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.
CHAPTER I.
OF EMBALMING IN GENERAL.
As soon as life ceases in animal matter, disorganization commences; the
constituent elements separate, to be variously recombined, and to give
birth to new compounds.
The elevation of atmospheric temperature in certain determined
hygrometric limits, and the action of oxygen, are those circumstances
which lead necessarily to this decomposition. But, at a given
temperature, the progress of putrid fermentation is not the same
for all animals; this varies among different species, and different
individuals of similar species, according to laws not well determined.
But so important, however, are these laws, to the art of embalming,
that processes which are sufficient for the preservation of one body,
may fail in their application to others.
The ancients had well observed, it is true, that the diversity of
climates contributed much to the difference in mummies, and to the
success of embalming; for, according to _Camerarius_, great difference
exists between the bodies of Europeans and Orientals; the latter, of
a dryer temperament, are not exposed to so rapid a decomposition. The
example related by _Ammian Marcellini_ is a convincing proof. Four
days, says he, after a combat between the Persians and Romans, the
countenance of the latter could scarcely be recognised; the bodies of
the Persians, on the contrary, were dry, without humidity, without
sanies, and without any alteration.
If sufficient attention is given to this fact, and we consider further,
that the thermometrical and hygrometrical conditions of the atmosphere
were such in Egypt, that the bodies abandoned to themselves, become
dried and formed natural mummies, we shall perceive how vain and
unreasonable have been the attempts of those who, for a long series of
ages, expected in the middle and northern portions of Europe to embalm
human bodies by processes which are only an imperfect imitation of
those of Egypt, even in what is defective. Finally, we shall understand
how it happens that the sepulchres of the Guanches and Egyptians, yield
bodies in such a perfect state of preservation, whilst those of our
country offer only bones and dust.
Whilst according to the Egyptians the just tribute of admiration which
their profound wisdom and extensive acquirements merit, we ought, in a
scientific question, to defend ourselves from the infatuation of our
predecessors, which led them into error, and appreciate at their just
value facts badly observed.
We read in the letters of M. de Maillet, “the dry and nitrous earth of
Egypt has the property of naturally preserving entire bodies without
the aid of any art, especially in those countries at a distance from
the Nile. This is a fact which experience does not permit us to doubt.
Not long since, there were buried some Frenchmen, in a Coptic church
which is in old Cairo, and those who descended the cavern found the
bodies of others who had been previously deposited for some time, as
perfect as they were the very day that they were inhumed: The clothes
even of a Venetian consul, whose corpse had been here interred,
were perfectly preserved. I have likewise visited several ancient
Mosques, formerly celebrated, but now in ruins, which are situated on
the road from Cairo to Suez; these edifices have served as tombs to
some Mahommedan kings, whose bodies were here deposited, during the
period when Egypt was subject to the Arabs. I investigated some of
these caverns, and can assert that I observed bodies so light from
desiccation that they could be raised with one hand as easily as if
they were a walking stick. Among these bodies, was one which weighed
less than four pounds; I saw also a thigh, which, although it appeared
entire and full of flesh, with the leg and foot attached, did not weigh
one pound. Finally, the same thing is daily observed by the caravans
which go to Mecca. There are none of these wanderers who have made this
voyage, who could not testify that the bodies of those who die on the
route, are dried to such a degree as to become as light as straw.”
If, then, we would wish to judge _a priori_ of the relative value of
the processes of embalming, followed by the people of Asia and Africa,
and of those employed by European nations, we ought to start from this
double fact--that among the first, bodies abandoned to themselves have
a tendency to dry and mummify, both on account of the small quantity of
fluid they contain, and on account of atmospheric influences; whilst
those of the second, rot and dissolve under the influence of contrary
causes.
We think then, with M. Rouyer, member of the Egyptian commission, that
the most efficacious cause of the perfection of the art of embalming of
the Egyptians, and of the wonderful preservation of the mummies, was
the climate of Egypt, and chiefly that elevated and equal temperature
(20° R.) which exists in the interior of sepulchral chambers, and in
all subterranean places specially consecrated to sepulchres. A fact
which ought to be joined to this last, has been proved by MM. Docts.
Boucherie, Bermont, and Gaubert, during a visit to the caves of St.
