title: Embalming and embalming fluids,
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Post-Gradual Department, of Doctor of Philosophy, Wooster, June 11. 1895 Collegiate Chemistry, of the University of Reprinted from the Post-Graduate and Wooster Quarterly. April 25, 1895 PREFACE. The thesis of Professor C. W. McCurdy, Sc. D., Ph. D., treating the subject of “Embalming and Embalming Fluids,” is unique. It makes no pretension to being an exhaustive treatise on the subject, still less to being a practical guide to the professional embalmer. It does, however, present two real reasons for its being. First, to the laity, it presents all the leading facts of interest connected with this strange art, and will be read by large numbers of people whose interest is only of a general nature. The author’s pleasing, and yet clear and forcible style, will be noted. Nowhere, so far as we know, has this subject been so pleasingly and accurately presented within moderate compass so as to meet the requirements of the general reader. Second, the bibliography will be of the highest possible value to professional embalmers. To have at command a list of everything of importance which has been published on a subject, not only in book form, but also in the various journals, is to be supplied with a sword of sharpness for cutting one’s way through difficulties to a full knowledge of a subject. This portion of the work will save an enormous amount of useless thumbing of old journals and hunting for books, and what is better, will put the sources of information before those who have not the time or patience to hunt. This feature of the work is entirely new and is, therefore, a valuable contribution to the sum of human knowledge. Do not suppose that original investigation is confined to the laboratory. Much is published and thereby thrown away. The author’s investigations have been laborious and expensive, both in time and money, and will, we hope, be duly appreciated. Every embalmer—and in these days every undertaker is required to learn embalmer—will readily find it to his advantage to have this list of books at his command, and those ignorant of the art will probably find here the most readable article on the subject. These two reasons for its being will assure to Professor McCurdy’s thesis a warm welcome. W. Z. Bennett, Ph. D. (Harvard.) Embalming and Embalming Fluids. CHARLES WILLIAM McCURDY, Sc. D., Ph. D., Professor of Chemistry in the University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho. A Graduating Thesis; Course E, Chemistry. One of the peculiarities of our common nature is that we seem to pay greater respect to man in death than in life. In the flesh, it is the custom to belittle, to disparage, to contemn, to ridicule, to abuse; but when one joins the silent majority, we esteem, eulogize and memorialize him. The tomb is a glamour to the living; beneath it heroes and heroines are made, and not infrequently the earliest murmurs of fame are echoed by the cold clod as it falls upon the coffin lid. Hearts that have lived lives of stone, minds that have cherished the most sordid and selfish desires toward a fellow being in the routine of life’s battle, in death forget all; and the unfriendly and caustic tongue, the covetous and mercenary hand are silent and still and linger alike over the lifeless body and compete in the honors of the mortuary celebration. Chaplets and the most treasured articles belonging to the deceased are retained that they may be employed as immortelles before the living; and so, by some irrational casuistry, we seek to make amends for the past in the vault, the monument, or the slab which is erected over our departed. Embalming and Embalming Fluids. This must be true, otherwise how can one account for the solicitude and veneration shown by all nations in every land, down through the centuries, for the lifeless body? Creed, clime, race seem not to have lessened the sacredness that attaches to that form, once a breathing, thinking, sympathetic being, the moment the divine spark has been snuffed out and that form becomes clay. All nations, it matters not whether Pagan, Christian, Monotheistic, or Polytheistic, unite upon common ground of post-mortem veneration; and, as far as my reading and observation have extended, I have yet to learn of any people, however remote their antiquity, however rude or wild their existence, that have failed to observe sepulchral rites with more or less solemnity. Indeed, may not such observance mark the line between the human and the beast; for no order of the lower animals evinces any distinctive care or affection for their dead. Says one writer: “The annals of