Daily Yellowstone journal., 1888-10-24
COMPRESSED HUMANITY.
Running a Man Through a Hydraulic
P~ress-Cheaper Than Cremation

Press-Cheaper Than Cremation
Material, a dead body. Process, com-
preston. Result, a paper weight.
This is the programme mapped out by
AZ. inventive genius in Pittsburg. He IL
a doctor by trade, and therefore can
speak with authority of the destiny Of
his patients. His name is COoper. II
his idea goes, y he will make q barrel
out Of il. His apparatus is a combina-
con 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 end and
taken out nj the other in the shape OF a
paper weight. In other words, the
enormous pressure excludes al moisture
from the body and COMPRISES 1t 10 a
fraction Of its original bulk. The body
Of a full grown man can thus he reduced
10 a cube Of one foot rs hard and i'm.
perlshab!e as marble. DR., Cooper asks
/ nobody a. take his word for all this. In
this respect hcis Ike the man who owned
a hen which he said laid two eggs a day.
AT you don't believe it, said I've, there's
the hem When DIR. Cooper runs across
a .keptic he takes him by the arm, leads
him into his study, and beamingly points
% his center table TO what appears to be
a cross fashioned Of the purest marble.
''There, =" he exclaims, sis the remains
Of a child converted by my process into a
handsome and valuable ornament. Taste
You will find il tasteless, Smell OF It
YOU see it is odorless. Try It with n
mife-it is hard as marble. And, what's
more, | can turn out Just as neat a job
every time"
Chicago people who ought TO have in
~tellicent 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 Etill be ANNA.
matter, and therefore ~perisbable, and a
second pronounced it a hoax. 4 third
did not doubt the possibility Of the reduc-
ton of bulk by pressure, hut 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, ''is impossible
nowadays, especially in the way OF
hydraulic compression. saw a brief
dispatch on the subject tbs morning. and
[ saw at once that the IDEA was practica,
BILE. BY employing SUFFICIENT pressure
end there is Io limit tn tall moisture
say be eliminated from the residuum and
the particles so closely cemented as to be
air and moisture proof, and therefore
practically indesuucrlble. No chemical
change is necessary"
Other chemists made light Of il, ana
pronounced ii norsense Of the rankest
kind.
One Of the Oldest undertakers in the
city took in the situation at a glance.
''Practicablei' said he; ''of course,
and easy and simple besides. There is a
great deal of solid matter in the human
body. Take the blood, for instance. In
a body weighing $50 pounds one-thir.
.eenth of the weight is blood and 20 per
cent. of the blood IL solid matter; thi.
gives you about two and one-thirS
pounds TO start with. The musc.es
weigh s~eventy-seven pounds and quite a
proportion is solid matter. The skeleton
weighs twenty-ons pounds and eight
ounces, and here the proportion Of solid
matter is large. Compression will reduce
everything to solid matter, which would
be indestructible, without the necessity Of
any chemical change. In embalming the
principal thing we have to contend with
Is the liquids II the body. Exclude
these thoroughly and the remainder will
last indefinitely, Just as a mummy does,
/ don't know how much the residuum
would resemble marble, but by the in
PRODUCTION of coliring matter any desired
effect could be produced just as easy as
any shape. Cheaper than cremation?
should hope so. Ii takes three hours to
cremate a bod; they use 81 worth OF
gas, and charge $50. II we put 81 into
aeasket and charged $50 people would
say we were robbers. Chicago Tribune.