Michel at Bordeaux. These caverns which contain seventy bodies, taken
from the neighbouring sepulchres forty years ago, and mummified by
causes of which we shall speak in the sequel, are of a temperature of
eighteen degrees.
In order to terminate this discussion by a fact universally known, the
mummies preserved untouched for several thousand years in the caverns
of Egypt, become altered and destroyed very rapidly, when transported
into Europe, and divested of their bandages, they are exposed to the
influence of our atmosphere.[C]
[C] The above observations on the natural mummies of caverns, &c.,
apply equally to the numerous specimens of Indian mummies found in
Peru, Brazil, the Western States of North America, &c.--_Tr._
These various observations convince me that a precise knowledge of the
art of embalming among the ancients, would not suffice to preserve
bodies in our country; and what we do know, decides me to push my
researches in another direction.[D]
[D] In the autumn of 1839, in my journey down the Rhine, I visited
Popplesdorf, near Bonn, where there is an ancient church, formerly
a monastery, called “the Kreuzberg.” It is situate on a high and
dry hill. I descended its vault in order to examine some two dozen
of mummified monks, some of them four centuries old. They were all
habited in the costume of the period, and appeared to have died
at an advanced age. These are natural mummies, or the result of
simple desiccation, the skin resembling leather. It is probable
that we may refer to similar causes, those interesting subjects
discovered three or four years ago, in a cave of the church of St.
Thomas, at Strasburg, viz., the mummified bodies of the Count de
Naussau (_Sarsbruck_) and his daughter. These relics, six hundred
years old, are both habited in the costume of that epoch; the coat,
small-clothes, &c., of the father, have been replaced by exact
imitations, but the habits of the daughter are actually those
in which she was buried, consisting of a blue silk gown, richly
ornamented with lace, with diamond rings on her fingers, and jewels
on her breast. The body is well preserved, with the exception of the
face: bunches of silvered flowers still adorn the top of the head,
arms and shoulders. The features of the Count are almost perfect. I
could not observe any external signs of artificial embalming having
been resorted to. The skin was of a yellowish colour. The famous
mummy of St. Carlo Boromeo, in the vault of the splendid Duomo di
Milano, is another remarkable instance--the body is as black and
solid as an Egyptian mummy; it was removed from a cemetery in the
vicinity, after having remained there many years; no artificial means
had been resorted to for its preservation.
The climate and soil of Egypt have been equally efficient in
preserving vegetable life. The French naturalists who accompanied the
army to Egypt, sent home fruits, living seeds, and other portions of
twenty different plants, including the common wheat and onion of the
present day--as was proved by the germination of the seeds and roots
in Europe.--_Tr._
Besides, the methods for embalming have varied with time, place, and
circumstances. The Ethiopians, inhabiting a country which furnishes in
itself more gum than all the rest of the world, conceived the idea of
enclosing the body in a melted mass of this transparent matter, and
thus to preserve them like insects enveloped in fluid amber, and which
are found uninjured and very visible in the middle of this substance
when solidified. This mode of preservation has led some to suppose,
that the Ethiopians preserved their dead bodies in glass. Honey was
formerly used for embalming; the body of Alexander the Great was rubbed
with honey, as the following verses prove:
“Duc et ad æmathios manes, ubi belliger urbis
Conditor hiblæo perfusus nectare durat.”
This use of honey is further confirmed by J. B. Baricel, Andre Rivin,
and R. P. Menestrier. Pliny, book xxii. chap. 24, says that honey is of
such a nature, that bodies placed in it do not corrupt.
They made use also of wax for embalming, as we read in Emilius Probus,
at the end of the life of Agesilas: “Having fallen sick, he died, and
that his friends might the more conveniently carry him to Sparta, for
want of honey they enveloped his body in wax.” The Persians, on the
report of Cicero, employed the same matter: Persæ jam cera circumlitos
condiunt, ut quam maxime permaneant diuturna corpora.
