Daily Yellowstone journal., 1888-09-27
COMPRESSED HUMANITY.
Running a Man Through = Hydraulic
Press-Cheaper Than Cremation

Running a Man Through a hydraulic
Press-Cheaper Than Cremation
Material, a dead body. Process, COM
preston. Result. a paper weight.
This is the programme mapped out by
an inventive genius in Pittsburg. He Is
a doctor by trade, and therefore can
speak with authority Of the destiny Of
his patients. His name is Cooper. II
his idea ''goes," he will make a barrel
Of it. His apparatus is a combina-
ton of steel presses and hot rollers-a
sort of rolling mill on a small scale.
There is little sentimentality about the
operation, but it is effectual.
A human body is put in at one end and
taken out at the other in the shape of a
paper weight. In other words, the
enormous pressure excludes all moisture
from the body and congresses it 10 q
fraction Of its original bulk. The BODY
of a full grown man can thus be reduced
to a cube of one foot as hard and Isl
perishable as marble. DR.. Cooper asks
nobody To take his word far all this. In
this respect heis like the lv' "ncl
a hen which he said laid I" .. dty.
''If you don't believe it," sail i", 'l,"re's
the hen" When DR.. Cooper runs across
a skeptic he takes him by the arm, leads
him into his study, and b~camingly points
m his q '.r',' 80 what appears to DO
a cross the purc,t marble.
''Thvru. rs, lis the remains
of a child c Ty process into a
handsomeG ,Uent. Taste
it-you viii Smell of il
YOU see - ~ It with a
knife-it is han 10 ,'. And, whats
more, | can turn Just as neat a iob
every time
Chicago people who ought to have in.
telligent ideas on the subject are puzzled,
and hardly any two think alike. The re-
porter first asked the doctors about it,
One said fatty that it couldn't be done,
that compress the human body as much
as you pleased it would still be animal
matter, and therefore perishable, and q
second pronounced it u hoax. A third
did not doubt the possibility of the reduc-
ton of bulk by pressure, but insisted that
a chemical change would be necessary
before anything like the result claimed
could be obtained.
The chemists were divided in opinion.
Nothing" said one, sis impossible
nowadays, especially in the way OF
hydraulic compression. | saw a brief
dispatch on the subject this morning, and
| saw at once that the idea was practica.
BILE. BY employing sufficient pressure
and there is no limit to it-all moisture
cay be eliminated from the residuum and
the particles so closely cemented as TO b
air and moisture proof, and Therefore
practically i~ndeStructible. No chemical
change is necessary"
Other chemists made light Of it, and
pronounced it nonsense Of the rankest
kind.
One Of the oldest undertakes in tn,
city took in the situation at a glance.
"Practicable'' said he: ''of course,
and easy and simple besides. There is {
great deal of solid matter in the human
body. Take the blood, for instance. II
a body weighing $50 pounds one-thir
tenth of the weight is blood and 90 PEI
cent. of tho lood is solid matter; tli
gives you nj out two and one-thir,
pounds 10 start with. The muscle
weigh seyenty-seven pounds and quite
proportion is solid matter. The skeleton
weighs tw~enty-one pounds and eigh
ounces, and here the roportion Of soil,
matter is large. { esSion will reduc,
everything to So after, which woul,
be indestructil d, ,buut the necessity o
any chemical claI a.. In embalming tn
principal thing ve to contend witt
is the liquids Of the body. Exclude
these thoroughly and the remainder vii
last indefinitely, just as a mummy does
l don't know how much the residuun
would resemble marble. but by the in
PRODUCTION Of coloring matter any desire,
effect could be produced just as easy a
amy shape. Cheaper than crcmatioDG
should hope so. 1t takes three hours {
cremate n body; they use 81 worth O
gas, and charge $50. If we put s. int
a casket and charged $50 people woul
say we were robbers. Chicago Tribune