the race are revealed by the vestiges of tombs which antedate by ages the historic period, and which still puzzle the most learned of archaeologists.” The present is linked to the past not in memory only, but by the visional signs that mark the silent city in the valley, on wooded hillside, in mountain fastness, behind sculptured walls, or within granite pyramids. The ancestry of man, this earth! who can compute its dwellers! “We are as a handful standing between the billions who have gone and the billions yet to come; on one hand the inheritors of Time, on the other the heirs of Eternity.” And so the disposition of the dead in all ages, whatever may have been its form, however crude and ugly may have been the preparation, has always been attended with a certain degree of respect for the living and sacredness for the deceased. Some conception of religious rites and ceremony seems to have imbued the race from the beginning, its birth, in many cases in form only, stripped of its faith and significance, meaningless in the extreme. In view, therefore, of the interest which the race has manifested toward the future through all the centuries, resulting from the apprehension of evil or the hope of good, and the reverence and respect accorded to the departed, there have come to be three modes of disposing of the dead: (1) Embalming and Embalming Fluids. Embalming in History. Embalming in Oriental thought signifies to preserve, to bitumenize, to mummify; in modern language it means to impregnate with poison, or aromatics; to prevent or arrest putrefaction. That object which was so preserved, either artificially or by natural processes, was termed by the ancients a mummy; hence mummifying signified the preservation of the body of a human being, animal, bird, fish or reptile, by means of bitumen, spices, gums, natron, or atmospheric causes for a very long period. The nineteenth century use of the term embalming is almost wholly limited to the human species; and the purpose is to arrest putrefaction for a few days, a few months, a few years, or for an indefinite period. The Christian idea of the future state and ultimate purpose of the body has entirely changed the custom among certain nations in the disposition of their dead. To embalm the body of a dead man with a purpose that the body itself may live again in a future state, is one of the most extraordinary customs ever known to mankind. Its practice evidently implied, says Donnelly, the existence of several factors: 1. A highly religious and imaginative people, controlled and dominated by an influential priestcraft. 2. An implicit belief in the immortality of the soul; hence a belief in rewards and punishments; in a heaven and a hell. 3. A belief in the immortality of the body and its resurrection from the grave on some day of judgment in the great hereafter. 4. Furthermore, a supplemental belief to the last two propositions: that the very flesh and blood in which a man died shall rise with him on the last day and not a merely spiritual body; hence the dogged persistency that the body must not perish. Origin of the Custom. According to Solon, Herodotus, 3 Greenhill—The Art of Embalming, of Burial, and of Preserving Dead Bodies, etc., pp. 15-50, 1705 a. d. 2 Herodotus—History of the World, 5 Yols. Embalming and Embalming Fluids. Plato, Plutarch, 1 Donnelly, 2 Winchell 3 and others, the custom of embalming probably originated among the learned Atlantians who were sun worshippers and who inhabited Atlantis, an antediluvian island, facing the Pillars of Hercules in the mid Atlantic, and from it spread to their colonies and the nations they dominated, to the Guanches of the Canary Islands, to the ancient Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Ethiopians, the Persians, and as a result of conquest to the Greeks, the Romans, and to a limited extent among the Hebrews; while on the American continent the Peruvians, the Aztecs and the Mexicans embalmed their dead. A few mummies of remarkable preservation have been found among the Chinooks and Flatheads, 5 and the bodies of the kings of the Florida and Virginia Indians were so preserved; while good mummies have been discovered in considerable numbers among the Dakota or Sioux Indians, 6 and in the caves of Kentucky. Other rude tribes inhabiting this Western Continent, however disfigured their crude ideas had become with respect to childish superstition and religious fancy, had attained, nevertheless, to the conception of a Great Spirit, Great Father, and the Evil One. In the light of modern thought very many of these traditions vaporize into myths unworthy of serious consideration except as they may Serve to illumine our theme and to point out more clearly its origin and the extent of its practice. Some of these legends in common with those of the Aztecs, recite how, after the deluge, seven persons issued from their tombs where their mummified remains had been consigned, and by them the earth was repeopled. The Egyptians gave credence to a like belief, while Dr. Plutarch—Parallel Lives. Donnelly—Atlantis, p. 144. 