History of Embalming. Gannal Jean-Nicolas
to enter the cavities and deep tissues: agreeably to the relations of Herodotus, of Diodorus Sicculus, and of Porphyrus, the cranium was emptied either through the nostrils, or by an opening made in one of the orbits: the contents of the thorax and abdomen were withdrawn and placed in a trunk. “The Egyptians,” says Plutarch, “drew the intestines from the dead bodies, and, after having exposed them to the sun, cast them away as the cause of all the sins committed by man.”
The moderns have adopted an analogous mode of preparation, and in our days, previous to my researches on the preservation of animal matters, the processes of embalming were long and complicated.
In the Dictionary of Medicine, of twenty-five volumes, (Paris, 1835,) M. Murat traces in these terms the rules for embalming:
“Before commencing this operation, it is necessary to procure the following objects: alcohol saturated with camphor, camphorated vinegar, a varnish composed of the balsams of Perou and copaiba, fluid styrax, the oils of Muscat, of lavender, and of thyme, &c., alcohol saturated with proto-chloride of mercury, a powder composed of tan, of decrepitated salt, of quinquina, of cascarilla, of mint, of benzoin, of castor, of Jew’s pitch, &c. – all these substances mixed and reduced to a fine powder, are sprinkled with essential oils. The powdered tan ought to form nearly half the weight, and the salt one-fourth; there ought also be placed, at the disposition of the embalmer, a certain number of bandages, linen, sponges, and waxed threads, also several basins filled with pure water, &c.
“The breast and belly must be opened by large incisions, and their contents extracted; the brain is removed after the necessary incisions of the scalp, and sawing circularly the bones of the cranium; deep and repeated incisions are to be made in the viscera. If we wish to preserve the intestinal tube, we must open it throughout its whole length, wash it well in water and compress it; wash it a second time in camphorated vinegar, and finally with camphorated alcohol. Large incisions must be multiplied on the interior surfaces of the great cavities, and along the extremities.”
I stop at these details, because they suffice to prove that the art of embalming, down to the present, has had for its object, not the preservation of the whole subject intact, but the preparation of animal matters padded, stuffed with aromatics and salts: a preparation always incomplete, tedious, and expensive. This is the point from which I start in the preservation of animal matter, and the art of embalming. Have I the happiness of adding a step to science? my readers shall be the judges.
The Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Academy of Medicine, have proved that, by one of my processes, subjects destined for dissection can be preserved. Bodies kept for several months, and afterwards carried to the amphitheatre, have been found as fresh and as fit for dissection, as individuals dead only two days.5
These early successes, and the honourable encouragements which they have received, gave me the idea of bringing the art of embalming to perfection; and I have attained to the power of preserving bodies, with all their parts, both internal and external, without any mutilation or extraction, and so as to admit of the contemplation of the person embalmed, with the countenance of one asleep.
This discovery has been confirmed by a commission of the Academy of Sciences, who, in its public sitting in the month of August, 1837, conferred upon me the grand prize.
Having decided to publish the result of my researches, I thought it best to precede it by a general history of embalming, and it appeared to me that a book which would reunite so many interesting documents up to the present time scattered throughout so many works, would not be without interest. If my readers join with me in this opinion, I shall not have laboured in vain, and my work shall have received that recompense of which I am most ambitious.
Nevertheless, I conceived that my endeavour should not be restricted to the simple exposition of my researches, and that it was a duty I owed, to place at the disposition of my fellow citizens the means of continuing some relations with the remains of persons whom they had held dear. The sentiments of love, friendship, respect, and veneration, which preserves in our hearts as a sacred depôt, the memory of friends and relations, give, even to an indifferent portrait, which recalls their features to us, an inappreciable value. The heart warms and vivifies this faint image, and recalls to us the words and actions of those who have departed.
These same sentiments cause us painfully to experience the full rigour of that law of nature which condemns to the decomposition of the grave, remains so sacred to us. I have desired to offer to persons groaning under an afflicting loss, the means of preserving all that death has left them; with this intention I have founded an Embalming Society, and I have placed the price for this operation within the reach of the majority of persons. For men destitute of resources, who have rendered themselves worthy, by their talents or virtues, of the remembrance of their species, the public authorities may reclaim of us a gratuitous embalming. We shall be happy to preserve to society the mortal spoils of those who honour and are useful to it.
HISTORY OF EMBALMING
CHAPTER I.
OF EMBALMING IN GENERAL
As soon as life ceases in animal matter, disorganization commences; the constituent elements separate, to be variously recombined, and to give birth to new compounds.
The elevation of atmospheric temperature in certain determined hygrometric limits, and the action of oxygen, are those circumstances which lead necessarily to this decomposition. But, at a given temperature, the progress of putrid fermentation is not the same for all animals; this varies among different species, and different individuals of similar species, according to laws not well determined. But so important, however, are these laws, to the art of embalming, that processes which are sufficient for the preservation of one body, may fail in their application to others.
The ancients had well observed, it is true, that the diversity of climates contributed much to the difference in mummies, and to the success of embalming; for, according to Camerarius, great difference exists between the bodies of Europeans and Orientals; the latter, of a dryer temperament, are not exposed to so rapid a decomposition. The example related by Ammian Marcellini is a convincing proof. Four days, says he, after a combat between the Persians and Romans, the countenance of the latter could scarcely be recognised; the bodies of the Persians, on the contrary, were dry, without humidity, without sanies, and without any alteration.
If sufficient attention is given to this fact, and we consider further, that the thermometrical and hygrometrical conditions of the atmosphere were such in Egypt, that the bodies abandoned to themselves, become dried and formed natural mummies, we shall perceive how vain and unreasonable have been the attempts of those who, for a long series of ages, expected in the middle and northern portions of Europe to embalm human bodies by processes which are only an imperfect imitation of those of Egypt, even in what is defective. Finally, we shall understand how it happens that the sepulchres of the Guanches and Egyptians, yield bodies in such a perfect state of preservation, whilst those of our country offer only bones and dust.
Whilst according to the Egyptians the just tribute of admiration which their profound wisdom and extensive acquirements merit, we ought, in a scientific question, to defend ourselves from the infatuation of our predecessors, which led them into error, and appreciate at their just value facts badly observed.
We read in the letters of M. de Maillet, “the dry and nitrous earth of Egypt has the property of naturally preserving entire bodies without the aid of any art, especially in those countries at a distance from the Nile. This is a fact which experience does not permit us to doubt. Not long since, there were buried some Frenchmen, in a Coptic church which is in old Cairo, and those who descended the cavern found the bodies of others who had been previously deposited for some time, as perfect as they were the very day that they were inhumed: The clothes even of a Venetian consul, whose corpse had been here interred, were perfectly preserved. I have likewise visited several ancient Mosques, formerly celebrated, but now in ruins, which are situated on the road from Cairo to Suez; these edifices have served as tombs to some Mahommedan kings, whose bodies were here deposited, during the period when Egypt was subject to the Arabs. I investigated some of these caverns, and can assert that I observed bodies so light from desiccation that they could be raised with one
The colour of the tissues is changed, however, being bleached by the acetate of alumine – but this is far preferable to the black putridity, which renders the anatomical subject so disgusting and unhealthy, when subjects are scarce. —