The ancients also made use of a sort of brine, the composition of which
is unknown. Cœlius Rodiginus, in his book of antiquities, remarks that,
during the pontificat of Sextus IV. they found on the Appien way the
body of a girl, retaining still all the beauty of her face, the hair
of a golden blond, and tied up with bands, also gilded--it was thus
preserved in a brine, which entirely covered it, and it was thought
to be the body of _Tulliola_, the daughter of Cicero. And Valateron
assures us that, by a preparation of an unknown salt, the body of
another female was also found entire in a mausoleum near Albania, in
the time of Alexander VI.; this Pope ordered it to be thrown secretly
into the Tiber, fearing the superstition of the people, who run from
all parts to see it, because the body still retained its beauty,
although thirteen centuries had elapsed since its deposition.
The Jews, after closing the mouth and eyes of the dead, shaved them,
washed and rubbed them with perfumes, then enclosed them in a coffin
along with myrrh, aloes, and other aromatics, in great profusion.
The Egyptians had a great number of processes for embalming. The
valuable work of M. Rouyer places this fact beyond a doubt: _natron_,
_cedria_, _bitumen_, _asphaltum_, _pisasphaltum_, different aromatic
substances to drive off insects, varnishes, more or less costly, were
used in their different preparations; finally, bandages multiplied,
and endued with gum Arabic, closed all access to air and humidity. The
mummies of the Guanches, which so closely resemble some of those of
Egypt, were sewn up in skins, after having been stuffed with aromatics
and dried in the sun.
The moderns have employed for the preservation of dead bodies, numerous
substances both fluid and solid; spirits of wine, oils, tinctures,
compound liniments, brines, etc., constitute the first class; powders,
composed of all parts of balsamic and aromatic plants, form the second.
We shall examine, hereafter, more in detail these various systems of
preservation--nevertheless, what we have mentioned, proves that they
were only in a slight degree efficacious. And even the so much boasted
methods of Clauderus, Derasieres, &c., and the wonderful secrets of
Debils, Ruysh, Swammerdam, appear to us only applicable to retard a
little while the progress of decomposition. The following is extracted
from the article _Anatomical Preparations_ of the Dictionary of Medical
Sciences:
“It is said that Ruysh possessed the means of preserving the
flexibility and other vital properties of the different tissues of our
bodies. When the Dutch anatomist sold his cabinet to the Czar, Peter
I., he gave a manuscript in which he made known the composition of a
preservative fluid, expressly stating that this liquor was nothing more
than spirits of wine; the spirit of malt, to which was only added,
during distillation, a handful of white pepper. But it appeared that
Ruysh had not given the true composition of his liquor, or rather, that
he had exaggerated the virtues of it, for it is far from possessing the
effects which have been attributed to it. After the death of Ruysh,
they thought they had discovered his means of preserving. In 1731,
Geoffroy was charged to make experiments; but the results did not
correspond to the anticipations.”
We find in a note added by Strader, at the end of his edition of
the works of Harvey, another version relative to the proceedings of
Swammerdam, which is as follows:
“It is with reason,” says he, “that we prefer to the Egyptian method,
an art which so hardens dead bodies, that they lose nothing of their
substance, and change neither in colour, nor in form; that they
leave to the anatomist all desirable leisure for examination, without
presenting any effusion of blood, nor that disgusting filth so
repugnant to the delicate practitioner, and which frequently prevents
the examination of the entrails of subjects.
“I shall publish, as was communicated to me, this admirable process,
in which I was formerly liberally initiated by Cl. Dn. Swammerdam,
which is beyond all praise. It is necessary, then, to obtain a pewter
vessel of sufficient size to contain the body to be embalmed; place
at the distance of about two fingers depth of the bottom, a hurdle of
wood, pierced with many holes; place the body on this hurdle, and pour
on oil of turpentine to the height of three fingers, keep the vessel
quiet, tightly, and less and less hermetically covered during a certain
space of time; in this manner the oil, of a penetrating nature, will
infiltrate by degrees into the body on which it is poured, and will
expel the aqueous portions, the principal cause of the fermentation
which tends to corruption. This aqueous portion descending by its
specific gravity, and distilling through the flesh, will, in time,
occupy the space between this and the bottom, and during this time
the more subtle part of the balm will exhale, as the vessel is less
closely covered; the more it evaporates, the harder the body becomes,
and will imbibe the thick lees of the oil, the effect of which may be
compared to that of a gummy marrow: it can then, consequently, remain
out of the liquor and in open air without corrupting, without any fear
of putrefaction, or of the worms. As to the time necessary to allow
the body to remain in the balm, this varies according to the nature of
the subject to be preserved. The following rules on this head must be
observed:
“The embalming of an embryon of six months, may be accomplished in
about the same length of time.
