Evening star., 1938-10-09
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

A human brain and the head Of
monkey preserved by new system of
wax infiltration of the tissues, which
far exceeds anything achieved by the
embalmers of ancient Egypt, will be
shown at the Army Medical Museum
to the American Academy of Opthal-
mology and Otolaryngology, opening
its annual convention here tomorrow
With this method, as improved by
Frank Kramer of the museum staff,
the basic material of which is the
kind of wax used in lipsticks, it will
be possible to preserve any geological
specimen in the open at room tenn
peratures indefinitely, with an abso-
lutely lifelike appearance.
In the same way. with larger scale
appara tus, it will be practical to pre-
serve the human body for centuries,
looking exactly as it did in life. A
cruder form of the method is believed
to have been used in preserving the
body Of Lenin in the Soviet Pantheon
in Moscow, but the job was done when
the technique was crude. and the
mummy already is reported to be
disintegrating after less than Is years
Process Requires Month.
Already he has been able to preserve
in this way the bodies of infants
needed as pathological specimens, Mr..
Kramer revealed There is no time
limit on the endurance of the bodies
since all the elements of disintegra-
ton have been taken out of them and
replaced by something else which will
resist all but exceptionally high tenn
peratures.
The entire process requires about q
month. First the specimen is placed
in formaldehyde for a few days to
harden the tissues. Then it is i'm
mersed for about two weeks in alcohol.
BY familiar chemical process the
alcohol draws all the water out of the
tissues, even from the cells The alco-
hol itself takes the place of the water.
Then the specimen is placed in a
hot solution of the lipstick wax and
water, the peculiar property of this
wax being its miXability in water. The
alcohol is drawn out by the heat and
the wax takes its place, so that each
Of the billions of body cells is encased
in film of wax
While embalming for eternity is not
considered one of the objectives of the
method, because of the time required
and the lack of religious motive such
as inspired the embalmers of ancient
Egypt, the method is expected to prove
of far-reaching significance in other
lines,
Medical schools will be able to pre-
serve Indefinitely for dissection bv
classes any separate organs or even
whole bodies of humans and animals.
Alcohol Method Expensive.
Many millions of geological speci-
mems now are preserved in alcohol in
museums all over the world. They
must be kept in jars and removed from
the alcohol for study, the LIQUID is con-
stantly evaporating so that the serv-
ices of attendants are required, and
there are inevitable changes In color.
Besides, the alcohol preservation
method in the long run is considerably
more expensive than wax infiltra ton.
The method may replace other ,sys-
TENS of taxidermy, both because of its
cheapness and the lifelike appearance
which is produced. While the miscible
wax system has been developed step
by step in museums all over the world,
the latest developments are the works
of Mr.. Kramer.
The human brain specimen to be
exhibited to the eye, ear and throat
specialists tomorrow preserves a per-
fection of detail hitherto possible to
achieve only in plaster cast. 1t is
difficult to believe, in fact, that it is