Shroud of Turin Blog

I came across the Svensson & Heimburger paper earlier today, while attempting a search for any research work corroborating no image under blood stains, following up Colin B’s recent assertions that there was insufficient evidence for this often repeated claim. He seems to favour the idea that leeches were used to paint the blood stains. The main source for the claim seems to be the work of Heller & Adler (1981) that Kelly Kearse mentions in a recent posting. The Shroud com “Facts 3″ page also cites Schwalbe & Brillante as sources, but I had not been entirely successful in tracing their work. I suspect it all comes back to Heller & Adler.

Svensson & Heimburger also refer to the H&A 1981 paper, including the following comment: “From a forensic point of view, we must notice that this article has been published in a peer-reviewed journal (Canadian Society of Forensic Sciences Journal) dedicated to Forensic Science.” They then list seven results which they deem the most important. They give the following entry on item 7:
” ‘Protease tests, leaving no residues’. This is very important: “Within a half hour this solution completely “dissolved” the non-birefringent red particulate coated fibrils coating, leaving no particulate residues… This protease treatment also removes the golden yellow fibrils, corroborating their identification as “serum” coated fibrils. Interestingly, fibrils freed of their coating using this technique closely resemble the non-image fibrils when viewed under phase-contrast…” I take it that here they are quoting an H&A finding, and, unless I’m mistaking the intent, it seems to me that here is the main source for the assertion that there is no image under the blood stains.

Another aspect raised by CB was the very low potassium levels, which he claimed also suit his leech theory. Low potassium levels, are yet another by-product of physical trauma as explained in this paper.

I was surprised to see how recently this S&H paper had been published (30 July), and it seemed to cover a lot of new material fairly definitively. It is now apparent that it is only one of several delightful papers, from Academic Journals. There is certainly a great deal of material to catch up on.