“The skeleton of the same embryon requires only about two months.
“The membranes of the heart, three months.
“The vessels of the liver, and of the placenta, cleared of their flesh,
one month.
“The vessels of the spleen, ten days.
“The intestines, one month.
“A certain time is thus assigned for other vessels, which would not be
difficult to discover or determine by experiments.
“It is always necessary to pay attention, that during this operation,
the parts be a little contracted and compressed in an equable and
convenient proportion; the coction of the body prevents the skin
forming wrinkles, whether it be made before the deposition in the oil,
or after it has soaked there for two months. In order that the subject
may retain all its beauty and whiteness, it must be macerated for
several days in alum before embalming it. In order that the members may
retain a convenient form and position, they ought to be plunged into
the balm on the commencement of winter, about the month of November, to
expose them afterwards to the cold, not to freeze, but to harden them
lightly.
“In following this process, with care, we destroy entirely all the
germs of putrefaction concealed in the body, to such a degree, that the
entrails even are profoundly penetrated with this balm, and are able
to resist the constant attacks of the air.
“If it is desired to preserve a part, without the process above
mentioned, the blood must first be extracted by a brine, and the salt
subsequently withdrawn by rain water, and, after having placed it in
the shade to prevent its putrefying, endue it with a mixture composed
of three quarts of oil of turpentine, and one quart of mastic, which
will communicate a brilliant appearance to it, and even a sort of light
crust, particularly if a greater quantity of mastic is used in the
preparation.
“As regards the preparation of the members and their appendages, a
particular process must be observed. The vessels must be well dried,
of whatever matter they may consist, and afterwards place the rods in
them well fitted to the cavity; and previously endued with suet, which
is to be carefully withdrawn in a few days; thus the members, large
and small, ought to be placed in cotton, well soaked in suet, to be
stretched in the direction of their length, as, for example, we stretch
the meshes of capillary vessels on sticks rubbed with suet, from whence
they are readily detached by means of a little fire placed beneath,
which causes the suet to melt.
“But sufficient has been said for the present; perhaps, hereafter I
shall have a more favourable opportunity to relate other similar facts,
or even more admirable; for I have seen with Swammerdam, of whom I
have spoken above, various pieces embalmed with so much talent, that,
besides all their natural properties, they possessed also that of being
always soft and flexible; I must forbear transmitting for the present
this process, in order not to lessen the eclat of the fine work I have
just described, and in introducing a still more beautiful one on the
scene, etc.”
After so precise a description, I hoped to make something out of this
process; but nevertheless, I must confess, that after having repeated
these experiments with the greatest care, I was no more successful in
my trials than Mr. Geoffroy was in 1731; only I have proved that, when
bodies are prepared according to my process, and afterwards plunged
into turpentine, they preserve a remarkable freshness and suppleness.
After much reflection upon this subject, I have come to the conclusion,
that Ruysh and Swammerdam have never made known but a part of their
system of preservations, and that, previously to immersing the body
in either of the two liquids of which we have spoken, they subjected
them to some preparation. In fine, those very authors who boast of
the admirable perfection of their processes, have not left a single
preparation to show as an example to justify their praises; and, as
a proof of their exaggeration, we have the testimony of an author
(_Penicher_) profoundly versed in this matter. “Those authors,” says
he, “who boast of having embalmed without emptying the great cavities,
and by confining themselves to injections by the mouth, by the anus, or
by holes made in the armpits, would be embarrassed to show satisfactory
results from such superficial embalming; for, sooner or later, these
nuisances will overcome all the embalmer’s industry, and all the
expense he may have been at to conquer a bad impression. Could there
exist a more singular proof of this, than what happened a few years
ago in the church of R. R. P. P., respecting the body of a lady of
first quality? The corpse had been placed in a leaden coffin, and
enclosed in another of wood, and placed within a marble mausoleum well
cemented; after which, in order to fulfil the will, it was embalmed,
and enveloped in two hundred pounds of aromatics and perfumes; two
kegs of aromatic spirits of wine were introduced through an opening,
so that the body was completely submerged in it. Nevertheless, at
the end of twelve years or thereabout, it produced so dangerous and
malignant a stench through the cracks which occurred in the coffin, by
the expansion of the drugs, that one of the priests, who chanced at
the time to be saying mass in his chapel, fell extremely ill from this
cause, and the assistants were obliged to withdraw, being unable to
support the effluvia.
