The Egyptians embalmed their dead, and the processes which they employed were sufficiently perfect to secure them an indefinite preservation. This is a fact of which the pyramids, the caverns, and all the sepultures of Egypt offer us irrefragible proofs. But what were the causes and the origin of this custom? We have in answer to this question only hypothesis and conjecture. In the absence of valid documents, each one explains according to the bias of his mind, or the nature of his studies, a usage, the origin of which is lost in the night of time. One of the ancients informs us that the Egyptians took so much pains for the preservation of the body, believing that the soul inhabited it so long as it subsisted. Cassien, on the other hand, assures us that they invented this method because they were unable to bury their dead during the period of inundation. Herodotus, in his third book, observes, that embalming had for its object the securing of bodies from the voracity of animals; they did not bury them, says he, for fear they would be eaten by worms, and they did not burn them, because they considered fire like a wild beast that devours everything it can seize upon. Filial piety and respect for the dead, according to Diodorus Sicculus, were the sentiments which inspired the Egyptians with the idea of embalming the dead bodies. De Maillet, in his tenth letter upon Egypt, refers only to a religious motive the origin of embalming: “The priests and sages of Egypt taught their fellow citizens that, after a certain number of ages, which they made to amount to thirty or forty thousand years, and at which they fixed the epoch of the great revolution when the earth would return to the point at which it commenced its existence, their souls would return to the same bodies which they formerly inhabited. But, in order to arrive, after death, to this wished for resurrection, two things were absolutely necessary; first, that the bodies should be absolutely carefully preserved from corruption, in order that the souls might re-inhabit them; secondly, that the penance submitted to during this long period of years, that the numerous sacrifices founded by the dead, or those offered to their manes by their relations or their friends, should expiate the crimes they had committed during the time of their first habitation on earth. With these conditions exactly observed, these souls, separated from their bodies, should be permitted to re-enter at the arrival of this grand revolution which they anticipated—remember all that had passed during their first sojourn, and become immortal like themselves. They had further the privilege of communicating this same happiness to the animals which they had cherished, provided that their bodies inclosed in the same tomb with themselves, were equally well preserved. It is in virtue of this belief that so many birds, cats, and other animals are found embalmed with almost the same care as the human bodies with which they have been deposited. Such was the idea of perfect happiness which they hoped to enjoy in this new life. In expectation of this resurrection, the souls inhabited the airs nearest the dwellings where reposed the bodies they had animated. But superstition alone, it could scarcely be believed, would induce men to save from destruction the mortal spoils of individuals whom they had loved whilst living. I much prefer looking for the source of this usage in the sentiment which survives a cherished object snatched from affection by the hand of death. Since death levels all distinctions—respecting neither love nor friendship,—since the dearest and most sacred ties are relentlessly broken asunder, it is the natural attribute of affection, to seek to avoid in some degree, a painful separation, by preserving the remains of those they love and by whom they were beloved. Love, tenderness, and friendship, do not terminate with the objects which gave them birth—they survive and follow them even beyond the tomb.”—(Bory de Saint Vincent, Essay on the Fortunate Islands.—Embalming of the Guanches.) The same author adds: “The custom of preserving their dead, which was only national among the Egyptians and Guanches, that is to say, with men the least instructed, and a nation the most learned, is, as we have said above, proof of a profound sensibility among nations with whom it is general. Without doubt, an enlightened policy would contribute much to introduce, extend, and confirm the practice. It proves an intelligent government, one full of solicitude for the happiness of its subjects.”

The opinion of Volney, revived and adopted by Pariset, in his memoir on the causes of the plague, is closely allied to the preceding. “In a numerous population, under a burning climate, and a soil profoundly drenched during many months of the year, the rapid putrefaction of bodies is a leaven for plague and disease. Stricken by these murderous pests, Egypt, at an early day, struggled to obviate them; hence have arisen, on the one hand, the custom of burying their dead at a distance from their habitations; and on the other, an art so ingenious and simple, to prevent putrefaction by embalming: a secondary precaution, more important and more efficacious, with which the primary could not dispense, and which, exacting attempts, trials, and experiments, could only be obtained as a last result—an art by no means expensive, of a simplicity and facility of execution, which rendered its immediate application popular, general, and, perhaps, uniform for all dead bodies. Research and luxury followed at a later period.” The sentiments to which the authors above cited attribute the origin of embalming among the Egyptians exist in every man, viewed either as a social or isolated being. One individual may be induced to embalm the bodies of his relatives or friends by motives of superstition; another from egotism or personal interest; a third from motives of salubrity or common interest; another, in fine, is impelled by an instinctive affection to perform the sacred duty of preserving the remains of those who were dear to him. But none of these motives possess a character of generality and perpetuity, which consecrates a usage and renders it popular; it was therefore left to government to interfere and give it the force of law.