3 Winchell—Preadamites. Bible, Genesis, 1:2. Schoolcraft, Vol. V, p. 693. Beverly, p. 47. Myths of the New World, p. 52. Embalming and Embalming Fluids. Brinton states that a similar legend is found among the Sanskrit writings. However unthinkable such ideas appear in the noonday brilliance of these closing years of nineteenth century culture and scientific accuracy, still there were people who dwelt along the shores of the Great Southern Continent that possessed more definite ideas and notions of the soul’s state, past and future. The Evil Spirit as well as the Good Spirit undoubtedly influenced the emotions and judgment of those primitive people and gave bent to their conception of the hereafter. This is shown in the care and solicitude with which they sought to preserve the natural body and which they embalmed by a simple process symbolical of their primitive life and thought. The body was first evicerated after which it was subjected to exposure in the cold but exceedingly rarified atmosphere of the higher altitudes. Bodies thus treated have been found in Mexico and Central America; also the ancient Peruvians, as witnessed by Garcilasso, preserved the bodies of the royalty without any semblance of foreign applications; and these mutilated Incas were secreted in mounds of earth, in temples, or upon typias. In the temples of the sun at Cuzco, as chronicled by Prescott, these monarchs sat natural as life in chairs of gold, clothed in their former princely attire, their heads inclined, covered with raven-black or silver-gray hair, and their hands placidly crossed over their bosoms as in obeisance to their anointed queens, ranged opposite in the grim dignity of death. The aboriginal inhabitants of the Canary Islands, the Guanches, and the Atlanteans who spread westward from their island home giving their names to many places and nations, also rudely embalmed their corpses. To further protect the body it received a coating of varnish, after which it was wrapped in goat-skin and consigned to a wooden case. Embalming and Embalming Fluids. Body it received a coating of varnish, after which it was wrapped in goat-skin and consigned to a wooden case. It was among the Egyptians, however, that embalming was carried to a high degree of perfection, and has come down to us as one of the “lost arts” of that learned and famous people. Egyptian Character and Belief. The ancient Egyptians represented a character singularly devout, and their language, literature and art, as well as their daily lives, were strongly influenced by religion. Their earliest history, according to Diodorus, shows them to have recognized but one God, “who had no beginning and would have no end; who made all things and was not himself made.” And this thought is corroborated by the investigations of Pierrett. De Rouge, however, is of the opinion that the most ancient Egyptians were sun-worshippers, which was the Eternal God, an object that had no beginning and no end and to which were ascribed the attributes named by Diodorus. But whether the Egyptians worshipped an Eternal God, whose attributes were symbolized by their numerous deities; or whether their god had its basis in a solar myth, variously resolvable, is still a debatable question, an unsolved problem in Egyptology. Nevertheless it is a fact that whatever was the character of the original, primal belief of the Egyptians it gradually gave way before the inventions and secretiveness of the priestcraft, and the people were led into idolatry and polytheism and worshipped and feared in turn many gods and goddesses, one writer naming seventy-three deities, another sixty-two; while the Egyptians themselves frequently speak of one thousand gods, male and female, principal among which were Osiris and Isis. From their primitive religion as taught them, it is clear how the Egyptians early evolved their notions of the soul’s future state, of the impossibility of its entire separation from the world. Pierrett—Dictionaire d’arch Egyptienne. 4 De Rouge—Notice Sommaire des Monuments Egyptions de Louvre. 