“The priests were under the necessity of exhuming the body, with the
consent of the archbishop, and family of the deceased; they removed it
to the garden, placed it in a ditch, and covered it with quick-lime,
which not destroying the flesh, composed of oily, sulphurous, and
resinous parts, it was found necessary to remove the flesh from the
body, in order to replace the skeleton in the mausoleum; to such a
degree did the bad qualities of the entrails and viscera, corrupted by
disease, surpass the good qualities of the balms.”
The imperfections of these methods grow out of their very nature.
Along side of these embalmings, practised in an empyrical manner,
without any reference to the qualities more or less efficacious, of the
aromatic and balsamic substances, I can place infants several months
old, subjects most susceptible of dissolution, _and which, after a
simple injection, have remained exposed to the air in a moist room_.
At the end of two years of this exposure, they displayed a great
suppleness of the tissues, without the least trace of decomposition.
Those which I enclosed in cases, in the midst of an atmosphere of my
own discovery,[E] have preserved exactly the expression and colour of
the face, that they had at the moment of death.
[E] This atmosphere, we have reason to believe, consists of the
vapour of oil of turpentine. We examined some of these specimens,
which, after a simple injection with the solution of the acetate of
alumine, were exposed to a current of air, and found them as hard as
horn and somewhat distorted.--_Tr._
CHAPTER II.
NATURAL MUMMIES.
Whilst man agitates and torments himself in employing all his activity
to produce a feeble result, nature, all-powerful, by means of simple
causes, produces wonderful effects. Man disputes with the rivers, the
ocean’s waves, some few acres of land, which he protects with great
labour from their overwhelming influences. At the voice of nature,
elements, until now foreign to each other, approximate, combine, and
unite in the bosom of the earth, and suddenly throw up from the middle
of the ocean vast isles and new continents. He has need of all his
industry to make the sap circulate in a few etiolated plants; she, on
the contrary, confers life and motion to all beings, or strikes them
with torpor or death, according as she elevates or depresses the sun a
few degrees in the horizon.
In order to preserve the bodies of his own image, man, stimulated by
sentiments of religion, respect, or of love, mutilates in vain their
inanimate spoils; in vain he penetrates with aromatics and preservative
juices, remains, which putrefaction reclaims and seizes. Nature covers
with a little snow the traveller who scales the mountain, then, after
centuries, returns the body unaltered. She commands the winds to blow:
the sands of the desert are agitated, and the soldiers of Cambyses, and
the soldiers of Alexander, are dried in the dust; penetrating with
some unknown bodies the entrails of the earth, she there preserves the
generations which have preceded us.
Here is the art of embalming in its highest degree of perfection;
here are mummies which we ought to desire to imitate. It must be
acknowledged, that when the Egyptians and the Guanches transmitted
to us their bodies in a state of preservation, which has been the
admiration and astonishment of ages, they owed as much, at least,
to the aid of nature, as to the perfection of their art, and the
development of their industry. If, then, we wish to preserve the bodies
of those who excited our admiration or our love, in place of despising
the mummies[4] which nature presents us with, let us study them, let
us seek with care, the cause of their preservation, and, by reasonable
analyses, let us endeavour to penetrate the secret of her ways.
[4] The reverend Father Kircher in his chapter on mummies, thinks
that these bodies do not merit the name; here is what he says in his
chapter iii, §. 2. “But these bodies, dried and preserved in the sands
of Lybia, should not receive the name of _mummy_, because a mummy is,
properly speaking, a body prepared after a special process.” Such ideas
have caused much empyricism, and have been most powerful obstacles to
the progress of the art of embalming.
If this direction had been followed, convenient processes would
doubtless have been discovered a long time ago; and it never would
have been supposed possible to preserve a corpse with certainty, by
stuffing it with sixty or eighty kinds of powdered aromatics. After
such considerations, we, who have substituted an experimental for an
empyrical method, and progressed from the known to the unknown, ought,
to be consistent, to study natural mummies first.
