept the beam slightly above balance near the upper limiting bar in order to make the test more decisive should it come. At the end of three hours and forty minutes he (the patient) 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.MacDougall repeated the experiment with five other subjects with each losing a measurable amount of weight at the exact moment of death.  The amounts varied from a half ounce to one and a half ounces, but averaged out to around three quarters of an ounce. While the results seemed to confirm his hypothesis of the existence of an eternal soul, MacDougall was still a scientist, and tested several theories that could explain such a sudden loss of weight.  One explanation was the loosening of the bladder or bowels at the moment of death.  However, MacDougall reasoned that released urine and fecal matter remained on the scale and was balanced out.  Another theory was the dying patient’s last gasp, that the last dying exhalation of the subject accounts for the sudden loss in weight.  MacDougall tested this theory by placing himself and other healthy subjects on the scales, where they would forcefully exhale.  This action created no difference in weight.  He prepared to conduct more experiments, however the rest home which hosted his experiments no longer condoned his work.  He spent several years trying to find another willing participant, but all caretakers denied his requests, seeing his work as being morbid and disrespectful to the dying.At this point MacDougall was forced to modify his experiment.  In the second phase of his testing he developed a new hypothesis.  According to Christian belief, animals do not have souls like humans.  Therefore when an animal dies there should be no decrease in weight.  MacDougall then conducted new tests in which he euthanized dogs and sheep, measuring the weight difference at death.  The new tests showed that dogs did not lose weight at death, seemingly confirming his hypothesis.  However, the tests also showed that when sheep died they inexplicably gained weight, completely contradicting his hypothesis.  In 1907 MacDougall published his results in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research and the medical journal American Medicine, several newspapers also reported his results.  McDougall’s work immediately sparked an intense debate, with several critics and supporters examining his work.  Despite the interest in his work, McDougall’s experiment was never repeated.Today modern scientists dismiss McDougall’s results, as the experiments were not done to the modern standards of the scientific method today, results were not uniform but varied wildly, and the fact that sheep increased in weight after death negate his results.  MacDougall himself admitted that the results he recorded did not add up to conclusive proof and that many more tests needed to be done before any conclusions could be drawn.  Unfortunately MacDougall’s experiments were never repeated and it is unlikely they ever will. -- source link

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