5 Fisher—Outlines of Universal History, p. 38. Embalming and Embalming Fluids. The body for all time, hence accepted the logical sequence of the body’s preservation. The Egyptians believed that after the lapse of many thousand years the souls of their departed would reanimate the body, hence their desire to preserve the same in its natural condition for the proper reception and rehabilitation of its vital force. They certainly believed in a life after death, if not in the immortality of the soul and its judgment of the deeds done in the body. Their religion is said to have had three cardinal requirements: “love of God, love of virtue, and love of man.” With such conception of the migratory soul, and of the essential need and preservation of its earthly tabernacle, my reader will readily understand why embalming was universally resorted to by this people for more than three thousand years. It is stated that upwards of four hundred millions of human mummies were made in Egypt from the beginning of the art until its discontinuance in the seventh century, in addition to the thousands of fishes, reptiles, birds and inferior mammals that were embalmed. The great depository of these mummified remains of a once gifted and learned nation was in the Necropoli, near Memphis, and at Thebes; but the curious, the mercenary and the 'Scientific hand have so depleted this vast number as to make it difficult now to secure perfect specimens outside of the museums. Quantities of these weird yet interesting corpses and carcasses have been appropriated for fuel by the Arabs; while whole ship loads have been converted into manure by the avaricious Englishmen for the growing of turnips. A Remarkable Discovery. It has been only within the past quarter of a century however, that Egyptologists have had their interest quickened, their knowledge greatly increased and have stood fairly bewildered before the wonderful discoveries which have made the Boolak Museum, at Cairo, a famous repository of men of royal blood “who died and were made imperishable flesh by the embalmer’s art between three and four thousand years ago.” To Professor Maspero, the director-general of the excavations and antiquities of Egypt, and Emil Brugsch Bey, Curator of the Boolak Museum, belong the credit and coveted honor of breaking the secrets of the rocky caverns, and for a money consideration, prompted by jealousy and avarice, induced a native Mohammedan to divulge his secret whereby these scholars were permitted “to put” Their hands not upon a royal tomb, but upon a hiding place wherein were piled thirty-six mummies of kings and queens, princes and high priests in an excellent state of preservation, truly a marvellous disclosure of incalculable value to the students of archaeology and of the embalmer’s art. The Theban Treasures. The scene of this extraordinary discovery, according to Maspero, was in the bottom of a pit in one of the loveliest nooks in the western cliffs of Thebes. The story of this resurrection, as told by several writers, is most interesting and thrilling to the reader, and to the immediate explorers a sensation weird and awful, growing more intense with each step as the treasures of the holy past were unfolded to their view. “The story of its finding is more romantic than any told in Egypt since Isis gathered the scattered remains of Osiris and buried his head within the alabaster temple of Abydos.” Says Edwards: “Slowly, with difficulty treading their way among desecrated tombs, and under the shadow of stupendous precepices, they followed their trembling guides to a spot unparalleled even in the desert, for gaunt solemnity. Here, behind a huge fragment of fallen rock—perhaps dislodged for that purpose from the cliffs overhead—they were shown the entrance to a pit so ingeniously hidden that one might pass it twenty times without observing it. Into this pit they were lowered. The shaft carved through the solid limestone, was two metres square by eleven and a half metres in depth, and ended in a narrow, subterranean passage trending westward. Under it led for More than seven metres, then turned off abruptly to the right and stretched away northward in endless night and awful gloom. Now stooping when the roof was low, now stumbling when the floor was uneven, now descending a flight of roughly hewn stairs, and with every step penetrating deeper and farther into the bowels of the earth, the intruders, groping their way, each with his flickering candle in hand. Pieces of broken mummy cases and fragments of linen bandages strewed the floor; for the mercenary and extortionate Arab for years had been profiting by his secret. Against the walls were piled boxes, filled with porcelain statuettes, libation jars of bronze and terra cotta, and canopic vases of precious Lycopolitan alabaster. Then came huge sarcophagi of painted wood, and farther on still, some