It has been a custom among ancient nations to preserve the bodies
of the dead for a long period of time. Even to this day we find
traces of it in the mummies of Egypt and the sarcophagi of Etruria.
Their method of achieving this result may not have been strictly in
accordance with the principles of modern science; certainly their
success would hardly be satisfactory to the more refined taste of
our generation. Still their discoveries in this art have been such
that they have commanded the respect of modern savants. They also
show conclusively that the sciences of chemistry and physiology, even
at that remote period, had attained a certain degree of prominence
among their scientific men. Many of their discoveries were no
doubt accidental, still we must give them credit for the spirit of
investigation which actuated their researches, and carried them on
undaunted through the many disappointments they must certainly have
encountered before they satisfactorily solved the problem.
The imagination is carried back to the time when the mysterious
worship of Osiris and Isis was flourishing on the banks of the river
Nile, when the Sphinx uttered, or was thought to utter, the sacred
oracles of Thormes, and before the pyramids had entombed a long
generation of kings.
A great number of persons cannot revert to the science of embalming
without placing it among the lost arts; to them a mummy is the
contemporary of a mysterious past dimly perceived through the long
vista of succeeding generations; a tangible proof of that much
vaunted ancient civilization, which as they express regretfully will
never be found again. A thorough elimination of the subject would
convince those unsophisticated mourners that the loss is not quite
an irreparable one. Let us divest a mummy of his bitumen-coated
and fire-scorched bandages; we will then have before us a mass of
blackened and hardened cement-like substance, shrunken and emaciated
to almost a skeleton, and bearing semblance to the form of a human
organism, only so far as the shape of the osseous frame has retained
its symmetry. The lips have shrunk apart so far as to expose the row
of white teeth, the sockets of the eyes are empty, the cheek bones
are prominent, the whole covered with patches of the dark and almost
petrified epidermis. Such is the picture a mummy presents to our view
when denuded of its envelope
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if some associate this
repulsive image with the idea of modern embalming. Our present object
in preparing bodies is two-fold: In the first place we desire to
keep perfect for a certain length of time the remains of those who
have been dear to us while living; but when desiccation has begun,
when the roundness of the lines loses itself into the more angular
shrinkage of the tissues, then we may take, and without any feeling
of horror, a last look at the body, and consign it, not to slow, foul
corruption, but to the gradual drying of the organic substances,
without the horrible accessions of decay and putrefaction.
In view of all this, and with the help of modern chemistry, it is not
singular that the art of embalming should have received a new impetus
in this country and Europe, especially here, where it is customary to
send back and over long distances the bodies of those that have died
far from home. This usage has already brought about some astonishing
results. The large majority of our first-class undertakers have taken
the matter in hand; they vie with each other in trying to perfect
themselves in an art which is daily growing into favor. Almost every
day a new antiseptic is, if not discovered, at least brought to
exercise its functions in the preservation of organic substances. Of
late, new methods have been inaugurated on all sides, and among the
number there are certainly some which are deserving all the merits
claimed for them.
It behooves all professionals to exert their ingenuity to bring this
science to a satisfactory issue. Many of the preparations sold under
the name of preserving liquid are good; others are not. How then are
undertakers to discriminate? By what means can the merits of the one,
and the utter worthlessness of the other, be determined? There is
but one way, and that is an infallible one, of finding out the best
method and preparation, and that is simply by experimenting, until
the real means, which is the only true one, has been hit upon.
It may also be objected to, with reason that a certain process has
been known to work effectually in some cases, whereas the same
method employed in a similar manner has proved a signal failure in
another instance. To this but one cause can be assigned, and that is
the utter ignorance on the part of the operator of the properties,
antiseptic and otherwise, of the materials he is employing, also
of the different conditions, which will according to existing
circumstances modify their action and govern their effect. To use a
certain preparation simply because it is highly recommended by some,
without knowing the constituents thereof, is very little short of
foolhardiness. How is it possible for the operator to employ it with
discrimination and judgment? Should he be successful, well and good;
the end would be obtained without he being the wiser for it. Should
it be otherwise, and the result prove unsatisfactory, how is he to
account for the failure, and how to guard against a repetition of the
same in the future?
A good embalmer, one that really understands his business, does not
have recourse to ready-made preparations for preserving bodies; but
he chooses the chemicals according to the properties each is known
to possess. His experience of their relative actions teach him
beforehand how they will work out the result he anticipated. I do
not mean that every undertaker and embalmer should be an Orfila in
regard to Chemistry, nor is it expected that his knowledge of Anatomy
should enable him to fill the chair of demonstrator in a dissecting
room, but to achieve real, legitimate success, an embalmer ought to
possess a thorough knowledge of the drugs he is manipulating, their
individual effects, singly and collectively, and under different
circumstances, upon subjects of different natures. A certain amount
of the acquaintance with the anatomy of the human body is not only
required, but strictly necessary; a gash of the knife upon some
vessel of the arterial system might jeopardize the success of an
otherwise satisfactory operation.
It is this rudimentary knowledge of Physiological Chemistry and
Anatomy we shall endeavor to explain in this book, with complete
instructions upon the best methods which have been heretofore and are
now employed in the preservation of bodies.