To Treat The Dead

Doctors are for the sick. They help people recover from their illnesses by advising healthy routines to keep the body strong. There are times they also do research and try to discover medical breakthroughs that may help get rid of illnesses. Doctors are to help keep people live life longer. However there are doctors who instead treat the dead.

Meet Pathologist Frank Ruhli, a person who is presently involved in studying an obsession: mummies. He was part of the group that had studied Ramses II and Oetzi the ice man. In his every study he tried to find out more on the possible deaths acquainted with the mummy, whether there were illnesses involved, which he believed may be of good help to medical practices. His employment verification will show that he used to practice medicine but instead has followed his passion to study mummies instead: something which he had always loved since he was a kid.

Studying mummies is not as boring, nor scary, as some people might think. The stories of curses and other terrifying issues that surround it is actually one that may get a person more involved. For kids who have loved watching cartoons that have mummies for action figures or are into stories which involved these characters, getting interested means doing a background check on the lives of the ancient ones. Question like “why are there tattoos on their bodies?”, “Why should they be preserved?”, or “what may have caused their deaths?” may later on have answers that may help in other research.


For Dr. Ruhli, studying mummies may give him ideas that on special cases of illnesses or other history details which were left unsaid in history. Looking at mummies up close may give us insights on marks, which shows illnesses and how it they have evolved in time. Another reason that may result to studying the dead is finding out the history of how these ancients once lived. The royalties, to be specific, especially those who were murdered, are the best subject for such like the Egyptian mummy King Tut. Results to such studies may prove or oppose earlier claims and, at times, may help find out more about the said mummy.

Other than the said reasons, it is also fascinating to know on the reason behind the preservation and how these corpses were mummified. Each civilization has a belief and practice. Their own way of embalming the dead and keeping it in its original form differ from the procedure to the treatments used. In Egypt fragrant oils were used before wrapping the body in linen. Religion can also be a topic in studying these preserved bodies. The belief that the body is a means to sustain the soul was also from the Egyptians.

There are many interesting facts that one may learn from studying mummies. They may or may not have be of famous personas retold time and again in our history classes yet can give vital information that may be means to certain breakthroughs. For Dr. Ruhli, his experience in this field is an employment verification of his endless curiosity to learn more of the ancients’ history.

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