standing upright, some laid at length, a crowd of mummy cases fashioned in human form, with folded hands and solemn faces and ever-waxful eyes, each emblazoned with the name and title of its occupant. The men of today brought face to face with the greatest kings of Pharonic Egypt, stood bewildered, and asked each other if they were dreaming. Expecting to find a few petty princes of the Her-Hor line only, they found themselves confronted by the mortal remains of heroes who till this moment had survived only as names far echoed down the corridors of time. Farther on they stood on the threshold of a sepulchral chamber literally filled to the roof with sarcophagi of enormous size; brilliant with color and gilding they were as highly varnished as though but yesterday. It was done.” In these burials, each member was accorded the usual mortuary outfit, accompanied by his favorite pet animal, bird, jewel case, statuette or manuscript; but richer in this world’s goods than any of the rest was queen Isi-em-kneb. Besides statuettes and libation jars, she was richly furnished with a sumptuous funeral repast consisting of gazelle-haunches, trussed gesse, calves’ heads, dried grapes, dates and nuts, the meats being mummified and bandaged and the whole packed in a rush hamper, sealed with her husband’s unbroken seal. And perchance this queen of Egyptian lore might still be wanting in some comfort, she was provided with ointments, alabaster cups, goblets of exquisite variegated glass, and a marvellous collection of huge full-dress wigs, curled, frizzed and perfumed, in separate basket. As the food was entombed with her for refreshment, so, evidently, were these things deposited in the grave for her use and adornment at the supreme hour of bodily resurrection when the justified dead, clothed, fed, perfumed and annointed should go forth from the sepulchre into everlasting day. From all accounts, this wonderful chamber in the mountain’s fastness was not the original tomb of those royal personages. In the twelfth century, sudden alarm caused their removal from the royal sepulchres, and when danger had passed, the secret cavern was undoubtedly forgotten, and its precious dead silently awaited the passing of the centuries to the morning of the new civilization to do honor to their ancestral learning and to the embalmer’s skill. Strange and peculiarly fascinating are these facts; but I must not longer pause for their consideration. It was on the second of July, 1881, that the Arab divulged his secret, Judas like, for a pot of “bakhshish,” and within a fortnight thereafter this ancient sepulchre had been depleted of its illustrious dead, borne away, honored en route by the villagers, after three thousand years of sepulture, to the gates of Cairo, for the Boolak Museum, there to infuse fresh life into historical research and to illumine more brightly the dim page of Egyptology. Egyptian Methods of Embalming. The art of mummifying among the Egyptians was confined to a special class, the physicians; for we are informed that “Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father; and the physicians embalmed Israel.” These men were held in high honor and were treated with much consideration; for their profession was hereditary. There have come down to us through Herodotus, Diodorus, Solomon and other ancient writers, quite accurate and full details of this phase of the physician’s art. More recent study by Bunfrey, Erman, Muller, and Budge has only confirmed and elaborated these details. Four methods of embalming were in vogue, suited to the social standing and wealth of the deceased. The most expensive method, the one given the lawyers, General History, p. 37. Bible, Genesis, 1:2; Luke xii; xxiv; John xix:39-41; Budge, The Mummy, p. 180. Book II, 36-89. Historiarum, lib. ix Ed. Schweig, 1817. 6 Book I, 91. Bibliotheca Histor. Embalming and Embalming Fluids. royalty, titled personages, and men of wealth, may be summarized as follows: 1. The body was first washed, then laid upon the ground, when an assistant traced with ink over the bowels indicating the lines where the surgeon’s knife or sharp flint was to pierce. The intestines, stomach, liver, heart, and lungs were removed; washed, saturated with palm oil, stuffed with aromatic gums and spices; and finally smeared with unguent and bandaged carefully with linen many yards in length and variously inscribed with the names and insignia of the gods which took the parts under their special protection. Each portion so removed was securely sealed in a decorated, alabaster jar; the name of the deceased painted thereon that it might not be lost or misplaced, and each jar dedicated to a particular