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Updated: Tue, 03/10/2026 - 17:14 In-person class cancellation and work-from-home / Annulation des cours en présentiel et télétravail. McGILL ALERT! Due to freezing rain all in-person classes and activities on Wednesday, March 11, will be cancelled. Staff are asked not to come to campus tomorrow unless they are required on site by their supervisor to perform necessary functions and activities. See your McGill email for more information. ... ALERTE McGILL! En raison de la pluie verglaçante, tous les cours et activités en présentiel prévus pour le mercredi 11 mars sont annulés. Nous demandons au personnel de ne pas se présenter sur le campus demain, à moins que leur superviseur ne leur demande d’être sur place pour accomplir des fonctions ou activités nécessaires au fonctionnement du campus. Pour plus d’informations, veuillez consulter vos courriels de McGill. McGill University Office for Science and Society Separating Sense from Nonsense Enter your keywords

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Sign-Up Here Home The Real Story Behind "21 Grams"

Joe Schwarcz PhD | 19 Jun 2019 Did You Know?General Science

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The April 1907 issue of American Medicine featured a paper by Dr. Duncan Macdougall describing his experiment whereby the beds of dying patients were placed on a sensitive balance. Believe it or not, he was trying to weigh the human soul! The paper was titled “Hypothesis Concerning Soul Substance Together with Experimental Evidence of The Existence of Such Substance.” Macdougall of Haverhill, Massachusetts placed six dying patients on the specially constructed balance and concluded that at the moment of death there was a loss in weight of about three quarters of an ounce, or 21 grams. He had previously determined the weight loss attributed to evaporation of moisture form the skin, and by comparison this was sudden and much larger. He even controlled for weight loss due to urine and fecal eliminations and concluded that these could not account for the change in weight. Air loss from the lungs was not the answer either, as he determined by lying on the scale himself and noting that breathing had no effect on weight. After weighing his six patients, Macdougall went to work on dogs. How he got his hands on 15 dying dogs is not clear, but he found no weight loss at the moment they expired. He wasn’t surprised of course because he didn’t think dogs had souls. No one since has confirmed Macdougall’s findings but the movie “21 Grams” was based on this idea.

Keywords: souldeathweightskin