The noble sentiments of affection, of respect, and of veneration, had then, without doubt, the priority; and everything proves to us that these inspired the admirable art of embalming, and that they were above all invoked by legislators.

Nature, besides, upon this torrid soil, gave the first idea of this mode of preserving the remains of men and animals: the mummy1 of the sands, a natural phenomenon, was a revelation to a people so wise and industrious. The course of our work will demonstrate, we hope, the simple connection of these facts; it had already arrested M. le Comte de Caylus, who, in a memoir read to the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, in 1749, thus expresses himself: “The Egyptians, according to appearances, owe the idea of their mummies, to the dead bodies which they found buried in the burning sands which prevail in some parts of Egypt, and which, carried away by the winds, bury travellers and preserve their bodies, by consuming the fat and flesh without altering the skin.”

The same opinion is advanced by Rouelle. In our general history of the preservation of the human body, the mummy of the sand, and those induced by other local circumstances, will have the first place; and the art of embalming among the Egyptians and the Guanches will occupy the second. This art, we have already said, presents among these people, a general character, which does not appear in any other country. No where, indeed, are the processes of preservation so efficacious, and these two nations alone, have been able to endow their mummies with the power of resisting destruction.

We shall see in the sequel this custom establish itself among the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans and moderns—but it no longer displays a general character; it is no longer a law, a social institution; religious belief, superstition, personal interest, salubrity, no longer obliged them to recur to it. Sentiments of veneration, respect, and attachment, to which we have given the priority to all others, sufficed to perpetuate this custom, and have preserved it for a long series of ages, from the epoch of the Jews, down to our day.

Joseph commanded the physicians in his service to embalm the body of his father, which they executed according to order, in the space of forty days.—(Genesis.)

Saint John informs us, that Nicodemus took a hundred pounds of a mixture of myrrh and aloes, with which to embalm the body of Jesus Christ, which they enveloped in sheets with aromatics, according to the usual mode of burying the dead among the Jews.

Testimony of a similar nature, transmitted to us by historians, show us this usage in vigor among the Persians, the Arabians, the Ethiopians, &c.: for kings, princes, and persons of distinction, to whom they would not consider that they had rendered the respect due to their memories if they had failed to preserve preciously what remained of them.

Corippus, in his funeral oration on the Emperor Justinien, thus expresses himself on the embalming of this emperor:

The Romans, nevertheless, often contented themselves, in washing and rubbing the body with certain perfumes.

The Egyptian mummies, which are distinguished from those of other nations by the admirable state of preservation in which we find them at the present time, have been for the philosopher a subject of interesting study and research,—for the ignorant, a cause of astonishment and superstitious fear; for physicians, an empyrical remedy for a long time in vogue. The history of Razevil, the Pole, proves the evil influence attributed to mummies. He had purchased at Alexandria, two Egyptian mummies, one of a man, the other of a woman, in order to take them to Europe; he divided them into six pieces, which he separately enclosed in as many boxes, made of the bark of dried trees, and in a seventh box he placed idols discovered with the two bodies. But, as the Turks forbid the sale and transport of these mummies, fearing lest Christians might compose some sorcery of them to the injury of their nation, the Polonaise concluded to bribe the Jew commissioned to examine the bales and merchandise. The plan succeeded, the Jew shipped all the cases as shells, to be transported to Europe. Previous to setting sail, I found, says he, a priest returning from Jerusalem, and who could not accomplish his voyage without the aid which I gave him on this occasion, in inviting him to take passage in our ship. One day, whilst this good man was occupied in counting his breviary, there arose a furious tempest, and he warned us, that besides the danger, he perceived two great obstacles to our voyage in two spectres, which continually haunted him: the tempest over, I taunted him as a visionary, because I never imagined that my mummies could have been the cause of it. But I was obliged in the sequel to change my opinion, when there happened another storm, more violent and dangerous than the first, and when the spectres again appeared to our priest whilst he was saying his prayers, under the figures of a man and woman dressed as my mummies were.

When the tempest was partially appeased, I privately threw overboard the seven boxes, which was not so adroitly executed, however, but that the captain got notice of it, when, with great delight, he promised us that we should have no more storms; which effectively happened, and the good priest was troubled with no more visions. I had a severe reprimand from the captain for having embarked these mummies in his vessel, against which the sea had so great antipathy. The theologians of the isle of Crete, where we anchored, justified my conduct, acknowledging that it was lawful to Christians to transport these mummies for the assistance of the infirm, and that the church did not forbid the usage.

