Essay on the Shroud of Turin's 'Blood'

[david ford]

Title: The Shroud of Turin's 'Blood' Images: Blood, or Paint? A
History of Science Inquiry
Author: David Ford <dfo...@GL.umbc.edu>
Date: 10 August 1999 File: history.c Words in file: 15,500
Keywords: Shroud of Turin, 'blood' images, McCrone, iron oxide and
vermilion paint, Heller & Adler, blood tests

"It is the essence of scientific investigation to seek to conform
thought to the nature of its object, as encountered in its interaction
with us." -- John Polkinghorne [1]

Introduction

1 According to the New Testament's book of John, Roman soldiers
"flogged" Jesus of Nazareth, "twisted together a crown of thorns and put
it on his head," "struck him in the face," and, along with two others,
"crucified him."2 Because the next day was unsuitable for the display
of crucified individuals, a request that those crucified have their
"legs broken" and their "bodies taken down" was made and granted.3
(With their legs broken, victims of crucifixion could no longer push up
their bodies to inhale, and death by suffocation quickly ensued.4)
Because the soldiers found Jesus "already dead" they "did not break his
legs," and one soldier "instead... pierced Jesus' side with a spear,
bringing a sudden flow of blood and water."5 John states that the body
was "wrapped in strips of linen," while Luke says "in linen cloth," Mark
writes "linen cloth," and Matthew states "a clean linen cloth," though
John later speaks of both "strips of linen" and "the burial cloth that
had been around Jesus' head."6

2 Incredible as it may seem, Jesus' burial cloth has been alleged to
have survived to the present and be the object known as the Shroud of
Turin (hereafter Shroud). The Shroud is an approximately 4.3 by 1.1
meters (14 feet 3 inches by 3 feet 7 inches) strip of linen cloth having
burn marks from a 1532 fire, and most significantly, bearing the faint
front and back images of an apparently scourged and crucified male.
Close similarities exist between the image and the biblical accounts of
Jesus' crucifixion: over 100 marks are visible on the chest and back
side as if from a flogging,7 'blood' marks at the back of the head, to
the sides of the face, and on the brow are suggestive of a crown of
thorns,8 the face appears beaten and wounded,9 wounds appear in the
visible wrist and the clearly-outlined foot as if from nails,

a dark ellipsis resides in the side in a region having much 'blood' and
a clear fluid as if from a lance wound, and seemingly unbroken legs.10
Because of this close similarity, the image is universally believed to
depict Jesus,11 yet much controversy remains about whether the Shroud is
Jesus' actual burial shroud or merely a forgery. A 'strong-
authenticity' view holds that the body image was produced by
supernatural means involving Jesus' body, while a 'weak-authenticity'
view holds that the body image was produced by Jesus' body via unusual
natural processes. In both the strong- and weak- authenticity views,
the 'blood' images arose via contact of the cloth with a bloody Jesus.

3 A point of argument against the Shroud of Turin being Jesus' actual
burial cloth is that it can be traced with certainty only from about AD
1355. Before then, existence and provenance is much more uncertain.
According to some traditions, a disciple of Jesus brought from Jerusalem
to Edessa a cloth miraculously imprinted with the likeness of Jesus.12
Shroud historian Ian Wilson speculates that this cloth was the Shroud of
Turin, and that it was hidden in a wall to be later rediscovered during
the 500s.13 In fact, a circa 593 account states that a 544 siege of
Edessa was repulsed by "the divinely wrought likeness which human hands
have not made" and which was discovered in the throes of the city's
distress.14 In 943, the 'cloth of Edessa' was moved from Edessa to
Constantinople. The year thereafter, this cloth was described as

bearing "blood and water from his [Jesus'] very side," and in a circa
1130 sermon borrowing from a 769 discussion, the cloth of Edessa was
described as having "the glorious features of [Jesus'] face, and the
majestic form of his whole body... supernaturally transferred,"15
indicating the presence of more than simply a face. An official history
of the cloth of Edessa characterized in 945 the imprint as "a moist
secretion without pigment or the painter's art," and "due to sweat, not
pigments,"16 descriptions that conceivably could have been of the
Shroud. The cloth of Edessa disappeared around the time of the 1204
ransacking of Constantinople.17 Assuming that the cloth of Edessa is
identical with the Shroud of Turin, the cloth of Edessa reappeared in
circa 1355, and has been known ever since as the Shroud of Turin.

4 An early charge of forgery appears in a 1389 letter by a bishop
alleging that his predecessor had investigated the Shroud's origin in
about 1355, and discovered it to be a painting:
Eventually, after diligent inquiry and examination, he [the
preceding bishop] discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had
been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who
had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not
miraculously wrought or bestowed.18

This letter, as well as the Shroud's seeming lack of historical mention
prior to the 1350s, was proclaimed by scholars in 1900-1902 to
constitute proof that the Shroud was a forgery.19 The scholars had had
their interest in the Shroud recently awakened by an 1898 discovery. On
the night of 28 May 1898, upon developing his photographic plates of the
Shroud, the Italian semi-professional photographer Seconda Pia found
that the body image appeared much more realistic and lifelike when
viewed in negative. Pia inferred that the body image on the Shroud had
the qualities of a negative, so that when one obtained a negative of
that negative, one saw a quite lifelike positive.20

5 Besides scholars, scientists were intrigued by the lifelike image.
Working under the direction of the renowned agnostic zoologist Yves
Delage, the Catholic artist and biologist Paul Vignon and others
conducted experiments in an attempt to discover the mechanism
responsible for the body image's formation. On 21 April 1902, Delage
read his and Vignon's paper to the French Academy of Sciences describing
the Shroud's properties and the research and experimentation done, and
concluded that the Shroud was medically accurate, was not a painting,
was not a forgery, and did wrap Jesus' body.21 In 1931 and 1932, the
French surgeon Peirre Barbet performed experiments on cadavers to learn
more about crucifixion in relation to what is seen on the Shroud.22
Barbet discovered that nails driven through the palms of the hands
cannot support a body; in contrast, nails driven through the wrists
_would_ support a body, and furthermore, would damage nerves in the
wrists, causing thumbs to retract into the palms.23 On the Shroud, a
wound appears in the visible wrist, and no thumb is apparent.

6 Vignon (in the 1930s) and the American Robert Wuenschel (by 1954)
found at-least 15 peculiarities shared by 1) the Shroud face and 2) many
Byzantine portraits of Jesus from the 6th-12th centuries,24 suggesting
that the Shroud was in existence well before the 1988 carbon-dating date
of between AD 1260 and 1390.25 In 1969, a group of individuals examined
and photographed the Shroud, but did not perform any testing.26 A few
years later, a 1973 Italian Commission largely composed of scientists
examined the Shroud, and those samples of 'blood' removed were tested
for the presence of blood, yet only negative results were obtained.27
On 19 February 1976, upon placing a transparency of the Shroud into a
device called a VP-8 Image Analyzer, two American scientists viewed a
3-D rendition of the body image, thereby discovering that the body image
encodes 3-D information and posing a severe challenge to attempts at
reproducing the body image.28

7 Beginning in October 1978, about forty American scientists
intensely studied the Shroud before concluding that the body image was
not some type of painting.29 On the basis of their extensive testing of
fibers and particulate matter taken from the Shroud, biophysicist John
Heller and chemist Alan Adler concluded that the body image consisted
simply of prematurely-aged linen.30 The body image is, like a newspaper
picture, a halftone, since the higher the density of yellowed fibers,
the darker is the body image area.31 In contrast, microscopist Walter
McCrone claimed that the body image resulted from the application of
simply iron-oxide (Fe2O3) particles, a claim he later altered to say
that the body image resulted from the application of iron-oxide
particles in a proteinaceous medium (i.e., liquid iron-oxide paint).

8 Regarding the 'blood,' Heller and Adler (hereafter H&A) concluded
that it was actual blood material on the basis of physics-based and
chemistry-based testing, most tests of which will be discussed,
specifically the following: detection of higher-than-elsewhere levels
of iron in 'blood' areas via X-ray fluorescence, indicative spectra
obtained by microspectrophotometry, generation with chemicals and
ultraviolet light of characteristic porphyrin fluorescence, positive
tests for hemochromagen using hydrazine, positive tests for
cyanmethemoglobin using a neutralized cyanide solution, positive tests
for the bile pigment bilirubin, positive tests for protein, and use of
proteolytic enzymes on 'blood' material, leaving no residues. The tests
and data not discussed are the reflection spectra indicative of
bilirubin's [32] and blood's presence,33 chemical detection of the
specific protein albumin,34 the presence of serum halos around various
'blood' marks when viewed under ultraviolet light,35 the immunological
determination that the 'blood' is of primate origin,36 and the forensic
judgement that the various blood and wound marks appear extremely
realistic.37

9 Besides determining that blood was present, H&A also concluded that
the 1532 fire burned blood to result in iron oxide residing at the
Shroud's burned-'blood' areas. Contrary to McCrone's allegation that
iron oxide cannot under any circumstances arise from hemoglobin, it was
discovered in 1747 that burned-blood contains iron oxide.38 H&A also
discovered that "retting" (i.e. soaking in water) of the flax plants
used in manufacturing the Shroud linen resulted in the uptake of iron,
iron that in 1532 was 1) liberated by water splashed on the Shroud to
douse the flames and 2) traveled to the watermargin areas, where it
became iron oxide.39

10 In contrast to H&A, McCrone does not mention the burned-'blood'
and watermargin iron-oxide, and has alleged at various times that the
'blood' images are 1) simply iron oxide particles, 2) simply post-1800s
iron oxide particles, 3) iron oxide particles of a form derived from the
earth and available for tens of thousands of years, all in a
proteinaceous medium, i.e. liquid earthy iron-oxide paint, and 4) liquid
earthy iron-oxide and liquid mercury-sulfide (HgS) paint.

11 This paper will be restricted to an examination of the conflicting
claims regarding the presence or absence of actual blood. More
specifically, the historical problem here under consideration is the
problem of which claims about the actual identity of the 'blood,'
whether McCrone's or H&A's, are most likely to be correct given the
evidence that the two parties have produced, and which erroneous. To
answer that question, we must travel back twenty years and scrutinize
what was seen, what experiments done, what assumptions made, and what
conclusions drawn. I conclude that contrary to McCrone's claims,
neither iron-oxide nor mercury-sulfide contributes to the red coloration
of the 'blood' images. Furthermore, H&A correctly concluded on the
basis of their extensive, peer-reviewed testing that the 'blood' is
indeed blood, even as not-peer-reviewed criticism of their testing is
found to lack merit. Special note will be made of McCrone's repeated
failure to appear at conferences and his failure to publish his three
Shroud papers in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

12 Since a finding that the 'blood' is paint would, if correct,
constitute evidence for the Shroud being a forgery, while conversely, a
demonstration that the 'blood' is blood would mean the Shroud is less
likely to be a forgery, the paper's conclusion that the 'blood' is not
paint and is blood sheds light on the question of forgery.

