History of Embalming

J.-N. Gannal

History of Embalming / and of Preparations in Anatomy, Pathology, and Natural Hiistory

NOTE OF THE TRANSLATOR

It will be reasonably anticipated from the title of the present volume, that it embraces subjects of equal interest to the general and professional reader, as well as indispensable material for the researches of the practical anatomist and student of natural history.

The latter class will find in it all the requisite details for a successful prosecution of its arduous, intricate, but favorite pursuits; whilst those of its patrons of the former class, cannot fail to be interested in the various and important facts and discussions embraced in a general history of embalming from the earliest ages to the present period, so inseparably connected with the moral and physical history of our own species.

An additional subject of interest to all classes will be acknowledged in the facts and observations elicited by the arduous and industrious researches of the author, whilst investigating the new process of embalming, which has led to such happy results to the students of anatomy and natural history. The great importance, in all respects, of M. Gannal’s discovery, has been fully and adequately acknowledged by the different commissions appointed by the Institute of France, and the Royal Academy of Medicine, who have awarded to its author both honour and profit, as a real benefactor to science, to the progress of which he has so substantially added. The current of the text, together with the notes and illustrations of the translator, embraces all the discoveries of the age, of this nature, of value to the practical anatomist and naturalist, consisting both of original observations, and of highly important information contained in the standard works of De Bils, Ruysch, Swammerdam, Clauderus, De Rasière, Dumèril, Hunter, Breschet, Pole, Margolin, Bell, Cloquet, Swan, Parsons, Horner, &c.

Concerning the nature, extent, and merits of the new discovery of M. Gannal, the translator, has spoken in the appendix, from a personal acquaintance with the author and a minute examination of the collection of embalmed objects contained in his cabinet at Paris.

Philadelphia, September, 1840.

To Messrs. Members of the Academy of Sciences

Gentlemen, – From the commencement of my researches upon the preservation of animal matters, you have encouraged me by extending your support to efforts which my own resources would not perhaps have enabled me to continue; in this path strewn with so many difficulties, and disgusts, I have endeavoured to show myself worthy of your high protection.

At a later period, when I was able to offer to physicians and naturalists methods of preservation superior to those previously known, you conferred upon me the prize founded by Monthyon. I have pursued my researches with the view of adapting my process to the art of embalming; the happy results which I have obtained have inspired me with the idea of comparing my mummies with those obtained by processes different from my own.

Finally, I have extended this parallel between my processes and those formerly applied, to preparations of healthy anatomy, to pathological anatomy, and to natural history.

My labour terminated, I have thought it my duty to dedicate to you a work the publication of which is due to the decision which your wisdom and justice have dictated.

Allow me, gentlemen, to consider this dedication as a new encouragement which you are willing to confer upon me, and trust in the respectful sentiments with which I have the honour to be, your very humble and very grateful servant,

Gannal.

PREFACE

I had terminated my first researches upon the preservation of animal matters, and proposed to publish them; my notes were collated and my work prepared, when the idea struck me that in place of confining myself to the exposition of the results which I had obtained, I might, with advantage to science, present a history of the art of embalming from the highest antiquity to our time, and compare my processes, with those in use for the preservation of objects of normal anatomy, pathological anatomy, and natural history.

This determination has decided me to publish a volume, in place of a pamphlet of fifty pages.

I had no model to follow, for no author had re-united in the same book, the elements of which I wished this might be composed. I found myself, therefore, necessitated to collect together in the following pages the materials scattered throughout numerous works.

For embalming, Plutarch, Herodotus, Diodorus Sicculus, Stacy, Pliny, Cicero, Porphyrus, Prosper Alpin, Cassien, Clauderus, Penicher, Baricel, Rodiginus, Corippus, Gryphius, Crollius, the Reverend Fathers Kircher and Ménestrier, De Maillet, Volney, Rouelle, the Count de Caylus, MM. Pariset, Rouyer, Bory de Saint Vincent, and numerous other authors, have furnished me with descriptions and materials, which I was obliged to put in order and bring before the eye of the reader, in order to present to him a useful lecture, and in some sort preparatory to my own ideas. As my point of departure was scientific data, opinions and facts have come in place as the recital needed them; and thanks to this idea, which has never abandoned me, the numerous materials from which, in the commencement, I feared disorder and confusion, have come, as if by consent to dispose themselves in order; so great is the influence of a general idea in the arrangement of facts. I believe that I have reduced to exact proportions the art of embalming among different nations. My predecessors had referred too little to nature, too much to man, in the appreciation of Egyptian embalming; they had not sufficiently estimated the difficulties of the same practice among nations less favoured by climate. Facts reconsidered and interrogated with the aid of lights afforded by the recent progress of physics and chemistry, have furnished us with consequences naturally resulting from their attentive examination.

When the history of an art is followed step by step, as we have done for that of embalming, one is astonished at a psychological fact, equally applicable to every case – we see how idle and common place the human mind is, and how little prone it is to spontaneous activity. The gross and inconsiderate imitation of the Egyptian processes during a long series of ages, is one of the most remarkable examples of this disposition.

Trials directed by a spirit of analysis and critical examination have enabled me to substitute for complex operations, for long difficult and expensive operations, most frequently inefficacious, a simple means, of a determined action, and submitted for several years to the examination of committees appointed by the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Medicine.

In order to trace the history of the preservation of objects of anatomy and natural history I have had no occasion to go back to an epoch distant from our own; for this science is altogether new. Beyond the discoveries of Chaussier, on the preservative properties of the deuto-chloride of mercury, the labours of MM. Dumèril, Cloquet and Breschet, there is very little existing on this subject. So that I have concluded, after a complete exposition of the preservative means given by these authors, it only remained for me to propose the preservative substances which, after numerous experiments, have appeared to me preferable to those which they have recommended. They possess a peculiar merit for the formation of cabinets of natural history, that of reducing the expense to at least one-nineteenth.

I have considered it my duty to give here the details of the composition of the liquids employed, either as baths or injections, by the physician and naturalist; the interest of science imposing on me this obligation. But, as regards embalming, the same motive does not exist; I have consequently abstained from giving in totality the means employed in this operation, reserving to myself the care of this process on the request of families or physicians.1

It was not until after many unsuccessful efforts that I succeeded in discovering a method capable of insuring the indefinite preservation of bodies deposited in the earth. A thousand unexpected difficulties arose in my path; and to cite only one, at the end of eight or nine months of preservation, a vegetable production, known to botanists under the name of byssus, for a long time embarrassed me; I tried numerous means, before discovering one capable of suppressing this formation.

The perfection to which I have brought the art of embalming, leaves little to desire. So convinced am I at length of the efficacy of the processes which I employ, that I shall be always ready, at the request of the authorities or of families, to exhume those bodies which I have already embalmed in great numbers, at any expressed period of time.

INTRODUCTION

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 mummy2 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:

“Thura sabæa cremant, fragrantia mille

Infundunt pateris, et odoro balsama succo, locatis

Centum aliæ species; unguentaque mira feruntur

Tempus in æternum sacrum servantia corpus.”3

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

“Tarquinii corpus bona femina lavit et unxit.”4

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.