Some have been formed by the general qualities of the air and earth,
others, by purely local influences; in the first series, we include
_the mummy of the sand, and those of avalanches; in the second, those
discovered here and there in certain sepultures; in the convent of the
Capuchins, near Palermo; in the caves of St. Michel, at Bordeaux; in
the cemetery of the church of Saint Nicholas; the Museum; the cloister
of the Carmes; the caves of the Jacobins and the Cordeliers, at
Toulouse, &c._
These last named mummies, the preservation of which is probably due to
the particular properties of the soil in which they were deposited,
have been, up to the present day, objects of vulgar curiosity, rather
than of attentive examination.
Drs. Boucherie, Bermont, and Gaubert, have favoured me with some notes
taken during a visit to the caves of St. Michel, at Bordeaux, (_August_,
1837.) I let them speak for themselves:
“The bodies exposed to view at Bordeaux, in the cavern situated beneath
the tower of Saint Michel, were deposited there in 1793, nearly in
the same state in which they appear at present, they came from the
sepulchres of the church and the adjoining cemetery. A great number
of bones, and the wreck of soft parts, dried and preserved like the
whole bodies, form a layer of seventeen or eighteen feet, upon which
are supported the inferior extremities of seventy subjects, arranged in
a circle around the wall, and retained in a vertical position by the
cords which bind them. Some of these, they say, had remained in the
earth many centuries, others from sixty to eighty years or more.
“During our visit, 25th August, 1837, we determined to examine with
care the state of these bodies, those of the middle, where they had
remained for more than forty years, and above all, we procured strips
of skin and muscle, in order to examine them at leisure, and to submit
them to some chemical re-agent, which might reveal to us the presence
of the preservative element. We could not hope to collect any of the
earth that had originally covered them, since they were superposed on
remnants thrown into this place at the time they were enclosed here.
“After having furnished ourselves with a thermometer at 24° R., and a
hygrometer at 34°, both in the open air, we descended thirty or forty
steps, which conducted us to the cave. The coolness did not appear to
us very striking, as it commonly is at this depth during the heat of
the dog-star. Placing our instruments on the soil, we proceeded to
examine the bodies.
“It is an extraordinary aspect, by lamp-light, offered by this circular
space, the walls of which are tapistried by dead bodies all standing
erect; the eye wanders from one to the other involuntarily, and we
view the whole before confining ourselves to details. Although the
most of them are in the attitude of the buried dead, some differences
in size, in the position and expression of the physiognomy, produce a
strange and confused impression. There is one point, however, where
our regards were particularly attracted, where the heart is chilled
and troubled with deep emotion--here is beheld a miserable creature
in a position violently contracted--the mouth open and horribly
contracted, the inferior members strongly drawn to the body--the arms,
one twisted by convulsions is thrown over the head, the other folded
beneath the trunk, and fixed to the thigh by the nails, which are
deeply implanted in the flesh; the forced inflexion of the whole body,
gives the expression of ineffable pain, all announcing a violent death.
Unfortunate wretch! had he died in this state, or rather, had he been
buried alive, and assumed this position in the horrible agonies of
awakening?
“The skin of all these mummies, of a more or less deep gray colour,
dried and rather soft to the touch, gives the sensation of parchment
slightly stretched upon the organs, dried, and of the consistence of
amadou[F] or spunk; the articulations are stiff and inflexible; the
chest, the abdomen, and the cranium, examined carefully, did not show
any incision, any regular opening indicative of any trace of embalming,
even the most imperfect. The different features of the face, still
distinct among some of them, displayed a variety of physiognomy; two
or three of them displayed the hair of the beard very well preserved,
the teeth were healthy and covered with brilliant enamel. The upper and
lower extremities entirely dried, and whole in many of the subjects,
are provided with all the phalanges; the last, however, divested of its
nail. On the body of the tallest figure is perceived enormous purses,
with evident traces of a double scrotal hernia. The skin raised and
viewed on its interior surface, is tanned like the exterior; all
traces of cellular tissue has disappeared; the muscles, separated from
the skin, have the colour and consistence, and almost the internal
structure of amadou. On introducing the hand into the chest, some
rudiment of lung was found, a net work very similar to that of leaves
deprived of their fleshy part; they might be taken for a mass of leaves
dissected by the caterpillars, and rendered adherent by the threads and
viscous fluid that these insects deposit. The intestines, also dried,
are nearly in the same state.