* * *

13 Heller received a doctorate in medicine from Case Western Reserve
University School of Medicine, and after teaching medical physics and
internal medicine at Yale University, helped establish and worked at the
New England Institute for Medical Research, which did basic research in
the common areas of biology, physics, and chemistry.40 Partial to basic
research, Heller undertook projects he considered challenging
explorations of the unknown.41 Around the week of 21 July 1978,
Heller's interest in the Shroud was kindled by reading a Barbara J.
Culliton news story, "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin Challenges
20th-Century Science."42 For several days he entertained the
possibility of becoming involved in the potentially-challenging upcoming
scientific investigation that Culliton had mentioned.43

14 Heller finally contacted a project leader, theoretical physicist
John Jackson of the Air Force Weapons Laboratory in Albuquerque, New
Mexico.44 Jackson had enlisted the help of Weapons Laboratory engineer
Eric Jumper in doing analysis of the Shroud image and experimentation,
and the project thereafter took off as Jackson recruited more
individuals.45 In response to a question about the identity of the
'blood,' Jackson directed Heller to a book by Shroud historian Ian
Wilson for details about the 1973 Italian Commission's 'blood'
testing.46 Wilson had begun part-time study of the Shroud in about
1965, became convinced it was authentic, and published a book to that
effect in 1978.47

15 In that book, Heller read, "Attempts to dissolve the granules
during chemical treatment with acetic acid, oxygenated water, and
glycerin of potassium were all unsuccessful."48 The actual report
states, "the pigmented encrustations did not pass into solution in the
solvents, acids and the alkalies we used."49 Heller informed Jackson
that the negative test results were meaningless, explaining at the time,
"If you don't do the right tests in the right way, you can never get old
blood into solution. If it's not in solution, you can't obtain a
positive test."50

16 H&A reiterated this point in their first paper, stating that "false
negative conclusions can be drawn if the material [to be tested] cannot
be adequately solubilized, as can occur with a very aged strongly
denatured sample."51 (Denaturation constitutes the modification of a
protein's or DNA strand's structure by heat, ultraviolet radiation,
acid, etc., thereby diminishing or destroying its biological activity,
the classic example of which is denaturation of an egg's protein by
cooking.) Having received his PhD from Cornell University, and
interested in microscopy, crystallography, and analysis of very small
particles, McCrone started the research laboratory McCrone Associates
Inc. in 1956, and started McCrone Research Institute in 1960 for
teaching and research. Despite acknowledging the Italians' failure to
solubilize, Shroud skeptic Joe Nickell writes that "those conducting the
tests on the blood were... internationally known forensic serologists, a
fact that underscored the credibility of the [negative] results."52
Since McCrone terms the 1973 testing "impossible to fault" and "good
forensic science,"53 it is with a skeptical eye that we examine
McCrone's claim of obtaining negative test results on 'blood.'

17 McCrone did two of the tests done in 1973, and he either did or did
not get the 'blood' into solution before proceeding with the benzidine
and sulfuric acid tests; if he got the 'blood' into solution, even as
the Italians did not, then McCrone could not have honestly said "I find
it impossible to fault the [1973] work." I conclude that the other
possibility is the correct one: McCrone _did not_ get the 'blood' into
solution, in which case, his negative results with the two tests, like
the 1973 results, are meaningless.

18 McCrone performed the phenolphthalein test, which is much more
difficult to do than the benzidine test.54 Since McCrone could not even
properly handle the benzidine test, I conclude that he could not have
properly done the much more complicated phenolphthalein test, in which
case his obtaining negative result(s) with the latter is worthless. The
Takayama and Teichman tests yielded McCrone negative results, yet since
they are so insensitive, negative results with them does not mean blood
is absent.55

19 McCrone states that when sodium azide in an iodine solution is
applied to blood, nitrogen gas bubble production indicates the presence
of sulfur-containing amino acids, which blood has. When he applied the
solution to 'blood' fibers and to red Shroud particles, "little or no
nitrogen gas is released," which he interprets as indicating that the
red material is not actual blood.56 However, since he apparently failed
to perform controls with artificially-aged blood, he failed to check the
possibility that nitrogen gas will not be produced by very aged,
strongly denatured blood samples.

20 The sticky tapes from which McCrone obtained his samples for
testing had originally been promised to Heller for doing blood
testing.57 In anticipation of receiving samples, Heller placed some
blood and plasma "in different ways" on an old Spanish linen cloth
(blood is composed of mostly red cells, with some white cells and
platelets, all in a plasma suspension).58 After applying sticky tape to
the cloth, Heller carefully studied the resulting tapes, so much so that
he began dreaming about fibrils.59 In a similar manner, during the
Shroud of Turin Research Project, Inc. (hereafter STURP) 8 - 13 October
1978 period of data collection on the Shroud, team members Ray Rogers
and Robert Dinegar applied to the Shroud and removed 32 sticky tapes,
each approximately 5 cm^2 in area.60 Rogers was a chemist that worked
with explosives at New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory and a
part-time archeologist, while Dinegar worked at Los Alamos making bombs
and was an assistant Episcopal pastor.61

21 A month after the data collection group's return, Heller inquired
as to the whereabouts of the samples he had been promised. Rogers
informed Heller that McCrone had borrowed the tapes with instructions,
saying "I told Walter to send you any that might have blood on them."62
Following the arrival of 1979, Heller told Rogers he had received no
slides, to which Rogers suggested he phone McCrone, yet McCrone "was
never available."63 McCrone eventually returned Heller's calls:
"I'll send you a slide that's supposed to have some blood on it,
but it's so small, I don't think you'll be able to do anything with
it."
I asked incredulously, "Is that all you're sending?"
"What more do you need?"
"I should have at least a couple of other slides to orient me. At
this point, I don't have a clue to what anything looks like."
"All right, I'll see what I can do."64

McCrone sent four microscope slides labeled Blank, Scorch, Nonimage, and
Blood, on each of which a sticky tape had been attached.65 On the Blood
slide, McCrone had circled a minuscule speck and written "Good Luck,"
yet the speck was so small that even using a high magnification light
microscope viewing technique, Heller thought it impossible to determine
what was being examined: "It could have been blood, dirt, a fragment of
a linen fiber--anything."66

22 Heller had better luck elsewhere, thinking to himself upon finding
a red-coated fiber on the Nonimage slide, "That sure looks as though it
_might_ be blood."67 He eventually found on the slide a total of 7
fibers partly-coated with red stains, plus a glob he dubbed "biltong"
after the sun-dried meat some African tribes produce.68 Disregarding
biltong, Heller calculated he had about 700 picograms of hemoglobin,
assuming the red stains were blood. He considered attempting to measure
that little blood absurd, telling readers, "I am reasonably sure that no
one in the history of science ever tried or even fantasized about it."69

23 This unique problem was precipitated by McCrone. Despite Rogers's
directive that Heller be sent slides with material that might be blood,
McCrone's Blood slide was _no_ such slide; to reiterate from above, the
circled 'blood' speck was so small that by its appearance under a light
microscope, "it could have been blood, dirt, a fragment of a linen
fiber--anything." I infer that McCrone attempted to see to it that
Heller could not do any testing for blood. McCrone's attempt is hardly
surprising considering that he long delayed sending Shroud slides for
electron microscope examination to people in his _own_ company: writes
McCrone,
By January 1980 [i.e., by about 1 year after receiving Shroud
slides], I had prepared two technical papers for publication....
Only then, did I allow the electron optics group at McCrone
Associates to examine the "Shroud" fibers and tapes. I prevented
them from doing this earlier because I (selfishly) wished to see
polarized light microscopy solve the "Shroud" problem without
assistance.70

His explanation of this self-described selfishness toward his own
coworkers is that he "was hurt by" the fact that "an instrument I still
found very useful... became the dinosaur of the research and development
world," and thus, "wanted to show 'them' [i.e., the world at large] the
light microscope is still important."71 In short, McCrone had a "hope"
that a successful use of the polarized light microscope on the Shroud
"would reassert its once strong position in chemical research."72 He
was and remains a devoted crusader for the importance of the light
microscope, despite its being made obsolete long ago by physics-based
instruments.

24 Even though Heller had suggested to Jackson that one could use a
physics-based instrument to determine the identity of the 'blood,'
Heller began work on the red material through a chemistry approach.73
The chemical structure that Heller wanted to detect is a component of
hemoglobin (red blood cells mostly consist of hemoglobin). As its name
suggests, hemoglobin consists of globin (a protein) and a heme molecule.
A porphyrin has a single metal atom in its center; hemoglobin's heme
molecule is a heme porphyrin, and its center metal atom is an iron atom.
Heme porphyrin can be detected by applying hydrazine and formic acid to
displace a (suspected) heme molecule's iron atom, followed by
illumination under long-wavelength ultraviolet light to produce a red
fluorescence that can be detected by a human eye adapted to the dark.74

25 Using bloody Spanish linen fibrils, Heller performed the chemical
treatments, adapted his eyes, turned on the UV, and looked at the
samples. He says he
swore for thirty seconds without repeating myself. The adhesive
used on the Mylar [sticky tape] was supposed to be inert. I
growled, "Inert adhesive, my foot. It is damn well ert!" It
fluoresced blue-white. I knew I would never be able to see red
dots against that bright background.75

With additional experimentation, Heller was finally able to obtain a
positive result with bloody Spanish linen fibers, yet even then, it
required much more heme porphyrin than existed on the 7 Shroud fibers.76

26 Heller left a message for McCrone, requesting any additional slides
that might have blood. Heller phoned a day later, and was told by a
woman that the answer was no,77 yet unbeknownst to Heller, in reality
the answer to his question was yes. Heller then thought of Western
Connecticut State College professor Alan Adler,78 with whom he had
collaborated on different projects, and who he describes as a physical
chemist, thermodynamicist, and "porphyrin nut."79 Heller approached
Adler in a roundabout way:
"Al," I said enthusiastically, "how would you like to get involved
in a real fun project? It even involves porphyrins."
"Oh yeah? Did you say fun project?"
"Yup. It might turn out to be the most fun you've ever had on a
problem."
"Sounds interesting. Are you guaranteeing it will be fun?"
"Definitely."80

At a later meeting, Heller informed Adler what the Shroud of Turin was
("The what of where?"), what STURP was doing, and what Heller was up to.
Adler had a "predatory light gleaming in his eye" when requesting to see
some of the red fibers. Upon viewing one, he exclaimed, "John, that's
blood!," to which Heller responded, "I think so too. But what I haven't
figured out is how to prove it."81 Noteworthy is Heller's refusal to
call the 'blood''s similarity in appearance to actual blood definitive
proof that the red stains were blood.

27 Adler became "hooked," and together they repeated Heller's
experiments and went beyond them. However, in spite of their best
efforts, they were unable to increase the sensitivity of the testing,
and consequently, it seemed they would never be able to measure the
fibers' 700 picograms of possibly-hemoglobin.82 Heller and Adler
suspended their investigation for the first post-Turin STURP meeting,
held on 24-5 March 1979 in Santa Barbara, California.83

28 The X-ray fluorescence team consisted of Schwalbe and two
nondestructive-testing coworkers at Los Alamos National Laboratory,
Roger Morris and J. Ronald London.84 Morris presented the results from
the X-ray fluorescence testing, which permitted identification of the
elements present in the Shroud areas sampled. When Heller heard that
the group had found uniform iron levels throughout the Shroud except in
the 'blood' areas, where there appeared higher iron levels than
elsewhere, he thought,
Well, well. That's presumptive evidence that the 'blood' may be
real blood. The iron atoms in heme porphyrins would account for
the extra iron in those areas. I _have_ to figure out a way to
test the garnet-red spots.85

In their published paper, Morris et al. write that while their findings
"do not prove that the stains are blood, they are generally consistent
with this hypothesis," concluding, "we can say no more than that either
blood or some iron-based pigment was used to produce the ['blood']
stains."86 Only in the presence of additional indications can the
higher-than-elsewhere iron levels in 'blood' regions constitute evidence
for H&A's contention that the 'blood' is blood.