The judgment of the theologians of the isle of Crete, proves that the employment of the mummy as a medicine was universally admitted. According to Dioscorides, it is heating and drying in the second degree—it relieves the headach, cures megraim, palsy, and epilepsy—wonderful in relieving vertigo and drowsiness—an antidote against poisons of all kinds—the bite of venomous beasts—useful, according to Rhasis, in the spitting of blood, rupture of blood-vessels, wounds, &c.;—in one word, no remedy was esteemed more efficacious for the human body, than the human body taken as a medicine. One dram of the oil of mummy of Paracelsus, rendered all poisons innocuous for twenty-four hours; the formulÆ of Crollius, of Fernel, of Clauderus, produced effects equally miraculous. The divine water of Scroder, was the touch-stone by whose aid the issue of a disorder could be known in advance: a dram of this liquor was mixed with nine drops of the blood of the patient, or with a double proportion of his urine; if these fluids did not mix, it was an infallible sign of approaching death; on the other hand, if they mixed readily, you might anticipate the health or cure of the patient in twenty-four hours. The great king, Francis 1st, wore around his neck a piece of mummy as a preservative against all evils. Powerless preservative!

I have designedly placed, after an example of superstition, facts which prove the stupidity, or charlatanism of the profession, it appearing to me instructive to preserve the progressive ascendency; the march from the little to the great, in ridicule, as in everything else, is absurd. The difficulty of obtaining mummies enough to satisfy the demand, gave rise to an abominable traffic, against which many physicians remonstrated. “The base avidity of gain increased daily, and they commenced embalming with salt and alum the bodies of those who had died of leprosy, of plague, or small pox, in order to obtain, in the course of a few months, the cadaverous rottenness which flowed from them, and to sell this for true and legitimate mummy; and even at the present time, they make no scruples to give the name of mummy to the dead bodies found in the Deserts of Arabia, and make patients take it internally.”—(Durenou.) The characters of a mummy of good quality, had, nevertheless, been well determined. “Those bodies are not mummies,” says Penicher, “dried by the sands of Lybia, nor those buried and preserved beneath the snow; nor those bodies submerged by the sea, thrown up and dried on the coast, even to the last degree of blackness; nor of criminals, hung and dried in the sun—for these are of no use.”—(Ant. Santorel.) The Pissasphaltum, which is the mummy of the Arabians and the ancients, according to Serapion and Avicenna, is not what we desire; because the odour is disagreeable, and it can possess no other virtue than a mixture of pitch and asphaltum. Neither is mummy a certain fluid which flows from the coffins of embalmed bodies, mentioned by Dioscorides and Mathioles, and which is only, properly speaking, a mixture of humours, mixed, soaked, and penetrated by aromatics, of which the embalming consists.

Andrew Gryphius teaches us, that a good mummy ought to be reddish, light, greasy, and with some odour, but as the embalming materials vary much, as well as their quality, the bodies being more or less well preserved, and it is even possible they may be poisonous, it has appeared expedient to compose a mummy methodically digested. Among the numerous formulÆ for officinal mummies, we shall content ourselves with citing here that of Crollius.

Mummy of Crollius. “Choose the body of a hanged person, preferring one with red hair, because in this sort of temperament the blood is thinner; the flesh impregnated with aromatics is better, being filled with sulphur and balsamic salt; it ought to be about twenty-four years of age, healthy, whole, and of good constitution; you will take pieces of the flesh of this corpse, they would be still better if taken from the body of a living man; notably, from the thighs, buttocks, &c.; strip them of their arteries, nerves, veins, and fat, and then wash them well with spirits of wine; then expose them to the sun and moon for two days, during mild and dry weather, to the end that the action of the rays of light of these two planets, particularly of the sun, may exalt and liberate the principles concentered in the flesh; powder it with myrrh, styrax, aloes, saffron, which constitute the basis of the elixir proprietatis of Paracelsus; having previously rubbed the flesh with true balm, macerate it for twelve or fifteen days in a well corked vessel with first quality spirits of wine and salt, which form of themselves a species of balm: at the end of this time withdraw the flesh, let it drain, and dry in the sun; let them again, for the same space of time, and in the same manner, macerate in a similar fluid, and expose it afterwards to the sun and fire, in the same manner they do hams; flesh thus prepared will be found to be an excellent mummy.”

