A summation and suggestions for embalmers completes the article. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a disease of bizarre nature that almost every embalmer or funeral director has heard of but has virtually no idea concerning the facts and realities of the disease itself. There is a very small amount of information that has been available to the embalming profession concerning Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and unfortunately it is either incomplete, misleading or outright incorrect. There is more conjecture and rumor involved with this disease than almost any other disease and there is virtually no valid information available to help the embalmer. This has resulted in a definite uncertainty and even panic in most situations involving embalmers when they encounter this disease during the course of their professional career.
Nothing is more fearful than complete rack of information concerning a potentially deadly disease.
The strange and convoluted story begins with a curious dementia case reported by Dr. Creutzfeld in 1920 in Germany. The case involved a 22 year old woman with a curious neurodegenerative disease of insidious onset and short duration followed by death. In 1921, Dr. Jakob further elaborated on this type of unusual dementing disorder by describing 4 dementia cases, all of middle-aged patients with remarkably similar symptoms and all rapidly resulting in death. These cases and others were followed through the 1930's to 1950's and were left essentially as an enigma or causation by an unknown agent or agents. Interestingly, on a bizarre note, the original case by Dr. Creutzfeldt may not have actually been the famed Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease that bears his name.