This is the "Report of the 1973 Turin Commission on the Shroud (3)," part #29 of my Turin Shroud Encyclopedia. I belatedly realised that page 62 of the report is missing, so I have emailed Joe Marino, asking for it. But it might take some time because he will probably need to scan his paper copy and email it to me as a PDF. So I will end my posting of the report here and restart it again if and when Joe emails me a PDF of page 62. See part #26 for information about this series. Again I am going to first present each part of the report and then add comments at the end.
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MICROSCOPIC INVESTIGATIONS ON THE SHROUD
Guido Filogamo
Alberto Zina
We present the complete results of the investigations carried out on two threads taken from the Shroud which were made at the Institute of Normal Human Anatomy at the University of Turin during the last months of 1974.
The following examinations were made:
1. Microscopic examination of the untreated material.
2. Microscopic examination of the material treated with resin.
3. Ultra-structural examination with an electron
microscope.
E.M.O. [optical and electron microscope?]
The threads were placed under the slide and examined under a microscope before being coated with resin. The enlargements were 320 x 320 x 2 linear.
The threads were seen to be constituted of numerous vegetable fibres. In the case of both threads, on the surface of several fibres we noted the characteristic presence of Granules having different forms and diameter, and of a red colour.
The threads were then covered with resin according to the usual technical procedure followed by us for histological preparations of fresh biological material.
Technique
Fixing in glyceraldehyde ("glutaraldeide") at 3% diluted with phosphate tampon, cleaning with tampon plus saccharose, after fixing in osmium ("osmio") at 1%, dehydration in graded concentrations of alcohol, placed in resin. Sample sticks were cut with an LKB microtome[JM76, 57].
Semi-fine sections a micron in thickness covered with methyl blue and azure 11 were observed under the optical microscope.
Ultra-thin strands of 500 A treated with uranyl acetate and citrate of lead were observed with an electron microscope Siemens Elmskop 1, the enlargements used being between 17,000x and 50,000x.
M.O. [optical microscope?]
Longitudinal and transversal sections of the threads were employed. The single fibres were coloured uniformly in blue. In the transversal sections the fibres have an oval, or rather bi-concave form, and moreover they are hollow in the centre. Also in these preparations there were observed granules on the material on the surface of the fibres. The granules have absorbed the colouring and have resulted in a blue colour.
M.E. [electron microscope?]
The examination revealed the structure of the individual fibres of the threads. These do not show the traces of cellular organelles (organuli), but they are constituted entirely of some several hundred filaments of A, variously intertwined and comprised in an amorphous matrix. On the surface of the fibres, or near to it, one can see different formations of various structure, form and size.
Of these we noted three different types:
1. Granules of amorphous material dense with electrons.
2. Roundish or oval bodies of 0.5 to 0.7 micron in which were noted an external capsule, a membrane, and an opaque central portion.
3. Fat, roundish bodies of 2 microns diameter, apparently surrounded with membrane and constituted over material finely granular, dishomogeneously distributed, and of different electron density.
The material of the first type is of an indeterminable nature[JM76, 58].
The bodies of the second type, by their characteristics, can be identified with certainty as bacterial spores.
The bodies of the third type, given their internal structure, are probably of an organic nature.
It must be remembered that the problem put to us is: if there is or there is not on the threads material of haematic origin (red globules).
We should recall to mind keenly that morphological investigations carried out on haematic traces rarely produce positive results after a relatively short time.
The morphological examinations which were· carried out wherein we compared the usual appearance of the traces of blood, normal or decayed, in the air, or fixed in a material (like resin), with that of the corpuscles which we observed, brought us to the following conclusions:
1. The examination under the optical microscope has not revealed the corpuscles which can be identified with red globules. The ultra-structural investigation has shown that, as far as it could be seen with the naked eye, it is constituted in part of amorphous material devoid of any differentiating characteristics, partly of spores and bacterial bodies, and partly of roundish bodies, probably of an organic nature.
2. The possibility that formations of this kind may be red globules cannot be excluded with absolute certainty, but some signs, dimensions, the appearance of the granulation, make such a possibility improbable.
P.S. It may be that new data, perhaps more significant, might be furnished from a study of the threads under a scanning electron microscope[JM76, 59].
Signed: Guido Filogamo,
Professor of Normal Human Anatomy,
University of Turin.
Alberto Zina,
Institute of Normal Human Anatomy,
Turin.
Finally anyone wishing to have photographic documentation
should write to:
Dott. Alberto Zina,
Institute di Anatomia Umana Normale,
Corso Massimo d'Azeglio 52,
TORINO[JM76, 60].
Comments:
It must call into question the competence of Filogamo and Zina in this area. They actually were looking at what turned out to be ancient blood on their Shroud samples, but they didn't recognise it!:
"At the University of Turin, threads from the Shroud were examined under an ordinary high-magnification microscope. Professor Guido Filogamo noted nothing of interest except the presence of reddish granules of various shapes and sizes. It is of these unidentifiable units that the Shroud image seems to be constituted. Professor Filogamo and his assistant, Dr Alberto Zina, now fixed the threads in a resin which, hardening, enabled them to cut their specimens into slices down to one twenty thousandth of a millimeter thick. The optical microscope revealed nothing, of any significance; to everyone's intense chagrin the electron microscope, despite its much greater powers of enlargement, produced results no more decisive. There were bacterial and other organic spores and debris, but these, of course, were only to be expected on material so many centuries old. The red-brown granules, however continued to defy all examination. That these were the red globules which would have signified dried blood, report the scientists, 'cannot be excluded with absolute certainty' — but, they continued, their characteristics — and appearance `make such a possibility improbable'. They point out that attempts to study in such a way blood traces of any kind `rarely produce positive results after a relatively short time', but this elaboration of a negative does not take them any further towards explaining what the mysterious granules actually are"[BR78, 69-70].Notes:
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to extract or quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided the extract or quote includes a reference citing my name, its title, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]
Bibliography
BR78. Brent, P. & Rolfe, D., 1978, "The Silent Witness: The Mysteries of the Turin Shroud Revealed," Futura Publications: London.
JM76. Jepps, M., ed., 1976, "Report of Turin Commission on the Shroud," Turin, Italy.
Posted 26 July 2024. Updated 12 October 2024.
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