The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-03-18
THE HISTORY OF EMBALMlNe.
An Art That Has Existed for Several Thou
sands of Years.

An Art That Has Existed for Several Thou
sands of Years.
The efforts of man to preserve the
dead bodies of his loved and honored
ones from destruction and decay dates
from very remote antiquity. The
practice probably originated in re-
ligious belief in future state. and re-
union of soul and body. The Egyptians
very early raised embalming to an art.
Their mummies, both of man and
beast, were preserved for centuries
to be utilized by Arab and Jewish
doctors in the middle ages as medi-
cine, by the fellahs as fuel and by
museums as curiosities- The Egyptians
were familiar with several methods OF
embalming, and the art underwent con-
siderable change in the course of ages.
The bodies of the poor were simply
sailed, but for the weather. classes
there were three methods in vogue, at
a cost ranging from a hundred and
twenty-five to three hundred and sew
enty-five and eleven hundred and twen-
ty-fve dollars. Herodotus devotes
three chapters of his second book to
description of the most costly method;
and modern scientists, especially Prof
Czermak, have labored to throw light
on it. The much-despised Paraschytes
opened the body artistically and re-
moved the internal organs, which, as at
the present day, were cleansed, treated
with odoriferous liquids, and preserved
in oanopus vases. The cephalic,
thoracic and abdominal cavities were
theoretically treated with costly spices;
the body was then laid in ''nitrum,
salt composed of sulphate and carbon
ate of soda from the lakes Of lower
Egypt, after which followed the
bandaging with small. fine linen band
ages, soaked in resin, which were
wound about every finger and toe and
limb separately, and finally around the
whole body, the face being protected
BY mask. The viscera of persons of
minor rank were not preserved, but dis
solved in "cedrium," a mixture of
methyl alcohol, vinegar and creosote or
carbolic acid.
The Egyptian method was followed
by the Guanches, the aboriginal in
habitants of the Canary islands, while
the Peruvian mumnies were, perhaps.
simply dried in the sun. In the Cavern
of the Dead at the IIospice of St Ber-
nard, we have a sample of preservation
by cold, dry air. The Romans occa-
sionally resorted to embalming, but the
story current in the days of Sixtus Nv.
that the perfectly fresh body of Tullia.
the daughter of Cicero, had been found
in the Via Appia is hardly credible. OF
the technical capacity of the mid
die age sin this department we can
say little, although the practice
was by no means uncommon; but the
treatment adopted in embalming Alex
ander VI. is known with precision.
! The method consisted essentially in the
employment of alum and oak bark and
In tight bandsging with cere-cloth. A
mixture was invented in France in the
time of Louis XIV, which was in use
down to quite recent times. 1t consist
ed of fifty-four ingredients, after the
application of which the whole body
was covered with coating composed
of copaiba, Peruvian balsam, styrax
and turpentine. The body of Charles
| MI. of Sweden was thus prepared, and
on opening it in 1S59-i,e., one hundred
and forty-one years after his death
the body was found, on investigation,
to be in a thorough state of preserva'
ton. In the course of investigation il
was ascertajned that the ball which laid
him low in the trenches at Frederick
shall was not fired by suicidal hand,
! but was from weapon of the enemy
With the beginning of the present
century corrosive sublimate was the
substance most in use, until Gannal in
1887 invented a method of embalmine
by injecting n mixture of sulphate OF
alumina and arsenious acid, in aqueous
solution, into the venous system, fol
lowed by the usual bandaging and var
nishing. On groun DIS of medical juris
prudence the employment of arsenic
was soon forbidden, and tn antiseptics
sublimate and chi bride of zinc were
employed in it's place. The French
man Suiquet was mainly instrument
tai in introducing the last-named
substance. Germany can also boast
its achievements in this field. Wick
| ersheimer, the con,iervator of the an
/ atomical museum at Berlin, injects q
solution whose co IMPOSITION is still {
secret, but which p romises N suppressed
| all others The dy of Keser William
/. was embalme under his directions
and so was also that of his great fielC
marshal, Won !Holtke. But even thi
latest achievement of science can no
hinder the shrin king of the corpse. l
is no triumph of science over death
The wasted mu mmy breaches with con
vincing logic that all that is mortal i
observation-disclosures Paper.