29 In their control runs using whole blood, Morris et al. detected
both iron and potassium, with the potassium levels usually being
at-least ten times smaller than the iron levels.87 In contrast to the
control runs, no indications of potassium appeared in the Shroud data;
Morris et al. add, "poor signal-to-noise ratios may preclude definite
conclusions on this point," but this does not stop McCrone from
asserting, "If they [STURP] don't find potassium with iron and
calcium--t'aint blood!"88

30 At the time of Rogers's talk, McCrone believed the 'blood' to be
artist's iron-oxide particles. His identification of iron-oxide was
based on neither chemical testing nor physics-based testing, but
consisted simply of looking through his microscope and seeing particles
that seemed to have the appearance and crystalline characteristics of
iron-oxide. In his first Shroud paper, McCrone characterized the red
particles in the following manner:
This material, when examined on the tapes with higher magnification
and transmitted polarized light, is identical in appearance and
properties (color, pleochroism, shape, size, crystallinity,
refractive indices, and birefringence) to the particles of hydrous
and anhydrous iron oxide particles, collectively known as iron
earth pigment, used since the days of the caveman.89

McCrone's statements about the size and shape of the red particles
changed several times, and are discussed in the course of this paper.
We turn now to the questions of color and supposed crystalline
characteristics, beginning with the latter.

31 "Pleochroism" is a crystal's property of displaying different
colors when viewed by a particular form of light. The higher a
material's "refractive index," the more the material will bend light
that enters and goes through it; in "birefringence," light is refracted/
bent in two slightly different directions, forming two rays.
Birefringence is only exhibited by "anisotropic" molecules, while by way
of contrast, "isotropic" molecules do not exhibit birefringence.90 Such
things as topaz, calcite, and iron-oxide are birefringent, while blood
is not.91

32 After later determining that the 'blood' was blood, lacked
pleochroism, and lacked birefringence,92 Heller suspected that McCrone
had attributed birefringence to Shroud particles by checking for the
property while they were on the Mylar sticky tape:
The only way that someone [i.e. McCrone] could have been misled
into thinking that the blood particles on the Shroud were
birefringent is if he had examined them for this property while
they were still on the Mylar tape. Mylar is optically active, and
_any_ red particle looks birefringent when the light has to pass
through the tape and particle. The particles had to be removed
from the tape if one was to determine which were blood and which
were not.93

The suspicion was confirmed by McCrone's first paper, where Heller read
"This material, when examined on the tapes with higher magnification and
transmitted polarized light, is identical in appearance and
properties...." Oddly enough, McCrone's first paper acknowledges that
Mylar is anisotropic (and by extension, birefringent),94 yet McCrone
still went ahead with identifying the particles as birefringent while
they were on the Mylar.

33 In 1996, McCrone obliquely admitted having made the mistake in
attributing crystalline characteristics-- including birefringence and
pleochroism-- to red Shroud particles they do not possess: "The
particles are isotropic hence not pure hematite but they match red ochre
in size, shape and color."95 Compare the 1980 "This material... is
identical in appearance and properties (color, pleochroism, shape, size,
crystallinity, refractive indices, and birefringence) to the particles
of hydrous and anhydrous iron oxide particles...."; gone is any mention
of pleochroism, crystallinity, refractive indices, and birefringence.

34 In short, McCrone made a large mistake in saying 'blood' particles
possess certain crystalline characteristics when in fact they do not,
thereby contributing to his misidentification of 'blood' as iron-oxide.

35 We turn now to a discussion of the unusually red color of the
'blood.' In a 26 December 1978 lab notebook entry, McCrone wrote that
the 'blood' seemed too red to be blood:
Starting with 3-CB, a heavy ['blood'] image area, blood from lance
wound--Using low magnification (10x and 10x obj.) I could see heavy
encrustations (of blood?)--too red! I've never seen dried blood
look like this. The sample we used for the Particle Atlas is spray
dried but is yellow to black depending on thickness of the
particles.96

The oddity of the red color of the 'blood' was noted as long ago as 1937
by Vignon. Vignon writes that during the three-week-long 1931
exhibition of the Shroud, he and others "saw the Shroud repeatedly in
different conditions of light, for long periods at a time, and on
several occasions were allowed to handle it."97 After discussing the
major blood flows, Vignon states, "But the color of all this blood
raises a new problem. It is a sort of dull carmine, whereas very old
blood becomes brown. Here, then, is another riddle, but not an
objection."98 Vignon failed to explain why the redness is not, as
McCrone believes to be the case, an objection to the claim that the
'blood' is blood.

36 Adler and others answer Vignon's question and McCrone's objection
in the following manner. For one thing, not all the 'blood' material is
red, for its color ranges from yellow to orange to red to brown. Also,
the 'blood' is not whole blood, but exudate from a blood clot (when a
blood clot dries, it contracts, exuding liquid blood material). The
'blood' moreover is blood clot exudate from a beaten, traumatized
individual. A traumatic beating would destroy red blood cells, and the
red cell debris would go to the liver, which in turn would take the
debris's hemoglobin and convert it to the bile pigment bilirubin.
Bilirubin levels in the blood would rapidly rise, meaning that should a
cut form, the resulting blood clot's exudate will contain serum albumin
(a protein found in blood serum), and that albumin will bring with it
bilirubin. The clot exudate's hemoglobin oxidizes to become
"methemoglobin," which is reddish-brown/ brown; this reddish-brown/
brown + the yellow-orange bilirubin = red. (Malaria can produce red
cell destruction, but severe malaria cases are rare.)99 Ancient DNA
specialist Thomas Loy agrees with Adler's explanation for the seemingly
too-red color of much of the 'blood,' himself having found 300,000
year-old blood with the same vivid red color.100

37 Following the Santa Barbara meeting, Heller and Adler moved from
chemistry to physics, specifically, microspectrophotometry
(mi-cro-spec-tro-fuh-tah'-mu-tree). A spectrophotometer shines a range
of wavelengths of light at a material, and determines which wavelengths
made it through the material and with what intensities. A
microspectrophotometer is simply a spectrophotometer altered for use on
very small specimens.101 When showing Yale University's Joseph Gall the
slide, Heller said, "We're going to have to take the spectrum through
glass, stickum, any miscellaneous dirt on the surface of the fibrils,
the garnet-red stuff, and the linen fibril itself, not to mention the
Mylar."102 Gall thought they would be unable to see fine structure in
the midst of that conglomeration, "fine structure" being the many little
valleys and peaks that make up a molecule's "fingerprint" when its
spectrum is plotted.103 Regarding hemoglobin's various fingerprints,
H&A note that there exists
no specific spectrum for blood _per se_; what is seen depends on
the chemical state of the hemoglobin (e.g., reduced, methemoglobin
[which would be oxidized hemoglobin], denatured) and on its state
of aggregation (e.g., film, crystal, solution).104

Heller and Gall were looking for the Soret band, which is extremely
strong absorption at about four hundred ten nanometers wavelength
because of the heme porphyrin.105 In response to Gall's question about
the absorption's specificity, Heller replied, "It's specific. There's
nothing in nature which absorbs light at four hundred... ten nanometers
that strongly. The porphyrins... should give a peak that looks like
Mount Everest."106

38 Using a _Zeiss_ microspectrophotometer, they began the readings of
biltong at 700 nanometers, and initially went down in increments of 10
nanometers. Heller recalls that
When we reached 450 nanometers, my pulse rate began to go up. Very
unscientific. At 430 nanometers, we shortened the gap between
readings to 5 nanometers. At 425, the peak was still climbing. At
420 and 415, it was still rising. The crucial reading was 410. If
the graph peaked here and began to fall away, we were onto
something big. If, however, it continued to rise, the experiment
had fallen through and was useless. At 405, there seemed to be a
flattening-out. My pulse was racing.
"Calm down," I said to myself. "This is an experiment--nothing
more, nothing less. The data are the data!" When we hit four
hundred, the peak began to fall. At 395--more so. At 390, it was
sharply down.
"Oh, my God," I said aloud, "it really is blood!" The hair stood
up on the nape of my neck. Exhilaration shot through me. This was
_blood_, not iron oxide. I let out my breath with a huge whoosh,
and Gall turned to me and smiled. "I guess we did it, John. Now,
let's try a fibril."107

Following biltong, they found the Soret band on the fibril. Gall left
to keep an appointment, and Heller "floated out" to his car: "'It's
blood!' ran the refrain through my head. This is a project, not a
boondoggle. It is an abso-bloody-lutely first-class, interesting
project. My veins felt too full."

39 Upon returning to the New England Institute, Heller ran in and
seized Adler. After the coordinates had been plotted on graph paper,
Adler observed, "John, this is hemoglobin. It's the acid methemoglobin
form, and it's denatured and very old." Heller "beamed" before noting,
"But Al. We don't have the requisite fine structure," to which Adler
replied, "Fine structure, my foot! Do you think this is the spectrum of
sauteed artichoke hearts? Don't be ridiculous." Suggested Heller,
"Let's check with at least two other top hemoglobin hotshots and see if
they are as sure as we are. Pick anyone you want." Adler's choice gave
the answer of old acid methemoglobin. They then spoke via speakerphone
to Bruce Cameron, "whose double-doctorate is dedicated to hemoglobin in
all its many forms," and upon receiving and plotting the numbers,
Cameron said, "You both should know what it is. It's old acid
methemoglobin. I don't know why you wanted to bother me with something
you know as well as I do... Hey, wait a minute. Are you two idiots
working on the Shroud of Turin?" At this point, Heller and Adler shook
hands after smiling at each other.108

40 In their first Shroud paper, H&A state that the Shroud fibrils'
spectra were "indicative" of "the spectrum of a fully oxidized denatured
met-hemoglobin, i.e., a so-called perturbed acid met-hemoglobin"; such a
spectrum is "thermodynamically... expected" considering the age of
at-least 600 years. However, as previously noted, there was a lack of
fine structure: "the high degree of scattering from these solid samples
makes the visible band shape features less distinct and does produce
peak shifts.... Therefore, this identification is much less positive
than desired."109 Heller must have returned to Yale, for H&A write that
all the red fibrils were tested, as well as controls from the Spanish
linen.110 The 'bloody' Shroud and Spanish linen control fibers "all...
showed intense Soret (400-450-nm) absorption indicative of a regular
porphyrinic material."111 The finding of a Soret band for biltong found
mention in the summary paper of Larry Schwalbe and Ray Rogers,112 but
neither of H&A's papers. For a living, Schwalbe performed
nondestructive testing/ analysis at Los Alamos National Laboratory.113

41 Six months after Santa Barbara (i.e., around September 1979), a
meeting was held in Los Alamos, at which time McCrone said the iron
oxide he saw was a post-1800s iron-oxide.114 The appearance of the
"iron oxide" apparently changed, prompting McCrone to drop the
post-1800s claim in February 1980, when he wrote,
I thought at first that only a synthetic iron oxide, Jeweler's
rouge, available only after about 1800, was present on the Shroud.
However, I now see evidence for older forms of iron oxide,
especially, natural iron oxide pigments that have been used for
many hundreds of years; in fact, were used by Stone Age man in
decorating cave walls many thousands of years ago.115

