Burial plots.

There is some debate as to whether the Dutch Burial Act applies to neonatal deaths after a gestation of less than 24 weeks. It is recommended that the Act be considered applicable in these situations, leading to a compulsory (external) post mortem examination, the issue of an official death certificate, and registration of the birth and death at the official registry office, followed by burial or cremation according to the law. The Act should be amended to this effect. It is also recommended that the Burial Act no longer apply in cases of known intra-uterine death before 24 weeks of gestation where birth takes place after 24 weeks. The stipulated cut-off point in the Act for defining a miscarriage as opposed to a birth or stillbirth, i.e. 24 weeks of gestation, should preferably be replaced by the international (WHO) criterion of a birth weight of 500 g, as this will lead to less ambiguity and a better comparison of Dutch and international data concerning perinatal mortality.

Burial↗

PubMed2006

Preserved skin structure of a recently found fifteenth-century mummy in Daejeon, Korea.

Recently published reports on Korea's medieval mummies have been regarded as an invaluable source for studies into the physical characteristics of medieval Koreans. However, even though the mummified tissues have been investigated histologically on various previous occasions, there are many unanswered questions relating to their tissue preservation. The aim of this study was to obtain new data on the ultramicroscopic characteristics of the mummified skin of a fifteenth-century mummy found recently in Daejeon--one of the oldest ever found in Korea. Electron microscopy revealed that much of the epidermis had decayed; what remained of the dermis was filled with collagen fibres and melanin granules or invading bacterial spores present within the mummified epidermis. Considering the histological characteristics shared by naturally formed mummies in different parts of the world, we concluded that the ultramicroscopic patterns of the Daejeon mummy were more comparable with those naturally formed mummies than with artificially formed ones. This is the first full description of the morphological characteristics of the skin collected from this recently found medieval mummy from Daejeon, South Korea.

Burial↗