god. It was considered of the highest importance to have the portions preserved intact; for without them a man could not hope to live again. Not always, however, were the intestines so carefully treated; in mummies of the best period these parts were sometimes placed in packets beneath the bandages. The brain was next removed through the nostrils by the aid of an iron rod, crooked at one end; and with so much skill and thoroughness as not to impair the bridge of the nose, or to leave any of the soft tissues. This, too, was preserved, dried, and buried with the body. The perishable portions having been removed, the body was laid to cure in a quantity of natron—a solution of carbonate, sulfate, and chloride of soda—for seventy days. When completely saturated, the body was removed from the bath, washed, and dried; when, we are told, “it presented a greenish-gray color, the flesh shrunken, the skin adhering loosely to the bones, the nails clear, while the face though more drawn and thin, was changed but little.” Slits were made in the fleshy portions of the fingers, toes, arms, and legs. Then filled with myrrh, balm, 3 cassia, other spices and natron and set up. Pettigrew—History of Egyptian Mummies, p. 58. Tlutarch—VIV, Sap. Conv. XVI, ed. Didot, p. 188; also De Carniam Esu. p. 1219. 3 Penicfier—Traite de Embalmers, p. 2, enumerates four species of balm used in embalming: (a) Judaea, (b) Syria, (c) Egypt, (d) Mecca. Embalming and Embalming Fluids. The cavities of the skull, the chest and bowels were filled with myrrh, frankincense, cassia, gums, powdered plaster and some bitumen; obsidian eyes were implanted in the sockets; the nails were stained with henna; 1 finger rings and other ornaments were restored; while a gold plate was neatly inscribed, dedicated to Horus, and placed upon the breast. At intervals during the process of mummification, it is recorded that prayers appropriate to each stage of the work, were recited to various gods beseeching their approval of the embalmer, and of their continued care of the dead in the nether world. Various beads, jewels, the Book of the Dead, and other insignia were laid upon the body, after which it was ready for bandaging. The body was first smeared with unguents; linen was torn into strips, gummed, moistened, then firmly wrapped about each finger, toe, hand foot, arm and leg until the little irregularities were rounded out by padding; again prayers were said; several hundred feet more of linen were consumed, and the embalmer’s work was completed. This was not all. The coffins, two in number, an outer and an inner one, had been steadily approaching completion during the long period of disembodiedment, cleansing and curing of the body. Skillful hands had been at work on sycamore wood fashioning the inner coffin after the form of a man, ornamenting it with a carved, human face with bronze eyelids and obsidian eyes, handsomely painted and variously inscribed within and without. Hands were not forgotten; clothes, food, anything the dead may need in his long journey were all provided for. In this elegant casket the mummy was laid, sealed and placed within the outer coffin; again blessed and sealed, and the departed worshipper of Osiris was ready to be carried to his everlasting home in the Theban hills, there laid to rest in a sarcophagus of stone. The expense of this treatment varied from $1000 to $1500, sometimes much greater. There were cheaper methods of embalming which I shall presently describe; but at the best, I do not see how Egyptians of the ordinary class could possibly afford to die. They, no doubt, lived longer than they otherwise would, prompted by a prudent economy to avoid the extravagance of burial as long as possible. The second method of embalming in vogue among the Egyptians was much less expensive, being about $300, and much less elaborate. No incisions were made for the removal of the entrails and chest organs; but the abdomen was filled with oil of cedar by injection through the fundament; having prevented the escape of oil the body was steeped in natron for the prescribed number of days. On the last day the oil was ejected which brought with it the intestines and vitals in a state of dissolution; the natron dissolved the softer flesh and nothing remained practically but the skin and bones. Later the body was returned to the relatives without further operation other than bandaging. The third and cheapest method employed, adopted usually by the poor, consisted in thoroughly rinsing the body in syringe, then steeping in natron for the usual period. Sometimes the body received little more than a rubbing with these substances, wrapped in a single piece of linen and returned to the friends. The bodies of the very poor were preserved by two very cheap modified methods of the above: (a), The first consisted of soaking the body in a solution of hot salt and bitumen. (b). The second in salt only. By the first method bitumen filled the cavities; the eye brows, hair and nails were destroyed. Such treatment explains the origin of the word “mummy” 2 which is derived from the Arabic, and means a “bitumenized thing,” or body preserved by bitumen. By the second or salted method, the skin had a very papery appearance; features were greatly changed, and the bones were white and Bricklayers' Translation, pp. 126-127. 