42 With the Santa Barbara and Los Alamos conferences behind them, John
Jackson and Eric Jumper called for a third conference, this time at
Colorado Springs sometime around Easter Sunday, 6 April 1980, to discuss
the Shroud's chemistry. Since the schedule of McCrone made a particular
spring break week inconvenient, the rest of the group altered plans for
a meeting the following week. Jumper informed McCrone that anything
needed would be available, including laboratories, and suggested that
they discuss the respective findings and resolve any differences, or at
least agree about the sources and bases of the disagreements. McCrone
agreed with the concept of discussing differences face-to-face and was
ready to appear at the meeting, yet on the opening day of the
conference, Jumper informed the others that McCrone had just
communicated that he was unable to attend.116

43 Heller introduced Adler, who suggested they do some chemistry,
whereupon Jackson noted that they had right there the requisite
facilities and the slides. That news pleasantly surprised Heller:
"What!" I yelped. "We have slides?" "Oh, sure. Didn't I tell you?
Eric [Jumper], Ray [Rogers], and I [Jackson] made a special trip to
Chicago to McCrone's lab to get them back."117

Heller was "positively salivating." After assembling needed equipment,
publications, and chemicals, they commenced working. When Jumper
pointed to a particular _Zeiss_ microscope and commented, "I have one of
the slides from a blood area under there," Heller
pounced on the microscope. "Wow!" I exclaimed. "We've got a whole
jungle of stuff here. Good grief, there are microacres of what
looks like blood." "Move over," rasped Adler. He looked. "If
that isn't blood, I'll eat this microscope."118

Adler performed a hydrazine + formic acid test on Spanish linen blood,
and obtained a positive result. Adler then tested a 'bloody' fibril via
the hydrazine + formic acid method:
....Adler asked me [Heller] for a Shroud fibril covered with what
we both believed to be blood. I picked one that had a huge amount
of red coating compared to the 700-picogram amount we had had
before. He put on the reagents. Out went the lights. On went the
ultraviolet. The red fluorescence could be seen with the naked
eye. "Great," cheered Larry Schwalbe. "Neat," said Jackson.119

During further testing that day, 'blood' fibrils continued to be
positive for blood. When a 'blood' area was tested for protein, it was
positive, as is to be expected of real blood, for as Heller notes,
"blood is loaded with different types of protein, such as albumins and
globulins."120

44 The next morning, Jackson made a comment about the lack of red
particles on at-least a third of the body image fibers. Heller says he
himself "had been looking at the red dots and blobs in image and
nonimage fibrils, and, increasingly, they looked like blood." After
fibers having red dots were collected, and their red dots harvested,
Adler explained how the test would proceed: "I'm about to add
hydrazine. If the red particle goes into solution, it's got to be blood
protein. It can't be iron oxide." In response to Jumper's question of
why iron oxide fails to dissolve in hydrazine, Heller responded with a
question:
"If you placed a horseshoe in a bowl of water, would it dissolve in
five minutes?" "Of course not!" "That's your answer. Iron has a
very low solubility."

When Adler added the hydrazine, the red particles started to dissolve:
"And," crowed Al, "they're producing the typical hemochromagen
color. This, lady and gentlemen, is _not_ iron oxide; it is
blood!"121

45 In short, on the basis of the conference's protein testing,
hydrazine + formic acid testing, and hydrazine testing, there existed an
amount of data adequate for forming a preliminary conclusion that the
'blood' was actual blood.122

46 Following the Colorado Springs conference, Heller and Adler did
additional work to solidify the preliminary conclusion about the 'blood'
using 22 sticky tapes, Jumper having placed tapes "in Adler's hands with
the imperative 'Go do chemistry.'"123 Adler agreed with Heller's desire
to start over, as if they had not done any testing in Colorado.124

47 They started by investigating the specificity and sensitivity of
various protein tests, including the ninhydrin, Amido black, Coomassie
Brilliant Blue, Bromthymol Blue, Biuret-Lowry, Bromcresol Green, and
fluorescamine tests, and the latter was found to be the most
suitable.125 H&A used fluorescamine on a Shroud 'serum' fibril-- "which
should have been laden with blood proteins"-- put out the lights and
turned on the UV light, and the "erstwhile honey-yellow fibrils glowed
with a positive test like a bright green fluorescent beacon." They
continued with one 'serum' fibril "after another from every sample that
contained such fibrils."126 Not just serum but also 'blood' fibrils and
shards tested positive for protein: "Positive fluorescamine tests were
obtained on both the red and golden yellow coated fibrils, on the
shards, and on both the orange and brown globs."127

48 The "shards" were half-tubular, elongated 'blood' fragments that
had resulted when dried 'blood' cracked off Shroud fibrils. Shards were
tested not only for protein, but for blood as well during the
post-Colorado testing. Write H&A, "If the shards are barely covered,
i.e., microspotted with a film of hydrazine, they slowly dissolve and
give a characteristic pink hemochromagen-like color."128 Not just the
shards, but also the 'bloody' fibrils produced such results.129 In
sharp contrast to Heller's account of Colorado and H&A's paper's
remarks, McCrone flatly says "_None_ of the red image-area particles are
soluble in hydrazine."130 Other than possibly this remark, as far as I
know McCrone does not mention actually applying hydrazine to Shroud
particles.

49 Shroud skeptics Joe Nickell, John Fischer, and Marvin Mueller
disagree with the validity of H&A's blood testing. After studying art
and teaching English at the University of Kentucky, debunker of the
paranormal Joe Nickell became a senior research fellow with the
Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
(CSICOP).131 Forensic analyst John Fischer works at a county sheriff
office in Florida, has expertise in chemical analyses and developing
spot tests, and has testified in court about blood tests. Affiliated
with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Marvin Mueller does work in
experimental and theoretical physics.132

50 Fischer, writing with the assistance of Nickell and Mueller,
alleges that they found that hydrazine also dissolves "tempera paint
composed of the pigments and medium identified by McCrone" and produces
a pink hemochromagen-like color, thereby suggesting that H&A's hydrazine
test is given to false positives.133 I strongly suspect that the medium
referred to is a proteinaceous tempera made from animal collagen (the
sources being muscle, skin, tendons, bones, cartilage, etc.),134 and
that the pigments referred to are iron oxide, vermilion/
mercury-sulfide, and rose madder. Since McCrone believes he saw merely
"a few particles" of rose madder pigment,135 since he thinks that
"nearly all of the colored particles on the [Shroud] tapes are red
ochre,"136 and since McCrone's writings give scant mention to rose
madder, I fail to see the basis for Fisher et al.'s viewing rose madder
as being somehow significant to discussions of what the 'blood' is.
Parenthetically, the color "madder" was derived from the root of the
field plant _Rubea tinctorum_; a chemical substance in the root called
"alizarine" is responsible for the red color of madder.137

51 I could accept that hydrazine 'dissolves' collagen. On the grounds
that hydrazine is a _base_138 while iron oxide is only soluble in
concentrated _acid_,139 I reject the possibility that hydrazine
dissolves iron oxide (Fe2O3), and the possibility that hydrazine
dissolves iron oxide to produce a pink color. I have difficulty
accepting the following possibilities: a) hydrazine dissolves collagen,
producing a pink color, b) hydrazine dissolves vermilion (HgS), c)
hydrazine dissolves vermilion, producing a pink color, d) hydrazine
dissolves alizarine (C14H8O4), and e) hydrazine dissolves alizarine,
producing a pink color. Note also that their data and claims in this
regard have not been published in the peer-reviewed literature.

52 H&A executed the familiar hydrazine + formic acid test (which had
been done on the slide having biltong, and in Colorado) on the new
slides' "larger, redder orange globs," once again with positive
results.140 In a letter to or article in McCrone's magazine _The
Microscope_, Fischer suggests that these were either false positives or
perhaps positives for rose madder:
Since many kinds of porphyrins are present in common plant and
animal substances, even a fragment of a leaf, for example, could
produce similar fluorescence. Most interesting in this regard is
the fact that a trace of rose madder pigment (identified by
McCrone)--bound in a matrix of a red-ochre collagen tempera
paint--can give a similar result.141

By way of reply to Fischer, Adler counters that H&A's porphyrin
fluorescence generating test "is a very sensitive and very specific
test."142 He continues by stating that the 'blood' material "did not
fluoresce to begin with, so it is not a plant material such as
chlorophyll, as some people have claimed."143 I do not know whether
Adler is saying 'so it is not plant materials similar in nature to
chlorophyll,' or saying the more broad 'so it is not a plant material.'
In the specific case of chlorophyll, while being a porphyrin (its
central atom is an atom of magnesium) and while it does fluoresce, "its
fluorescence does not have to be generated."144 I suspect that in order
to detect whether material to be tested fluoresces on its own, one would
have to look at it in a darkened room, under UV light, and before
application of the reagents, and suspect that by his statement that the
'blood' material "did not fluoresce to begin with," Adler was referring
to the UV fluorescence results: the "Ultraviolet fluorescence
photography of the Shroud of Turin" paper describes the 'blood' features
in a table as "Highly absorbing. No color," and states, "Laboratory
data for whole blood displayed total absorption, which is in agreement
with the Shroud data."145

53 If Fischer et al. obtained a positive result with the hydrazine +
formic acid test on a mix of root (or leaf) material + red-ochre tempera
paint, and if that mix fails to fluoresce at the outset, it would be
helpful were they to make that clear. As matters stand, their data and
claims have not been published in the peer-reviewed literature.

54 If Fischer et al. generated fluorescence with root material using
another test, then that result has no bearing on H&A's work. Should
Fischer et al. have used another test, that test probably was one of the
"usual forensic tests for blood" H&A wrote about as being given to false
positives, while by way of contrast, H&A termed their hydrazine + formic
acid test "a more specific test."146 Forensic analyst Paul Kirk writes
that the substances giving those usual tests difficulty appear in such
things as horseradishes, radishes, grass as well as other green leaves,
green onion bulbs, carrots, dandelion root, potatoes, and watermelons,
among other places.147 The rooty plants are reminiscent of the root
from which rose madder is derived (just as "grass and other green
leaves" is reminiscent of Fischer's talk of a leaf fragment).

55 Importantly, Kirk observes that the plant substances producing the
false positives are "unstable and can be readily destroyed by heating or
by complete drying," and another person notes that of the plants he
studied (which Kirk lists), their false-positive-producing substances
are readily destroyed by boiling, by drying, and on standing.148 Since
the Shroud's at-least 600 year-old age a) presents a long standing-time,
and b) is more than adequate for complete drying of the 'blood' images,
Kirk's observation means that any positives on Shroud 'blood' with the
"usual forensic tests for blood" cannot be false-positives from plant
material.

56 In short, if as appears likely, Fischer used on root (or leaf)
material a test other than H&A's hydrazine + formic acid test, Fischer's
test is irrelevant as a criticism of H&A's work, was probably less
specific, was probably providing false positives with _fresh_ root (or
leaf), and in addition, those false positives probably would not have
appeared had the root (or leaf) material been completely dried.