Conceding that the use of the mummy in medicine is one of the strangest and most extravagant abuses of empyricism, the officinal mummy of Crollius must be considered as an improvement, inasmuch as it is divested of the dangers attached to other mummies; it was even a benefit, for this remedy divested of the marvellous, reduced to the level of a common drug, was justly appreciated and soon forgotten. The art of embalming among the Egyptians and Guanches, was carried to a degree of perfection attained by no other nation who followed their example. And, nevertheless, what are the mummies of these countries? They are, according to the definition of R.P. Kircher, bodies stuffed and filled with odoriferant, aromatic, and balsamic drugs, capable of arresting the progress of putrid decomposition. Numerous incisions enabled the preservative matter to enter the cavities and deep tissues: agreeably to the relations of Herodotus, of Diodorus Sicculus, and of Porphyrus, the cranium was emptied either through the nostrils, or by an opening made in one of the orbits: the contents of the thorax and abdomen were withdrawn and placed in a trunk. “The Egyptians,” says Plutarch, “drew the intestines from the dead bodies, and, after having exposed them to the sun, cast them away as the cause of all the sins committed by man.”

The moderns have adopted an analogous mode of preparation, and in our days, previous to my researches on the preservation of animal matters, the processes of embalming were long and complicated.

In the Dictionary of Medicine, of twenty-five volumes, (Paris, 1835,) M. Murat traces in these terms the rules for embalming:

“Before commencing this operation, it is necessary to procure the following objects: alcohol saturated with camphor, camphorated vinegar, a varnish composed of the balsams of Perou and copaiba, fluid styrax, the oils of Muscat, of lavender, and of thyme, &c., alcohol saturated with proto-chloride of mercury, a powder composed of tan, of decrepitated salt, of quinquina, of cascarilla, of mint, of benzoin, of castor, of Jew’s pitch, &c.—all these substances mixed and reduced to a fine powder, are sprinkled with essential oils. The powdered tan ought to form nearly half the weight, and the salt one-fourth; there ought also be placed, at the disposition of the embalmer, a certain number of bandages, linen, sponges, and waxed threads, also several basins filled with pure water, &c.

“The breast and belly must be opened by large incisions, and their contents extracted; the brain is removed after the necessary incisions of the scalp, and sawing circularly the bones of the cranium; deep and repeated incisions are to be made in the viscera. If we wish to preserve the intestinal tube, we must open it throughout its whole length, wash it well in water and compress it; wash it a second time in camphorated vinegar, and finally with camphorated alcohol. Large incisions must be multiplied on the interior surfaces of the great cavities, and along the extremities.”

I stop at these details, because they suffice to prove that the art of embalming, down to the present, has had for its object, not the preservation of the whole subject intact, but the preparation of animal matters padded, stuffed with aromatics and salts: a preparation always incomplete, tedious, and expensive. This is the point from which I start in the preservation of animal matter, and the art of embalming. Have I the happiness of adding a step to science? my readers shall be the judges.

The Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Academy of Medicine, have proved that, by one of my processes, subjects destined for dissection can be preserved. Bodies kept for several months, and afterwards carried to the amphitheatre, have been found as fresh and as fit for dissection, as individuals dead only two days.[B]

These early successes, and the honourable encouragements which they have received, gave me the idea of bringing the art of embalming to perfection; and I have attained to the power of preserving bodies, with all their parts, both internal and external, without any mutilation or extraction, and so as to admit of the contemplation of the person embalmed, with the countenance of one asleep.

This discovery has been confirmed by a commission of the Academy of Sciences, who, in its public sitting in the month of August, 1837, conferred upon me the grand prize.

Having decided to publish the result of my researches, I thought it best to precede it by a general history of embalming, and it appeared to me that a book which would reunite so many interesting documents up to the present time scattered throughout so many works, would not be without interest. If my readers join with me in this opinion, I shall not have laboured in vain, and my work shall have received that recompense of which I am most ambitious.

Nevertheless, I conceived that my endeavour should not be restricted to the simple exposition of my researches, and that it was a duty I owed, to place at the disposition of my fellow citizens the means of continuing some relations with the remains of persons whom they had held dear. The sentiments of love, friendship, respect, and veneration, which preserves in our hearts as a sacred depÔt, the memory of friends and relations, give, even to an indifferent portrait, which recalls their features to us, an inappreciable value. The heart warms and vivifies this faint image, and recalls to us the words and actions of those who have departed.

These same sentiments cause us painfully to experience the full rigour of that law of nature which condemns to the decomposition of the grave, remains so sacred to us. I have desired to offer to persons groaning under an afflicting loss, the means of preserving all that death has left them; with this intention I have founded an Embalming Society, and I have placed the price for this operation within the reach of the majority of persons. For men destitute of resources, who have rendered themselves worthy, by their talents or virtues, of the remembrance of their species, the public authorities may reclaim of us a gratuitous embalming. We shall be happy to preserve to society the mortal spoils of those who honour and are useful to it.

HISTORY OF EMBALMING.