drianeo: In the year 1901, American scientist Duncan MacDougall brought it upon...
In the year 1901, American scientist Duncan MacDougall brought it upon himself to find an answer to that age old question: Do men have souls? To do this he bought an old industrial scale which was sensitive enough to measure in grams and went to the nearest hospice to find test subjects.
His first patient was an 80 year old man who had been sick and in pain for several months. When the man was close to death, MacDougall placed him on the scale and waited for him to die. When the man died the scale dropped with a loud clang; the man’s weight had been reduced by exactly 21 grams.
To make sure this wasn’t a mistake, MacDougall repeated this experiment with 6 other patients over the course of a year. MacDougall made absolutely sure that his subjects had differing weights, ages, and heights. With the exception of 2 tests, when the other subjects died the scale would register a loss of 21 grams.
His work was published in many magazines and newspapers, but most people dismissed it as the ravings of a madman.