57 In addition to the hydrazine and hydrazine + formic acid tests, H&A
performed a blood test involving a cyanide solution. With the addition
of a neutralized cyanide solution to methemoglobin (which is brown), one
gets "cyanmethemoglobin" (which is bright red).149 Upon microspotting
of the Shroud shards, "a characteristic cyanmethemoglobin type color
slowly develops on the surface."150 Not just the shards, but also the
'bloody' fibrils produced such cyanmethemoglobin-like color results.151
Fischer et al. respond by alleging that use of H&A's solution on tempera
paint produces the same sort of color.152

58 In short, writing in not-peer-reviewed forums, Fischer et al.
allege that H&A's hydrazine, hydrazine + formic acid, and neutralized
cyanide tests are not specific for blood, and allege that
false-positives involving paint could account for the results. By way
of contrast, H&A write in their second peer-reviewed article that the
positive results with the three tests "demonstrate, in our opinion, that
the shards and red coated fibrils contain heme derivatives, thus
corroborating our earlier [i.e. first paper's] results in concluding
that the 'blood' marks were in fact composed of blood."153 We turn now
to H&A's azobilirubin and proteolytic enzyme testing.

59 Some shards had a greenish-brown/ olive color, indicating that
"they might contain bile pigments" (e.g., bilirubin and biliverdin),
which are "among the decay products of hemoglobin."154 After
microspotting with the test reagent, "characteristic blue azobilirubin
colors could be positively detected in reflected light on the surfaces
of the olive colored shards, the orange globs, and, also, weakly on the
more orange colored red coated fibrils."155 Addition of acid made the
color become a paler purple that was discharged with 10 minutes of
shortwave UV light, "giving still one more positive test for blood."156

60 Nickell et al. suggest that the two positive results for bilirubin
were actually positive for something else. Specifically, Fisher,
Nickell, and Mueller allege that in using H&A's azobilirubin test on a
{Lombard gold + vermilion} + tempera mix, they "obtained similar
results" to what H&A found.157 Fischer and Nickell equate Lombard gold
with fish-bile yellow, stating "Fish-bile yellow (known as 'Lombard
gold') and yellows from saffron and walnut bark were extracted [by us],
since yellows were often used in medieval times to 'warm' vermilion."158
The reference cited shortly thereafter mentions neither Lombard gold nor
fish-bile yellow, and I do not know what "fish-bile yellow" is.

61 We do learn from the source Fischer and Nickell referenced that the
hues/ shades of 'warmed' vermilions have "an inclination to orange,"159
information that finds corroboration in the everyday fact that red +
yellow = orange. Regarding the suggestion that fish-bile yellow was
added to a forger's 'blood' mix for painted application, it appears to
me that the 'warming' of vermilion (which is red) with Lombard gold/
fish-bile yellow (which would seem to be yellow) would produce an
orangey-red hue. However, when viewed from afar, the Shroud's 'blood'
is red, and is not orangey-red (there are of course orange globs, and
orange-red 'blood' fibrils). Should Nickell et al. come back with
saying that perhaps the supposed forger mixed only a small amount of
fish-bile yellow in with vermilion, the question for them would be, For
what reason would an artist have added to vermilion so little an amount
of yellow as to have an unnoticeable effect on the final color when
viewed from afar?

62 Furthermore, it strikes me as being unlikely for an artist to have
painted 'blood' with an orangey-red paint: it would make much more
sense to paint 'blood' with a red pigment, say straight mercury-sulfide/
vermilion. Or as the 1400s book _The Craftsman's Handbook_ advises in
the section How to Paint Wounds, "To do, that is, to paint, a wounded
man, or rather a wound, take straight vermilion; get it laid in wherever
you want to do blood."160

63 H&A also did a another set of experiments that involved proteolytic
enzymes, which attack and destroy proteins, and which are found in meat
tenderizers.161 A proteolytic enzyme solution totally "'dissolved'" in
30 minutes the "non-birefringent red particulate coated fibrils
coatings, leaving no particulate residues."162 H&A interpreted this
dissolving as a "further indicat[ion] that these particulates are blood
and not Fe2O3 impregnated protein binder."163 Enzymes also dissolved
the orange globs, the brown globs, and the shards.164 Had the 'blood'
material been some combination of iron-oxide particles or
mercury-sulfide particles, all in a proteinaceous medium, the particles
would have remained following the enzyme treatment. (Being "partially
charred blood materials," the brown globs left their "small dark
embedded particulates, probably carbonized material, as residue"
following protease treatment.165) H&A additionally found that the
proteases "had no effect on the birefringent red particulates coating
fibrils,"166 which would have been located at the water margins, a
result that "further confirms that these birefringent red particulates
are definitely different from those in the blood areas."167

64 In short, Nickell et al. state in a not-peer-reviewed forum that
H&A's positive azobilirubin test could have been detecting an additive
to paint, and do not have a response to H&A's work in which 'blood'
material was 'dissolved' by proteolytic enzymes.

65 The reader may have noticed the repeated references to be absence
of peer-review for Fisher et al.'s claims. Standards for publication in
the scientific literature are much higher than for publication in books,
magazines, college essays, etc., or as Heller succinctly puts it, "In
science, anybody can say anything he wants to, but it is not until it is
openly published in a respected scientific journal that it becomes
official." Heller explains that to be published in a respected
scientific journal, a process called peer-review must be gone through:
There is a tough screening mechanism that is used universally by
all major scientific journals. When an author submits a paper for
publication, the editor sends copies to eminent scientists in the
field. These scientific peers study the article closely. They
evaluate whether the experimental methods and techniques are up to
their own standards. The data and the conclusions are appraised,
and even the bibliography is studied. The critiques of each of
these peer reviewers are sent to the author, who must do whatever
is required to conform to their suggestions. This may mean
carrying out more experiments, trying different methods, setting up
more rigorous statistical standards, and so on.168

Heller recalls that STURP had concluded at the outset that on account of
the potentially disputatious nature of their work, all of STURP's papers
"should be sent to the major journals so that the work could be
critically vetted before publication."169 Out of this awareness that
"because of the nature of this entire project, sufficient was not good
enough," and probably out of an awareness that its work "would be
scrutinized hypercritically by any peer-review board," STURP established
its own review group to scrutinize papers before there were sent to a
scientific journal whose own reviewers "would have the last word."170
In Heller's opinion, "STURP's reviewers were uncompromisingly and
painfully tough and thorough," particularly Jumper, Schwalbe, Rogers,
and two others.171

66 When McCrone submitted two papers for review, Heller says that "the
reviews were, as always, rigorous, and they pulled no punches."172 The
first was submitted around December 1979, and the response dated 10
April 1980 was signed by Jumper.173 The letter reads in part, "In
short, your data is misrepresented, your observations are highly
questionable, and your conclusions are pontifications rather than
scientific logic; I cannot permit this paper to carry the Shroud of
Turin Research Project's seal of approval."174 The second paper
received a "similar" response.175

67 Heller attributes McCrone's resignation from STURP to McCrone
"feeling insulted" at the reception of the two papers.176 One
indication that McCrone had the capacity to be insulted to the point
that he consequently resigned appears in this 1996 comment:
I expected the world to agree with my conclusions [about the
Shroud]. I've been spoiled. I'm used having everyone agree with
me (sometimes even when I've been wrong). Now, to find out they
don't believe me when I'm right is difficult to take.177

Perhaps so difficult to take that McCrone could no longer bear being a
member of a group of individuals disagreeing "to a man"178 with his
conclusion that the Shroud body and 'blood' images are paintings. On
the basis of the 'spoiled' remark, I could easily believe that McCrone
was insulted at the comments on his two papers, and that the feeling of
insult contributed to his move to resign.

68 McCrone certainly had the capacity to insult, for he wrote to
Wilson, "Adler is an _ass_ and you _may_ quote me,"179 and stated in his
book, "The variance between their [the STURP scientists'] conclusions
and the truth concerning the Shroud image is due to incompetence,
deceit, or a combination of the two."180 McCrone thinks deceit was a
factor, and alleges that H&A fabricated positive wet-chemistry results
for blood:
Some evidence supporting authenticity was manufactured because they
[STURP] were so certain the Shroud is authentic they felt confident
in finding what would be there if the Shroud was authentic. In
particular, there is no blood on the "Shroud" yet they reported
positive forensic tests for blood.... Their [STURP's] publication
of more than 30 pseudoscientific papers in a variety of learned
scientific journals is also "sad and disturbing." The basis for
sadness is obvious--the use of deceit to prove a falsehood.181

McCrone's "last effort to convince STURP was published in their February
1980 Newsletter," an effort that was also his "first, last, and only"
contribution to the newsletter.182

69 A possibly additional factor in McCrone's resignation appears in
his statement, "I had also been told by STURP that I'd never be able to
publish my papers because one of them would be asked to review them by
any Journal Editor."183 McCrone's resignation occurred in June 1980,184
and it would be useful to know when he was told his papers would not
clear any peer-review panel: was it before or after his resignation?
If before, then McCrone's being told they would never clear almost
certainly contributed to his desire to resign. If it was after he
resigned, then the 'this won't get published' conveyance could have been
in the form 'These papers need serious work. You resigned from STURP
and so cannot do additional testing on the slides, testing that is
necessary to make your papers publishable. And without those
experiments, we are not going to permit these papers to be published.'

70 Whatever the factors prompting resignation, McCrone notes that at
the time, he served as editor of the McCrone Institute's _The
Microscope_, and his two papers appeared there in 1980.185 Heller
observes that this "did not meet our standards of a major peer-reviewed
journal," and accurately notes that "these two curious documents" lacked
"mention of any of the results of the physical findings or of the
presence of blood -- all of which had been published in the standard
scientific literature -- except to dismiss them."186

71 Such was also the case with McCrone's third _Microscope_ paper,
where McCrone changed his paint claims once again to say that the
'blood' was liquid earthy iron-oxide paint and liquid mercury-sulfide
(HgS) paint. We continue now our look at the iron oxide claim before
proceeding to examine the mercury-sulfide claim.

72 Heller recalls that upon reading McCrone's third paper, Adler "was
speechless." Upon finding his voice, Adler asked,
"Say, isn't red ocher almost always impure?" I mulled it over.
"Yes. It seems to me that it's always contaminated with manganese,
nickel, cobalt, or aluminum." "That's how I remember it. Let's
test the iron oxide for impurities. If all the iron on the Shroud
comes either from the retting process or from blood, it should be
pure; if it comes from ground deposits, as red ocher does, it
should have at least one of those contaminants in it."187

Jumper, Adler, et al. add that the contaminants would be present "unless
pure hematite crystals were employed by the artist, which, although
possible, is highly unlikely."188 Heller considered it "really gilding
the lily yet again" to check for contaminants, "but considering the
nature of the project, we [H&A] decided not only to gild but to
platinum-plate it."189

73 By researching books, H&A found that contaminants ought be present
above the level of 1 percent,190 after which came the testing. H&A
write that in using wet chemistry tests with approximately 50
birefringent red-coated fibers, most if not all of which would have come
from the watermargins, they found that manganese, cobalt, nickel, and
aluminum "could only be present at a level of less than 1%."191 Hence,
the watermargin iron oxide very likely was not an artist's iron oxide,
'very likely' because of the small possibility that an artist used pure
hematite crystals to paint 'watermargins.'

