MadSci Network: Medicine
Query:

Re: Is it pitch black inside our bodys?

Area: Medicine
Posted By: Samuel Conway, Senior Staff Chemist, Avid Therapeutics,Philadelphia, PA
Date: Mon Sep 8 20:53:52 1997
Area of science: Medicine
ID: 872010414.Me
Message:
Well, I've never seen pitch, so I do not know exactly how black it is.
However, our bodies are not transparent to light.  If you were to get
under my skin, as my nephew often does, you would find that once you
penetrated just a short distance it would get very very dark.  Close
to the surface, a little light may filter in through the skin,
especially where the skin is thin.

(eat your heart out, Dr. Seuss).

Inside the body cavity itself, it is likely to be completely dark, 
since light cannot penetrate that amount of flesh.  It would be like
holding a nice strip of raw New York sirloin to your eye and trying 
to see sunlight through it.

Only when the body is opened up is enough light admitted so that the
various colors of the organs -- pink and grey and brown and sometimes
nastier colors -- may be seen.  I do not suggest trying this.




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