Embalmers Anatomical Aid
date: label: Date made
content: About 1900
name: label: Associated Name
content: Schenk, Floyd
label: maker
content: Western Publishing House
notes: label: Description
content: The Embalmers Anatomical Aid published by the Western Publishing Company is a portfolio of chromolithographs of the human form including the anatomical systems of the head, eye, ear, torso, muscles, skeleton, circulation, and the male and female genital organs. Each system is multilayered showing the interior structures. In addition to illustrating male and female human anatomy, the Embalmers Anatomical Aid designates where the embalming fluid should be injected into a corpse. Chiefly a medical technique, the art of preserving the body is thousands of years old, and one of the oldest surgical procedures. Its purpose, particuarly in time of war, was to preserve the decaying body so the deceased could make the jorney home to his family for burial. The discovery in the mid-nineteenth century of formaldehyde to preserve anatomical specimens as teaching tools came at an opportune time. Formaldehyde enabled army medical personnel to rapidly embalm soldiers who died during the Civil War and ship their body's home for burial in unprecedented numbers. Embalming was also encouraged as a sanitary precaution against contaminating a community's water supply and to discourage the spread of disease by ridding the body of germs. The Embalmers Anatomical Aid was part of the estate of the late Floyd Schenk, a mortician and the proprieter of the Schenk Funeral Chapel in Yankton, South Dakota. Floyd Schenk's father, A.G. Schenk purchased the funeral home in 1920. It remained in the family until Floyd Schenk sold the business in 1977.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Illinois, Chicago
topic: label: Subject
content: Death
label: depicted
content: Medicine
label: Subject
content: Mourning
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Paula J. Johnson
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2006.0224.01
label: accession number
content: 2006.0224
label: catalog number
content: 2006.0224.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Embalmers Anatomical Aid
label: Object Name
content: anatomical model, embalming
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 1/2 in x 15 1/4 in x 11 3/4 in; 1.27 cm x 38.735 cm x 29.845 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 30 cm x 38.6 cm x 2 cm; 11 13/16 in x 15 3/16 in x 13/16 in