EMBALMING is the opening of a dead body, taking out the intestines, and filling the space with odoriferous and desiccative drugs and spices, in order to prevent putrefaction and decomposition.- The Egyptians excelled all other nations in the art of preserving bodies from corruption; for some that were embalmed several thousand years ago remain whole to this day, and are often brought as curiosities into other countries. Their manner of embalming was this: They scooped the brain with an iron scoop out at the nostrils, and threw in medicaments to fill up the vacuum; they also took out the entrails, and having filled the body with myrrh, cassia, and other spices (except frankincense), proper to dry up the humours, they pickled it in nitre, where it lay soaking for seventy days. The body was then wrapped up in bandages of fine linen and gums, to make it stick like glue; and so was delivered to the kindred of the deceased, entire in all its features, the very hairs of the eyelids being preserved. They used to keep the bodies of their ancestors, thus embalmed, in apartments magnificently adorned, and took great pleasure in beholding them, alive as it were, without any change in their size, features, or complexion. The Egyptians also embalmed birds and other animals. The prices for embalming were different; the highest was a talent, the next twenty minae, and so on, decreasing to a very small matter. But they who had not wherewithal to answer this expense contented themselves with infusing, by means of a syringe, through the fundament, a certain liquor extracted from the cedar; and, leaving it there, wrapped up the body in salt of nitre. The oil thus infused preyed upon the intestines, so that when they took it out, the intestines came away with it, dried, and not in the least putrefied; and the body being inclosed in nitre, grew dry, nothing remaining besides the skin glued upon the bones. The process of embalming is described both by Herodotus and Diodorus. The former, who is unquestionably the better authority, says (book ii. sect. 85), “This service is performed by persons appointed to exercise the art as their business. When a dead body is brought to them, they show their patterns of mummies in wood, imitated by sculpture; and the most elaborate of these they say belongs to the character of one (Osiris), whose name I do not think it pious to mention on such an occasion; the second that they show is less costly; the third, the cheapest of all: and having shown these, they inquire in which way the service shall be performed; upon which the parties make their agreement, and the body is left for preparation. The interior soft parts being removed both from the head and from the trunk, the cavities are washed with palm wine and fragrant gums, and partly filled up with myrrh and cassia, and other spices; the whole is then steeped in a solution of soda for seventy days, which is the longest time permitted; and then, having been washed, the body is rolled up with bandages of cotton cloth, being first smeared with gum instead of glue. The relations then, receiving the body, procure a wooden case for it in a human shape, and inclose the dead body in it; and when thus inclosed, they treasure it up in an appropriate building or apartment, placing it upright against the wall. And this is the most expensive mode of preparation. For those who prefer the middle class, in order to avoid expense, the process is simplified by omitting the actual removal of the interior parts, and introducing a corrosive liquid to melt them down; the soda consumes the flesh, so that skin and bone only are left when the body is returned to the friends. The third and simplest process is merely to cleanse the body well, within and without, by means of some vegetable decoctions, and to keep it in the alkaline solution for the seventy days, without farther precautions.” Embalming appears also to have been performed by filling the cavities of the thorax and abdomen, after the intestines were removed, with a species of pitch which was poured into the trunk of the body in a liquid state, through an aperture made on purpose in the right side, whilst the head was treated in a similar manner. See the article Mummy.