2. Weidemann—Herodotus Zweites Buch; Leipsig, 1890, pp. 349, 358. Embalming and Embalming Fluids. Heat as a final impregnation of the body with bitumen; and recent investigation has supported this theory. Why the application of heat, and thereby the generation of creosote and its diffusion through the tissues, was not mentioned by the ancient authorities is not known; but evidently they wished the process to be kept a secret and thus enhance the dignity and mystery of the art. M. Rouyer, I find, also conceives that the bodies must have been put into stoves, or kept at a high temperature. He says: “Cette operation, dont aucun historien n’a parle, e'oit sans donte la principale et la plus importante de l’embaumement.” 4. The Egyptians and Hindoos also preserved their dead in honey, particularly infants and inferior animals. Budge informs us that the body of Alexander the Great was preserved in unmelted, white honey. Only the rich and well-to-do received a costly or even a decent burial after their embalmment. “The poor were laid in a hole or cave, or even in the sands of the open desert, to set out on their last journey.” Such disposition of the dead cost very little, indeed, probably not to exceed that of the average pauper funeral of the present day. Animals Embalmed. In addition to the human species that were embalmed, the practice extended to the most common of the mammals, reptiles, birds, and fishes which the Egyptians deified or regarded as sacred to the gods, and which they mummified with great reverence and care. These were: the bull, antelope, jackal, hippopotamus, cat, monkey, crocodile, Ichneumon, hedgehog, shrew, hawk, frog, toad, scorpion, beetle, snake, oxyrhynchus and Silurian fishes; or more than fifty species in all. Rawlinson states that the sacred bull fared even better than his associates in the list, being carefully embalmed and deposited together with costly jewels, statuettes and vases in polished granite sarcophagi, specially designed. The cost of an apis funeral amounted sometimes to as much as 20,000 pounds sterling; and the number of apis bulls buried in the galleries around Memphis was found to be sixty-four. Effect of Christianity. The art of mummifying met its death blow in the spiritual thought ushered in by Christianity; for the hope of the resurrection of the body as taught by Christ, practically killed the custom as early as the third century, though the practice was Not entirely given up until the seventh century; while the linen and silk industry connected therewith continued to meet with success until the twelfth century of our era. Mummification had prevailed through many dynasties with varying modifications, both as to the solutions and spices employed, and the mode and character of the wrappings. IIow far the custom extended beyond the historical period, that of King Mencs, 4400 B. C.; and whether it originated with the nations to the east or to the west of Egypt, authentic history is silent thereon. Maspero 2 informs us that the oldest mummy in the world is that of Seker-em-saf, son of Seti I., B. C. 3200, found at Sakkarah in 1881, but since removed to Gezeh. According to Manetho, thirty dynasties of kings and queens were thus prepared for burial. Man} r are the missing links in this chain of Egyptian histoiy, and it is doubtful if the Egyptologists will ever succeed in discovering all the intervening data so as to properly classify and make clear and complete this wonderful record of a most remarkable people. 4. Modern View of Embalming. But enough of the past with its blackened mummies, its disjointed history, and its mystified theology! Passing over the interim we come now to the full brightness of funeral science and medical skill in the dawn of the twentieth century, scanning the passing centuries for such information only as will make more clear the art of embalming as taught by Chaussier, Gannal, Boudet, Rcnouard, Clarke, Sullivan, Barnes, Perrigo, Hohenschuh, Parcelly and others. Embalming is not as difficult a feat as many suppose; the so-called “lost art” of the Egyptians is regarded as more of a American Encyclopaedia, Vol. XII, p. 38. 