74 Adler was "delighted" with the wet chemistry results.192 Not
delighted, Heller desired to be certain that the contaminants were not
present, and so did a followup test on iron oxide particles from various
tapes.193 Heller used an electron microprobe, which operates in a
manner similar to an X-ray fluorescence device, and that similarly
identifies elements present in a sample. The iron oxide tested was
"pure,"194 yet testing of watermargin iron oxide does not really speak
to McCrone's claim that artist's iron oxide resides in 'blood' areas.

75 H&A later did additional microprobe testing of a broader variety of
samples, including 'blood.' The earthy iron oxide contaminants cobalt,
manganese, and nickel again failed to appear, and mercury was only found
in a so-called 'track' area:
Using a Kevex ISI 100B Energy Dispersive Spectrometer [i.e., an
electron microprobe], we have examined 16 different globs and
fibrils from blood image, body image, and non-image tape samples.
The fibrils all show strong calcium and iron signals [this would be
from the retting]. The globs all show sodium, magnesium, aluminum,
silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, chlorine, potassium, calcium, and
iron. Some also show copper and zinc. Fibrils and globs from the
cinnabar "track" area on [the lance wound 'blood' tape] 6BF also
show mercury. Most importantly, there is no cobalt, manganese, or
nickel detected anywhere and the mercury is only detectable in
"track" samples. Similar results were obtained by J. Jackson and
W. Ercoline in their SEM [scanning electron microscope] studies.195

76 Regarding the 'track' area and its accompanying particle, H&A
identified it as cinnabar (HgS), out of which artists' vermilion is
made:
As I [Heller] was harvesting red dots, I suddenly saw one that....
was an unusual particle compared with what I had been looking at,
and was obviously a crystal. I turned to Adler and said, "Look at
this." We traded places. He said, "Do you know what this looks
like?" "Yup. Cinnabar."196

Heller hastens to explain to readers that he does not profess to have
the identify-on-site ability McCrone claims to have:
I must not give the impression that I can look through a microscope
and reach geochemical conclusions by eye. I cannot. It just so
happened that some years ago I was an expert witness in a case
involving two countries and some purportedly stolen treasures. The
key datum in the resolution was cinnabar....197

Adler responded to Heller's cinnabar proclamation with "Right. Let's
test it."198 While Adler obtained reagents, Heller scrutinized the
slide:
The piece of cinnabar was enormous compared with what we had been
working with. I could actually pick it up with a microforceps.
.... It was shaped like a pyramid with a broad base. After having
measured the base, I began to manipulate the optics, the light
sources, and I finally convinced myself that I could see a track
across a corner of the slide where the crystal had been dragged.
There were extremely tiny fragments that had abraded off the
base.199

Use of the reagents on the particle provided a "strong, positive test
for mercury," which, combined with its "crystalline structure,
proclaimed it to be cinnabar."200

77 Having found the particle and track, H&A commenced, "like the
hounds after the hare," on a "complete and exhaustive search for
additional samples. On that tape, and on all the rest [i.e., the other
21], there was not another one."201 H&A write that they considered the
particle and track "clearly an 'accidental' artifact" for the reason
that "we have seen nothing like it on any other slides, nor have any
other red particulates even from this same tape away from this track
given a positive test for Hg [mercury]."202

78 Noteworthy is H&A's doing a chemical test and refusing to rely on
simply appearance in identifying the particle, even though Heller
possessed familiarity with cinnabar's appearance. Note also that while
Heller says he "finally convinced myself that I could see a track" using
the microscope, that perception of a track was confirmed by the
microprobe testing, which found mercury in the 'track.'

79 The McCrone Associates electron optics group did microprobe testing
of 11 particles from tape 3-CB, and even they fail to claim finding
manganese, cobalt, or nickel.203 McCrone Associates do claim finding
via microprobe the elements sodium, magnesium, aluminum, silicon,
phosphorus, sulfur, chlorine, potassium, calcium, iron, and copper (all
of which H&A reported finding in 'blood' globs-- see above-- and all of
which H&A note are "found in whole blood."204) H&A wryly observe that
"it would be a most peculiar mineralogical assemblage that would provide
these elements and not the expected iron earth pigment impurities, i.e.
manganese, cobalt, and nickel."205

80 McCrone says that the potassium, chlorine, phosphorus, silicon,
aluminum, and sodium are "expected contaminants in earth pigments like
red iron oxide and represent minerals such as limestone..., feldspar and
quartz."206 He does not mention manganese, cobalt, and nickel as being
expected earth pigment contaminants, does not account for the three
contaminants' absence, and does not present an explanation for his
data's claimed presence of calcium and magnesium.

81 Of the Turin Polytechnic, Giovanni Riggi was an Italian scientist
that had worked alongside STURP members during the October 1978 data
collection period.207 Riggi used an electron microprobe on Shroud
particles that he had vacuumed from the Shroud, and H&A write that Riggi
too failed to find "the expected impurity signals for mineralogically
derived material."208 I do not know whether aluminum, which is present
in blood, is included in this remark. By way of controls, Riggi
examined with microprobe both Renaissance and modern 'Venetian red'
(which is an iron earth pigment), and found "strong peaks of our four
contaminants."209

82 To reiterate, McCrone believes that his coworkers' microprobe data
regarding iron and mercury's presence indicates that a "mixture of iron
earth and vermilion pigments" were used to create the Shroud's
'blood.'210 Having discussed the significance of iron earth
contaminants' absence for the iron oxide claim, we turn now to the
vermilion claim.

83 The McCrone Associates electron optics group is the same group that
reported finding large quantities of titanium dioxide in the Vinland
Map's ink, yet when the Map was comprehensively retested via a
microprobe-like technique in circa-1987, the claimed high levels were
not found,211 casting doubt on the group's Shroud microprobe data.

84 Schwalbe and Rogers dismiss the vermilion allegation by noting that
the X-ray fluorescence data "suggest that mercury is present nowhere in
amounts greater than about 10 [micro]g/ cm^2."212 In response to the
X-ray fluorescence data's upper limitation on _iron oxide_ concentration
in the body image, McCrone replied that iron oxide in body image areas
was below that upper limit yet still visible. In response to the upper
limitation on _mercury_ concentrations, because of the 'blood' areas'
large quantity of particulate matter (in sharp contrast to the body
image areas), McCrone would have a much more difficult time replying
that mercury is below the mercury upper limit yet still present in
'blood' areas to a worthy-of-note degree.

85 McCrone observes about his microprobe figures that "the major peaks
for mercury (Hg) and sulfur (S)... coincide."213 Specifically, the
biggest peak of mercury's X-ray energies appears at 2.19 kilo-electron
volts, while sulfur's peak appears close by, at 2.31 kilo-electron
volts,214 and consequently, given the horizontal scale of the patterns
McCrone provides, it is impossible to determine whether the peaks
McCrone labels "Hg/S" represent purely mercury, or purely sulfur, or
both-- perhaps as a combination in the form of HgS. Thus, the numbers
in the "Hg/S" column of McCrone's microprobe data table cannot be used
to make a claim of detecting vermilion. For all we know, the "Hg/S"
numbers are actually all from sulfur.

86 Should McCrone state that because of the closeness in mercury and
sulfur's X-ray energies, the presence of both mercury and sulfur was
detected in particle H via "wavelength dispersion using the electron
microprobe" (whenever that test is), I would point out that this result
does not say what the ratio of Hg to S is, nor does this particle H
result mean that all the other particles' "Hg/S" peaks consist of both
mercury and sulfur.

87 At this point, McCrone might point out that about half of the 11
microprobe patterns have little peaks to their far right that are
labeled "Hg." However, he presents no control patterns for known
vermilion and known {vermilion + iron oxide} particles. Nor is there
any sign of a control run using blank filter paper so as to see what
noise is being gotten; in contrast, the STURP X-ray fluorescence paper
does: "we have included as Fig. 8(b) a spectrum taken from Whatman 42
filter paper. The purpose of this 'control run' was to help
qualitatively identify spectral artifacts resulting from primary beam
scatter."215 Furthermore, McCrone's patterns presented [216] appear to
have differing vertical scales: 9 of the 11 appear to have been scaled
up or down-- by different counting times and/or by actual scaling-- so
as to have their tallest peaks just barely fit in the respective boxes.
This changing of scales, and the lack of control patterns, makes it
impossible to determine whether the little "Hg" humps are indicative of
mercury or something else entirely, say noise.

88 McCrone reveals being "embarrassed by the finding of vermilion by
the McCrone Associates electron optics group" because he had not seen
vermilion with his light microscope.217 He looked again and, not
surprisingly, began seeing what he believed to be vermilion that was
"distinctively different from the submicron red ochre," the vermilion
being "larger, elongated in shape, and about 1-2 x 5 microns [in
size]."218 Compare McCrone's 1980 statement that the Shroud's red
particles were "identical" in shape and size to iron oxide particles.219
Perhaps some of the Shroud particles change their shape and size from
day to day.

89 Evidently the color also changes from one moment to the next:
first the 'blood' particles are "identical" in color to iron oxide,220
and then later McCrone thinks he sees the color of vermilion: "Many
loose particle aggregates, picked from the blood-image tapes, show red
particles different in shape and color from red ochre..., but
characteristic of the artist's pigment, vermilion (HgS)."221 Then
again, maybe the color and shape of both vermilion and iron-oxide are
actually the same: "Both red iron earth pigments and vermilion are deep
orange to red... and [have] no obvious shape differences."222 I leave
it to the reader to decide which, if any, of McCrone's conflicting
statements about the size, shape, and color of iron-oxide,
mercury-sulfide, and Shroud particles are worthy of acceptance.
Regarding size and shape, it is interesting to note that Heller says
microscopic quantities of 'blood' appeared in the form of dots, blobs,
flakes, and shards, while McCrone merely speaks of dots and blobs.

90 McCrone reports that "one small area on the 3-CB tape showed
orange-red crystals,"223 on which he performed a microchemical test to
obtain "a faint mercury mirror."224 Considering McCrone's poor
blood-testing and identify-on-site abilities, I put little stock in this
mercury mirror result. I do note that McCrone says he used a "pure
copper surface,"225 and that that allegedly-pure copper surface was a
_penny_ (these often appear quite dirty to me) having many mercury
mirrors from practice runs.

91 Should I grant for the sake of argument that the electron optics
group did indeed find mercury in 8 of about 13 microscopic particles
tested, and grant the mercury-mirror claim, that does not amount to
granting that the 'blood' images are composed to a noteworthy degree of
vermilion. For one thing, there would remain the question of how
representative that sample of about 14 was. Because of this question,
even Mueller does not consider McCrone's mercury claims conclusive: "A
crucial issue here is how representative of the speck population is
McCrone's sample....? More work needs to be done on this."226

92 Also, according to Heller, McCrone's claimed finding of 8
microscopic partly-vermilion particles was not "enough... to account for
one painted drop of blood, let alone all the gore on the Shroud."227
Such a vermilion finding is necessary, but not sufficient for calling
the 'blood' image partly-vermilion paint. Heller explains that in the
world of science, there is a difference between 'necessary' and
'sufficient' evidence. Before calling an image a painting, it is
'necessary' to show that colorant resides in the image. However, such a
demonstration is not 'sufficient' evidence that the image in question is
a painting. To show that an image consists of paint, one must show that
there is paint in the right locations and of a sufficiently visible
quantity.228 A finding of mercury in 9 of about 14 minuscule particles
is a far cry from meeting the of-a-sufficiently-visible-quantity
requirement. In short, a finding of a few, invisible-to-the-naked-eye
particles of paint does not a painting make, nor a Shroud 'blood' image.

