Since 1945, Chopin’s heart has been kept in the crypt of Holy Cross Church in Warsaw, Poland. (Image copyright David Stanek, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Polish composer Frederic Chopin had a strange afterlife.

He died in 1849 and was buried in Paris. But to express his romantic feelings for his homeland, his heart was put into a glass jar and smuggled to Warsaw, where it was then placed under the rule of the Russian Empire. Strangely, the Nazis allowed Chopin's heart to be kept safe during the Warsaw Uprising. Since 1945 it has remained like a relic in a crypt of the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw.

After that, Chopin's pickled heart was mostly left to rest in peace until one night in 2014, a team of scientists was allowed to briefly examine the jars in the cellar to determine the musician's cause of death. They finally published the results of their research, concluding that Chopin likely died of complications from tuberculosis.

The reason why Chopin's heart was preserved was first of all because he was afraid of being buried prematurely. His last recorded words were: "Swear to let them cut me open so I won't be buried alive." [25 Horrifying Archaeological Discoveries]

Chopin's heart is preserved in the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw, Poland In a cellar. (Thomas Au, CC BY 2.0)

This fear, known as taphephobia, was rampant in the 18th and 19th centuries. According to Mental Floss, Danish author Hans Christian Andersen and Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel both wanted their blood vessels to be cut open to ensure they were dead before being buried. George Washington also wanted his relatives to wait three days after his death before placing him in the vault, just in case. Safety coffins were also designed during this era and contained bells, emergency radios and other devices that might save your life if you woke up six feet underground.

Chopin's sister respected her brother's wishes. She had a doctor perform an autopsy on the composer's body after his death, and his heart was removed and preserved.

Records of the original autopsy were lost. Some experts on Chopin want the composer's heart to be re-examined to investigate the cause of his death. The composer suffered from respiratory problems for most of his life and died at the age of 39. Most believe he died of tuberculosis, which was his official cause of death, but others believe he may have suffered from another disease, such as cystic fibrosis. Frédéric Chopin played the piano in 1829 for the Radziwi?s, a Polish aristocratic family. (Public domain)

Finally, one night in April 2014, a team of priests and forensic scientists were allowed to secretly open the crypt, according to the Associated Press.

They found that the heart was enlarged, flaccid and still bathed in an amber-colored liquid, most likely brandy used for tissue preservation in the 19th century. The team took hundreds of photos so they could conduct a visual analysis of the organ.

Scientists led by Michal Witt of the Institute of Human Genetics of the Polish Academy of Sciences concluded that Chopin suffered from long-standing tuberculosis and that the immediate cause of his death was pericarditis, the membrane surrounding the heart. The condition is rare, but it is "one of the most lethal complications of tuberculosis, with high mortality," Witt and colleagues reported in a study published online last month in the American Journal of Medicine The manuscript reads,

This is not the first time scientists have tried to explain Chopin's lifelong illness. In 2011, doctors in Spain re-examined Chopin's hallucinations and suggested that Chopin might have suffered from epilepsy.

Original article about life sciences.