A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine revealed that victims of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which buried cities such as Pompeii, Oplontis and Stabiae on August 24, 79 A.D., had their brains turned to glass by the intense heat of the eruption. The disaster caused slow and tragic suffering for those who were trapped.
In the study, researchers analyzed the skull of a victim and found the remains of a brain that had been transformed into a glass-like substance by extreme heat. The remains were found in the 1960s, but glassy fragments of the person's brain were recently discovered inside the skull.
A black, glassy substance was identified, and further investigations revealed that the victim's brain was literally vitrified by the heat of the eruption, a rare preservation phenomenon that provides new evidence about the conditions faced by the inhabitants of the region during the catastrophe.
