Des Arc weekly citizen., 1868-06-13
The Preservation of the Dead.

The Preservation of the Dead. l A number of physicians, surgeons and medical students gathered yester- day afternoon in the lecture room of the Bellevue Hospital Medical College to witness the results of new and what bids fair to prove wonderful discovery in the way of process for preserving the human body after death. Two subjects were on exhibition en- balmed by this process, in which death had occurred respectively on the l7th of February and the 30th of April last, both of which manifested to the casual spectator no sign, by either sight, touch or smell, of the long period which had elapsed since death.
 Professor Doremus, under whose supervision an experimental autopsy of one of the bodies was made, in order to show that the preservation was not confined to the surface, but extended to the viscera, the muscles and every portion of the internal sys- tenn, opened the exhibition with few prefactory remarks, reciting the imper- feet and unsatisfactory processes which had been in vogue for preserving the dead ever since the days of the Egyp- tians.
 Dr Janeway then dissected the body, which had been lying thirty days since death, kept in the laboratory un- der lock and key. To the scalpel it presented the flaccid condition usual immediately after dissolution, and the sight and touch were perfectly normal As the knife proceeded with the disembowelment of the subject and the viscera were brought to sight and removed no odor was perceptible save the strong, fleshy smell which is inseparable from the freshest corpse when the internal portion is opened to the air. Pieces of the liver and kid- neys were cut out and passed around among the spectators that a more minute test might be given of the pro- cess. Dr. Doremus explained that the fluid with which the preservation had been effected had not been introduced through the veins or by cutting the flesh, which was greatly objected to by the friends of the dead. but by simply forcing it into the mouth and other natural apertures of the body, whence it subsequently, permeated all the tissues, preserving them in the wonder ful mannerjust revealed by the autopsy. Professor Hamilton succeeded Dr. Doremus, and testified that he had ex- amined the subject under examination, and could not distinguish it from one recently dead. Professor Flint, in some more extended remarks regarding an analysis which he had made of the muscles, liver, kidneys, and lungs of a subject treated by the process, gave the result of his observations. The func- tions referred to were all in normal state, so far as the eye was concerned, but had undergone some slight struc- tural changes as to their atomic forma- ton, which, however, were favorable to the preservation of the tissue.
 The spectators seemed perfectly satisfied with the result of the experi- ment an6 autopsy. The body, which had been preserved one hundred and seven days and retained its natural ness, was the object of particular inter est.
 Curiously enough the progress of the age was exhibited in the presence of several ladies, who, from the deep interest which they manifested in the proceedings, were evidently prospec- tive female "sawb bones" Gas Sam Weller would have called them) of the "strong minded persuasion.'-[New York Herald, May 3l.
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