VeeshanVault

What happens to someone's eyes when the body is burned? I'm not talking burned completely to ashes, but say if they were set afire and the flames only quit burning after the body had turned into a crisp? I'd imagine that they would boil as the flames ate at the face, but would there be anything left of them in the sockets afterwards?

I know. Really sick question, but it's a needed detail for something I'm working on..

Well our bodies ARE composed of %70 water....Our eyeballs are just that...Made out of viscous gel type stuff....I imagine they just kinda...dry up? For lack of a better word. So naturally the only thing left is nothing....

Dust then, maybe, if anything?

well if your eyes are made out of water then more than likely if you catch on fire they wont turn to dust they will evaporate.

The eyes themselves are just a tissue membrane that would most likely dissolve under that ammount of heat. The enternal eyeball consists of a fluid called vitrious humor. That would probably boil and or evaporate off. Leaving in the end an exposed optic nerve and a large ammount of pain. Also a fitting for a couple of patches, glass eyes, a cane, and a new seeing eye dog.

I always thought the outer layer of the eye kinda melted off, and then the fluid inside just leaked out/evaporated so you were left with pretty much nothing... doesn't everyone have a small hard thing inside their eye? Remember dissecting frogs? It's like a little marble or something, not sure what the hell it is, or if humans even have it, but I know fish and frogs do at least.

Nope is all gel like liquid stuff.

Can we expect to see you in the News later this year?

I hope..

that hard marble thing is the lense of the eye

I would say one of three things depending on the heat pattern:

A) Scorch Externally (low heat and or limited exposure time)
B) Scorch Til they crack and the humors leak out then dessicate and burn (low heat long exposure - high heat long exposure)
C) Burst from volatilized liquid expanding rapidly then dessicate etc (ultra high heat - falling in lava, molten iron that sort of thing)

Eyes dessicate very easily, and are one of the first tissues lost when a person really catches fire well - at least well enough to burn through the protection that eyelids offer, which is actually considerable.

Above posters had it right - the sclera of the eye shrinks and breaks, and the vitreous humor leaks out. Essentially, the eyes melt. I would imagine the issue regarding the optic nerve and pain would largely depend on if the person was aflame long enough to cauterize the nerve endings.

Arundel Pajo wrote:Eyes dessicate very easily, and are one of the first tissues lost when a person really catches fire well

He's really burning now Elmer! There go the eyes!

Sorry Arundel. The phrase, "really catches fire well" made me try to picture what exactly that stage was.

...not to make light of being burned. The smallest of burns, like from a stove, hurt like hell. Being burned alive has got to be in the top ten of anyone's list of ways they don't wish their life to end.

I bet you could sell the result on ebay!

I bet you could, sell it on ebay.