93 Such is particularly the case considering that there exists a high
probability that when "sanctifying" their copies of the Shroud, artists
inadvertently transferred paint from their copies to the Shroud. To
illustrate such sanctifying, a document accompanying an 1822 copy states
that the copy "was presented that it should be sanctified by contact
with the Most Holy Relic; and which cloth was, by our hands, laid upon
the Most Holy Shroud so that the two were perfectly fitted together in
every part."229
Conclusion

94 By its appearance under a microscope, the 'blood' appeared to be
blood to Heller and Adler, who should know based on their familiarity
with blood and a control blood preparation. Heller's insistence that
testing would be relied upon and not merely identification-by-sight
resulted in H&A conducting extensive, even exhaustive, testing of Shroud
material. Through their testing, Heller and Adler obtained positive
wet-chemistry test results for blood material, results that included the
detection of heme porphyrin, hemochromagen, cyanmethemoglobin, and bile
pigments. In addition, the 'blood' tested positive for protein, and
proteolytic enzymes completely dissolved 'blood' material. H&A
presented several physics-based measurements indicating that blood
material resides on the Shroud, including X-ray fluorescence data
revealing higher-than-elsewhere iron levels in 'blood' areas, and
indicative microspectrophotometry spectra.

95 In sharp contrast to H&A's attitude toward the usefulness of
microscopy vs. actual testing, McCrone believed that his own
identification-by-sight was sufficient to accurately determine with
confidence the identity of the objects viewed, while his testing of red
particles for blood and his forwarding of samples to the McCrone
Associates electron optics group came merely as an afterthought. In
short, H&A's and McCrone's very different attitudes toward the
microscope and toward physics- and chemistry- based testing greatly
affected the course of their respective investigations.

96 Trained on, familiar with, and devoted to the polarized light
microscope, McCrone was reluctant to do wet-chemistry testing and loathe
to accept the peer-reviewed results of the 1978 physics-based testing.
Such a phenomenon is a common occurrence in the world of science, where
people often prefer to continue using machines and techniques they are
familiar with rather than adopt and use newer and better techniques and
instruments. In contrast to McCrone, Heller showed a willingness to
experiment with change when he a) used newer techniques, for example the
porphyrin fluorescence test, which had been developed at the New England
Institute, and b) developed with Adler new testing procedures when
working with the original slide.

97 McCrone's desire to see to it that the microscope solve the
question of the nature of the Shroud resulted in his (temporarily)
restricting H&A to only seven 'bloody' fibers plus biltong, a
restriction that affected Heller's efforts by prompting him to seek the
assistance of Adler, and affected H&A's work by making their initial
chemistry testing more difficult, making weaker their conclusion from
chemistry experiments that actual blood resided on their initial tape,
and making weaker their extrapolation from that tapes's chemistry
results to the Shroud's 'blood' areas. McCrone's returning of the
slides to STURP affected both his 'blood' testing and the testing of the
electron optics group by making them have minute amounts of Shroud
material to perform tests on, thereby making correspondingly weaker the
extrapolations made based on the supposed results of that testing.

98 Heller's personality trait of dogged pursuit of solid answers to
challenging questions resulted in a firmer conclusion that the 'blood'
was blood than otherwise would have been the case. Adler's interest in
porphyrins and fun projects helped him become involved in Shroud study,
to which he contributed at the time and in the years since. McCrone's
devotion to the microscope prevented him from taking into account
peer-reviewed data from physics-based instruments and wet-chemistry
testing contrary to his painting conclusions. McCrone's failure to
respond in print to contrary peer-reviewed data and conclusions, and his
allegation that H&A and STURP fabricated data, were presaged by the fact
that both before and after resigning from STURP, McCrone exhibited
marked reluctance to defend his claims before other STURP scientists.

99 McCrone appealed to microscope appearance when making the
conflicting statements that the 'blood' had the appearance of post-1800s
iron oxide, and the appearance of a form of iron oxide existing for tens
of thousands of years, and still later, the appearance of iron-oxide and
mercury-sulfide. His contradictory statements cast much doubt upon his
claimed ability to identify on sight material seen through a microscope,
and makes highly questionable his largely-microscope-based claim that
the 'blood' is paint. Further casting doubt on McCrone's microscope
claims is the fact that he attributed crystalline characteristics,
including birefringence, to red Shroud particles based on examination of
the particles _on_ the Mylar sticky tape, which makes _anything_ appear
birefringent.

100 McCrone called "good forensic science" testing of 'blood' that had
proceeded despite a failure to first solubilize the material, a failure
that makes meaningless the 1973 negative results. McCrone reports
testing red Shroud particles with negative results for blood, yet he
himself failed to solubilize the material before proceeding with at
least two of his tests, casting doubt on the validity of his other blood
tests' negatives. In addition, it is unclear whether McCrone's testing
for blood was performed upon 'blood,' burned-'blood' iron-oxide,
watermargin iron-oxide, or some combination thereof. The McCrone
Associates electron optics group's iron-oxide and mercury-sulfide claims
have problems and were not confirmed by peer-reviewed electron
microprobe and X-ray fluorescence testing.

101 This paper's conclusion that, contrary to McCrone's adamant claims,
the 'blood' does not consist to a significant degree of pigment
particles has implications for McCrone's other claims about the physical
nature of the Shroud image. For instance, considering that McCrone was
so wrong about the identity of red particles on 'blood' tapes, it would
be well to approach with great caution his claimed identification of
_body-image_ red particles as iron-oxide. Caution could also be useful
in approaching his claim that simply iron-oxide particles account for
the body image, and his later (contrary) claim that age-yellowed liquid
iron-oxide paint accounts for the body image.

102 The decision that STURP's papers ought be peer-reviewed helped
ensure that the group's published work would be of high quality, and
probably contributed to McCrone's resignation from STURP. Though not
peer-reviewed, McCrone's claims helped push H&A to do additional
testing, including microprobe and proteolytic enzyme testing. Writing
in not-peer-reviewed venues, Fischer et al. allege that most of H&A's
positive wet-chemistry test results could be false positives. More
specifically, Fischer et al. implausibly allege that hydrazine dissolves
iron oxide, vermilion, and a root extract called alizarine to produce a
pink hemochromagen-like color, allege that adding a neutralized cyanide
solution to 'blood' produces a bright red cyanmethemoglobin-like color,
and allege that H&A's positive hydrazine + formic acid test results can
be obtained with paint even while almost certainly speaking of another,
less-specific test. In short, there exists reason to doubt that if
obtained, Fischer's positives were obtained using the same methods that
H&A used. Fischer et al. also allege that H&A's detection of bilirubin
could have resulted from an additive to paint, yet adding yellow to red
tended to make vermilion orangey-red, even as from a distance, the
Shroud 'blood' images are red. Fischer et al. do not have a response to
H&A's work in which 'blood' material was 'dissolved' by proteolytic
enzymes.

103 The conclusion that the 'blood' is actual blood concurs with and
meshes with the consensus of medical community members that have studied
the image that 1) the body image is anatomically and medically realistic
to an extraordinary degree, and 2) production of the body and 'blood'
images involved an actual human body. The red color of much of the
'blood,' the high bilirubin levels detected therein, and the body image
lend strong support to the view that the 'blood' came from a beaten
individual. In light of the foregoing, forging the Shroud would have
required the use of a body beaten and crucified precisely after the
manner of Jesus' crucifixion. Such a requirement makes more unlikely
the possibility that an individual went to the trouble of forging the
Shroud. In short, it is highly likely that the 'blood' on the Shroud of
Turin is not paint and is blood. Though this conclusion does _not_ mean
the Shroud of Turin is authentic, it does mean that the Shroud is less
likely to be a forgery.

Acknowledgement

I thank Joseph Tatarewicz, history professor at the University of
Maryland Baltimore County, for helpful suggestions, not all of which
were incorporated into the essay.

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Murphy, Cullen. "Shreds of Evidence" _Harper's_ (November 1981), 42-65.

Nickell, Joe. "The Shroud Of Turin -- Unmasked" _The Humanist_ (Jan/Feb
1978), 20-2.
________. "New Evidence: The Shroud of Turin is a Forgery" _Free
Inquiry_ (summer 1981), 28-30.
________. _Inquest on the Shroud of Turin_ (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus
Books, 1987), 186pp.
________. "The Case of the Shroud" _Free Inquiry_ (spring 1998), 48-9.

Pellicori, S.F. "Spectral properties of the Shroud of Turin" _Applied
Optics_ 19: 1913-20 (1980).
Polkinghorne, John. _Science and Creation: The Search for
Understanding_ (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1989), 113pp.
Schafersman, Steven D. "Science, the Public, and the Shroud of Turin"
_The Skeptical Inquirer_ (spring 1982), 37-55.
Schwalbe, L.A. and R.N. Rogers. "Physics and Chemistry of the Shroud of
Turin: A Summary of the 1978 Investigation" _Analytica Chimica
Acta_ 135: 3-49 (1982).
The Bible, New International Version.
Thompson, Daniel V. _The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting_
(NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1956).
Vignon, Paul. "The Problem of the Holy Shroud" _Scientific American_
(March 1937), 162-4. Translated from the French by Edward A.
Wuenschel.

Wilson, Ian. _The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?_
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1978), 272pp.
________. _The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence That the World's Most
Sacred Relic Is Real_ (NY: The Free Press, 1998), 333pp.

