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1. "Embalming before 1893"
Posted by adminlizzieborden on Jan-8th-02 at 9:57 PM

By augusta on Friday, 11/30/2001 - 09:17 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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Ran across this the other day and thought it might be of interest since some of us were talking about Andrew's undertaking on another board earlier. This comes from "The Bedside Book of Death" by Robert Wilkins, Citadel Press, NY, Ny, 1990, pp. 38 & 39.

"Modern American embalming can be said to have started with Dr. Thomas Holmes (1817-1900). During the Civil War, Holmes was asked by President Lincoln to devise a method of preserving the bodies of Union soldiers long enough for their transportation from the southern battlefields to their homes in the north. Holmes's method was crude and temporary; he would inject into an artery a solution of bichloride of mercury. Although it is not recorded, it is to be hoped that his technique had improved by the time he was called upon to give his services to the president himself.

"After the Civil War there was little call for embalming, due to a combination of the poisonous effects that mercury solutions had upon the embalmers, and their ineffectiveness in producing an aesthetically pleasing preserved corpse. Arsenical solutions replaced mercurial ones, but the results were often just as unsatisfactory. Both arsenic and mercury, as well as lead, zinc and other metals, were subsequently banned as preservative substances for medico-legal reasons - they constituted a poisoner's charter, whereby the evidence of murder could be masked by the embalmer's chemicals.

"Other embalming techniques were equally primitive. 'Cavity embalming' consisted merely of injecting large amounts of preservative solutions into the chest and abdominal cavities through a wide-bore needle called a 'trocar'. Such injections were often combined with moistening the face with a preservative mixture of aluminum sulphate and mercury chloride. 'Cranial injection', as its name implies, consisted of inserting a trocar into the skull through either the base of the neck or the corner of the eye or up through the nostril. Embalming only really rose out of the doldrums with the discovery of the preservative properties of formaldehyde.

"Blum discovered the hardening action of formaldehyde in 1893. This substance, injected into the blood vessles of a corpse, has the dual effect of disinfecting and preserving. ..."

 
By tina on Saturday, 12/08/2001 - 03:25 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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Wow, but in that case why embalm people today? As a regular practice no less. Is it so we can come back and dig them up later or something? Because most people now days are buried within two days of death. Hmmm, something to think about.
Tina

 
By augusta on Saturday, 12/22/2001 - 10:33 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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I've been reading that the embalming is done for the survivors of the deceased - so they can have that last picture memory of their loved one looking as good as possible. Today's embalming can last for many, many years if you get a good, reputable mortician. There are still slipshod cheap jobs that won't last too long. Something interesting I was reading - it doesn't seem true but they claimed it is - is that the airtight coffins morticians try to sell us makes the body decompose faster. It's interesting to read about. If you see photos of people in the morgue and then see how they look at their funeral, the work they do is fabulous. And it does make you feel good to see them look so good, especially after maybe a long illness.

 
By raystephanson on Sunday, 12/23/2001 - 07:08 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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According to what I read ("Dead Reckoning") its water leakage that helps to decompose bodies. See the Medgars Evans (?) picture in that book. Maybe its just copying the costly habits of the Rich, like some other things.

Basically its "The American Way of Death" - see the famous book from 1960. Not used in England (or Europe?); forbidden by Jewish or Moslem law. South America buries them "as is"; you can see the bloody clothes, etc. (when assassinated).