2 Maspero, Guide des Visiteur au Musee de Boulaq, 1883, p. 347. 16 Embalming and Embalming Fluids. delusion than a fact. The methods practiced today are far superior to those in vogue three thousand years ago. In all other phases of human life, a progress most wonderful and marvelous has kept pace with the centuries, why not in this one under consideration? In fact, the methods of embalming as taught and practiced in the present demand a higher order of intelligence, a more thorough knowledge of the anatomy of the body, a steadier judgment, and a more skillful hand than was at any time required of or presented by the ancients who relied largely upon atmospheric influences for the preservation of their dead. The mummies prepared under Egyptian skill were scarcely recognizable; while on the sands of Gobi, Arabian, Sahara and Great American deserts, bodies have been found in a perfect state of preservation, a score of years after death. Were modern embalmers so disposed, I have no doubt they could attain to the preservative excellence of their ancient brethren, indeed far surpass them, and prepare our dead for the judgment day; but embalming except for temporary convenience, as a rule, is not deemed desirable here or in Europe; and as it forms no part of the theological system of Christian nations, we have no ambition to rival them in mummification. However, the comparatively modern methods of embalming were not so very crude, and hence they are able to present abundant evidence for their support. The body of Charles I was easily recognized after one hundred and sixty-five years; King Edward I, buried in 1307, was found entire four hundred and sixty-three years later; Canute died in 1036, yet his body was in a fresh state of preservation seven hundred and forty years afterwards; and the bodies of William the Conqueror and his queen, Matilda, were intact in the sixteenth century after the lapse of more than five hundred years. And so, instead of long and costly funeral pageants, characteristic of the dwellers of the Nile, the erection of pyramids, the carving of magnificent sarcophagi within the cataombs of Thebes, at Rome, at Naples, Syracuse, Palermo, or at Athens, or in secret caverns in the mountain’s fastness, our modern sepulchral vanity manifests itself in choice epitaphs and sepulchral monuments, family vaults, or is more sensibly contented with the incinerated remains of the departed as preserved in the urn, instead of in desiccated forms and bitumenized disguises of death. Furthermore, the aesthetic character of all Christian nations and peoples would protest against the continuance of such extraordinary, if not barbarous practice, which made death more hideous to the vision, more reprehensible. ulsive to the sensibilities of a refined and devout soul, than it could possibly be made by the supreme superstition. II. EMBALMING IN SCIENCE. Science is classified knowledge, the result of careful observation and experiment founded on experience and interpreted by the mind. Science, therefore, is the intellectual apprehension of whatever is objective in nature, or in the sphere of mathematics, pure and applied; a searching after the essentials wherever there is a complexus of impressions, mathematical, physical or mental; to ascertain the cause of an effect that has a logical sequence of phenomena; and to group, classify and arrange wherever there is a multiplicity of details. In no business or profession are these principles more fully tested and require more skill in the application of them, if success be the end sought for, than in embalming; a cool head, a clear mind, a knowledge of what to do and how to do it are prime requisites to success. The essentials, therefore, that the novice should seek to acquire and of which the expert embalmer must be master are: 1. An anatomical knowledge of the organs composing the head and trunk regions of the body. 2. A knowledge of the physical effect of disease, poison and death on the tissues. 3. What treatment to apply externally and internally to successfully disinfect and mummify the body. 4. A reliable embalming fluid and cabinet. 5. A knowledge of disinfectants and their application. 6. A good library. These six essentials I now purpose to discuss at some length. Embalming and Embalming Fluids. 1. Divisions of the Human Body. The human body is divided naturally into four parts: (a) the head; (b) the trunk; (c) the upper extremities; (d) the lower extremities. The head consists of the skull with its various cavities and appendages. . 