Notes

1. Polkinghorne, 85.
2. The Bible, John 19:1-3, 17-18.
3. John 19:31.
4. Edwards, 1461 (1986).
5. John 19:33-4.
6. John 19:40, 20:6-7; Luke 23:53; Mark 15:46; Matthew 27:59.
7. Each mark has two parts, i.e. appears in the shape of a squeezed
"V." See Bucklin, 36.
8. Not a circle of thorns, but a cap. See Heller (1983), 4; Bucklin,
38; Lavoie, 104-11.
9. Murphy, 52; Barbet, chapter "The Preliminary Sufferings"; Bucklin,
38.
10. Bucklin; Murphy, 57.
11. See, e.g., Schafersman, 41; McCrone (spring 1982), 36; McCrone,
(1981), 35.
12. Wilson (1998), 263.
13. Wilson (1998), 264, 266.
14. Cited in Wilson (1998), 266; Wilson (1998), 161, 266.
15. Cited in Wilson (1998), 270, Wilson's bracketing.
16. Cited in Wilson (1998), 268.
17. Wilson (1998), 272-3.
18. Cited in Wilson (1978), 230-1.
19. Meacham.
20. Humber (1977), 29-32.
21. Humber, 124; Fossati, "Remembrance."
22. Wilson (1998), 300.
23. Meacham; Bucklin, 37.
24. Wilson (1978), 84-5.
25. Wilson (1998), 309, 310; Damon, et al.
26. Wilson (1998), 302.
27. McCrone (1996), 5-12.
28. Wilson (1978), 198-9; Heller (1983), 39-41; Jackson et al.
29. Murphy, 55.
30. Jumper et al., 456; Murphy, 65; Lavoie, 58-9; Heller (1983), 200.
31. Jumper et al., 451. Also, Schwalbe & Rogers, 11, Lavoie, 61.
32. Adler (1996), 223-8.
33. Heller & Adler (1980), 2743; Pellicori, 1916. See also Schwalbe &
Rogers, 38-9.
34. Heller & Adler (1981), 90; Jumper et al., 461.
35. Miller & Pellicori, 76, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85; Schwalbe & Rogers,
39; Heller & Adler (1981), 96.
36. Jumper et al., 461-2. See also Heller (1983), 187-8, for a single
test that was not published: cf. Heller (1983), 216 and Heller &
Adler (1981), 92.
37. Heller & Adler (1981), 92.
38. Gove (1996), 52; Adler (1987), 58.
39. Heller & Adler (1981), 93; Heller (1983), 180; Adler (1987), 58.
40. Heller (1983), jacket, 9; Heller (1960), jacket, 41-2.
41. Heller (1960), 33, 51; 9-10, 12.
42. Culliton; Heller (1983), 5.
43. Heller (1983), 8-12.
44. Heller (1983), 20, 23.
45. Murphy, 60; Heller (1983), 25.
46. Heller (1983), 12-13.
47. Wilson (1998), 3, xi.
48. Wilson (1978), 58-9.
49. Cited in McCrone (1996), 11, who quotes from a translation.
50. Heller (1983), 13-14.
51. Heller & Adler (1980), 2743.
52. Nickell (1987), 128; Nickell (summer 1981), 29; Nickell (spring
1998), 49.
53. McCrone (1996), 12.
54. Kirk (1974), 188.
55. McCrone (1996), 12; Kirk, 189, 190.
56. McCrone (1980), 122; McCrone (1996), 104.
57. Heller (1983), 83, 121-2.
58. Heller (1983), 120-1; Beck et al., 553, 555.
59. Heller (1983), 121.
60. Wilson (1998), 304; Schwalbe & Rogers, 11.
61. Murphy, 44, 64, 47.
62. Heller (1983), 121-2.
63. Heller (1983), 122-3.
64. Heller (1983), 124-5.
65. Heller (1983), 125.
66. Heller (1983), 125, 132.
67. Heller (1983), 126.
68. Heller (1983), 126-9.
69. Heller (1983), 129.
70. McCrone (1996), 116.
71. McCrone (1996), 117.
72. McCrone (1993), 4.
73. Heller (1983), 14, 130.
74. Heller (1983), 130.
75. Heller (1983), 130-1.
76. Heller (1983), 132.
77. Heller (1983), 132.
78. Heller & Adler (1981), 81.
79. Heller (1983), 132-3.
80. Heller (1983), 133.
81. Heller (1983), 133.
82. Heller (1983), 133-4.
83. Heller (1983), 134; Wilson (1998), 305.
84. Morris et al., 40; Murphy, 54.
85. Heller (1983), 136.
86. Morris et al., 46.
87. Morris et al., 46.
88. Morris et al., 46; McCrone (1996), 162.
89. McCrone & Skirius, 107, 110.
90. _Merriam-Webster's_; Epstein, 58.
91. Heller (1983), 141, 177.
92. Heller & Adler (1981), 85.
93. Heller (1983), 177.
94. McCrone & Skirius (1980), 106.
95. McCrone (1996), 85.
96. McCrone (1996), 82.
97. Vignon, 162.
98. Vignon, 164.
99. Adler's comments in Case, 57-8; Adler (1987), 58-9; Jumper et al.,
459.
100. Wilson (1998), 92.
101. _Merriam-Webster's_.
102. Heller (1983), 144.
103. Heller (1983), 144.
104. Heller & Adler (1980), 2742.
105. Heller (1983), 144.
106. Heller (1983), 144.
107. Heller (1983), 145-6.
108. Heller (1983), 147.
109. Heller & Adler (1980), 2743.
110. Heller & Adler (1980), 2742.
111. Heller & Adler (1980), 2742.
112. Schwalbe & Rogers, 37.
113. Murphy, 52, 54; Schwalbe & Rogers, 3.
114. Heller (1983), 148.
115. McCrone (1996), 114.
116. Heller (1983), 153-4.
117. Heller (1983), 156. Cf. McCrone (1996), 124.
118. Heller (1983), 157-8.
119. Heller (1983), 160.
120. Heller (1983), 163-4.
121. Heller (1983), 165, 164.
122. Heller (1983), 165.
123. Heller (1983), 166, 168.
124. Heller (1983), 181.
125. Heller (1983), 182; Heller & Adler (1981), 92.
126. Heller (1983), 182.
127. Heller & Adler (1981), 90.
128. Heller & Adler (1981), 89.
129. Heller & Adler (1981), 89.
130. McCrone (1996), 166.
131. Nickell (Jan/Feb 1978), 20; Nickell (1987), cover; Nickell (spring
1998), 48.
132. Nickell (1987), 3.
133. Nickell (1987), 160.
134. McCrone (1980), 122-3, 127.
135. McCrone & Skirius (1980), 111.
136. McCrone (1996), 85.
137. Thompson, 122; _Merriam-Webster's_.
138. _Merriam-Webster's_.
139. McCrone (1980), 127; Heller & Adler (1981), 92.
140. Heller & Adler (1981), 89.
141. Nickell (1987), 158. The first sentence has a reference to John
F. Fischer, The Microscope (year 1981, vol 29), 69-70.
142. Adler (1987), 47.
143. Adler (1987), 57.
144. Adler (1987), 57; Beck et al., 227-8.
145. Miller & Pellicori, 84, 75. The serum halos did fluoresce.
146. Heller & Adler (1980), 2743.
147. Kirk, 186-7.
148. Kirk, 186, 187.
149. Fiori, 260-1.
150. Heller & Adler (1981), 89.
151. Heller & Adler (1981), 89.
152. Nickell (1987), 160.
153. Heller & Adler (1981), 89.
154. Heller (1983), 186; Heller & Adler (1981), 89.
155. Heller & Adler (1981), 89.
156. Heller (1983), 186; Heller & Adler (1981), 89.
157. Nickell (1987), 159.
158. Nickell (1987), 132.
159. Thompson, 108.
160. Cennini, 95.
161. Heller (1983), 183.
162. Heller & Adler (1981), 91.
163. Heller & Adler (1981), 91.
164. Heller & Adler (1981), 91.
165. Heller & Adler (1981), 85, 89, 91.
166. Heller & Adler (1981), 91.
167. Heller & Adler (1981), 91.
168. Heller (1983), 167-8.
169. Heller (1983), 168.
170. Heller (1983), 183.
171. Heller (1983), 183.
172. Heller (1983), 184.
173. McCrone (1996), 151.
174. Cited in McCrone (1996), 151.
175. McCrone (1996), 151.
176. Heller (1983), 184.
177. McCrone (1996), 173.
178. Murphy, 55.
179. Cited in Wilson (1998), 82.
180. McCrone (1996), 169.
181. McCrone (1996), 321.
182. McCrone (1996), 173, 316.
183. Heller (1983), 151-2.
184. McCrone (1996), 151.
185. McCrone (1996), 152; 184.
186. Heller (1983), 184.
187. Heller (1983), 194.
188. Jumper et al., 465.
189. Heller (1983), 194.
190. Heller (1983), 194.
191. Heller & Adler (1981), 92.
192. Heller (1983), 195.
193. Heller (1983), 195.
194. Heller (1983), 196.
195. Heller & Adler (1981), 100. I have changed the chemical symbols
into words.
196. Heller (1983), 191.
197. Heller (1983), 191-2.
198. Heller (1983), 192.
199. Heller (1983), 192.
200. Heller (1983), 192. Also, Heller & Adler (1981), 94.
201. Heller (1983), 193.
202. Heller & Adler (1981), 94.
203. McCrone (1981), 28.
204. McCrone (1981), 28; for copper, see labels in Figures 13, 14, 18,
20. Whole blood comment: Heller & Adler (1981), 100.
205. Heller & Adler (1981), 100. I have changed the chemical symbols
into words.
206. McCrone (1981), 26.
207. Murphy, 51; Heller (1983), 111.
208. Heller & Adler (1981), 97.
209. Heller (1983), 196. See also Heller & Adler (1981), 97.
210. McCrone (1981), 26.
211. Cahill et al. McCrone replies in McCrone (1988).
212. Schwalbe & Rogers, 16.
213. McCrone (1996), 129.
214. McCrone (1981), 25.
215. Morris, 44.
216. McCrone (1981).
217. McCrone (1996), 136.
218. McCrone (1996), 136.
219. McCrone & Skirius (1980), 107-8.
220. McCrone & Skirius (1980), 107.
221. McCrone (1990), 79. Figure 9 also appears on McCrone (1996), 145.
222. McCrone (1981), 27.
223. McCrone (1981), 35.
224. McCrone (1981), 35.
225. McCrone (1981), 35.
226. Mueller, 31.
227. Heller (1983), 194.
228. Heller (1983), 193; Heller & Adler (1981), 96-7.
229. Cited in Fossati (Sept 1984), 22. For more instances of
sanctification, see also 9, 17, 18, 20; Fossati (Dec 1984), 23, 24,
29, 32, 36.

[Tracy P. Hamilton]

"david ford" <dfo...@gl.umbc.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.SGI.4.21L.01.0010...@irix2.gl.umbc.edu...

> Title: The Shroud of Turin's 'Blood' Images: Blood, or Paint? A
> History of Science Inquiry
> Author: David Ford <dfo...@GL.umbc.edu>
> Date: 10 August 1999 File: history.c Words in file: 15,500
> Keywords: Shroud of Turin, 'blood' images, McCrone, iron oxide and
> vermilion paint, Heller & Adler, blood tests

See reply at
http://x71.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=556369079.1&CONTEXT=972578648.13
51811146&hitnum=136

the last time you posted this.

[snip]

I will note that it is indeed a gullible fool who thinks that all scientists
are equally able to detect trace amounts of substances forensically.
It is a fool who does not realize that anybody can get nonsense
published somewhere, no matter how bad.

Tracy P. Hamilton

[Henry Barwood]

david ford wrote:

Deleted

Are you aware of the recent program on TLC (or perhaps Discovery
Channel) where a gentleman duplicated the Shroud? He took a mannequin,
draped a linen sheet over it and dusted the thing with ocher pigment.
Created an instant "negative image". if you compared a photo of the
Shroud with his recreation, they were identical in all but tiny details.

Now I don't expect this to change your mind, but the argument that there
was something supernatural about the "negative image" aspect of the
Shroud is just as much baloney as the bad science being perpetrated by
the true believers.

Barwood

[newbi...@my-deja.com]

Looks like you put a bit of work into this.
>
Thank you for sharing!
>
newbie

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

[Dunk]

On 26 Oct 2000 14:10:39 -0400, Henry Barwood <hbar...@indiana.edu>
wrote:

>Are you aware of the recent program on TLC (or perhaps Discovery
>Channel) where a gentleman duplicated the Shroud? He took a mannequin,
>draped a linen sheet over it and dusted the thing with ocher pigment.
>Created an instant "negative image". if you compared a photo of the
>Shroud with his recreation, they were identical in all but tiny details.

Speaking of details, The first time I became aware of the shroud, long
ago, there was a full lenght picture (front & back, with head in the
middle). The picture was kind of small, but it looked like there was
no top of head, and not enough length for it. Front, top, and back of
head should be be one longish approximate rectangle.
Dunk