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Good Questions: Drowning by weight, not numbers

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From: The Independent - London
Date: 19940502
Author:WILLIAM HARTSTON

DEATH, time, the weather and some complex relationships are among readers' problems tackled this week, and we begin with a piece of classical wisdom.

Pliny the Elder claims of drowned bodies that male corpses float face upwards and female corpses, more modestly, face downwards. Aldous Huxley wrote an amusing poem on the subject. Is Pliny's statement true? (Brian W Aldiss, Oxford).

Only if Pliny's drowned acquaintances were all slim, small-breasted women and pot-bellied men. Most drowned bodies initially float face downwards, owing to the weight of the arms. Excess fat in breasts and stomach, ...

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