[F] A sort of tinder made of agaric.--_Tr._
“Such are the principal details which presented themselves in the
course of our examination: at first sight, it appeared astonishing
that these bodies, removed for more than forty years from the medium
in which they were desiccated, should have experienced no sensible
alteration in a cavern situated deeply under the earth, and surmounted
by a structure like that of the tower of St. Michel. Let us return
to our instruments, perhaps they will aid us in the explanation of
the fact. After remaining an hour in this atmosphere, the thermometer
passed from 24° to 18°, and the hygrometer, from 34° to 42°, which
gives a difference for the first, of 6°, for the second of 8°, a very
trifling difference, when compared to that of caves and other places
in the same apparent position. This thermometrical and hygrometrical
state of the air, always invariable, is, without doubt, one of the
principal circumstances in maintaining the integrity of these mummies.
To what cause, further, can be attributed this double state of the air
in the cavern? A slow fermentation, movements of latent decomposition
in the enormous mass of animal remains which form the bottom of this
receptacle, are they not the probable cause? We think so, and we leave
with confidence this idea, to the meditation of philosophers. Our end
was attained, we had proved facts, and collected some parcels of the
remains to subject them to analysis; after different trials without
result, some portions of skin and muscular tissue, placed in weakened
hydrochloric acid, and treated by ebullition, were totally dissolved
in this liquid, to which they communicated a deep brown colour. This
liquor filtered and treated by the yellow cyanate of potash, yielded
a very abundant blue precipitate; and the presence of iron was thus
indicated, from whence we thought that the preservation of these
bodies was owing to the presence of a compound of iron in the earth,
where they had been deposited. But the human blood yields iron also;
was it a portion of this element of our tissues that our experiments
brought into play? A suit of comparative experiments upon the tissues
of mummies, on the one hand, and of the same tissues dried in the sun
of subjects recently dead, on the other hand, have evidently proved
the excess of iron in the first. Analogous circumstances doubtless,
have determined the preservation of the bodies found at Toulouse,
at Palermo, &c. We regret not to be able to transmit the suit of
experiments made by our learned friend, Dr. Boucherie; these will form
the subject of ulterior researches.”
The same phenomenon still occurs in different parts of our country,
under a moderate temperature: thus, about 1660, M. de La Visee and his
domestic, having been assassinated at Paris, and interred on the place
where the crime was committed, their bodies were discovered after the
lapse of a year, whole and readily recognisable; a cloak even, lined
with plush, had not suffered the least alteration.
The mummy of the avalanches, and all those, the preservation of
which is due to a constant low temperature, retain the freshness and
plumpness of the tissues for years and for centuries, if the conditions
of the medium remain the same; but, under these circumstances, the
action of cold exerts no other influence than the suspension of
decomposition; for the moment it ceases, the tissues are rapidly
exposed to the laws of inorganic chemistry.
In those cases, however, where the bodies exposed to cold are subjected
to a dry and lively wind, a real mummification may occur, as in the
following example:
There is upon the summit of the Great Saint Bernard, a sort of morgue
(_dead house_) in which have been deposited, from time immemorial,
the bodies of those unfortunate persons who have perished upon this
mountain by cold, or the fall of avalanches.
The study of the circumstances of locality, and of temperature, in
which this establishment is placed, may, to a certain degree, indicate
the most favourable conditions for the long preservation of bodies.
Here they show to travellers, bodies, which they assert have been
sufficiently well preserved to be recognisable after the lapse of two
or three years. A physician, whose quality as ancient prosector of the
faculty of Medicine of Paris, rendered him curious to visit this part
of the hospital in all its details, has verified with his own eyes all
that travellers have written, and has transmitted to us the following
observation:
The hospital of Saint Bernard, is, as is well known, the most elevated
habitation in Europe, being 7,200 feet above the level of the sea.
The temperature of this part of the globe is always very low, rarely
above zero, even during summer. This extensive establishment is built
upon the borders of a little lake, at the bottom of a little gorge;
the principal mass of the building represents a long parallelogram
placed in the direction of the gorge, so that its two principal faces,
pierced with numerous windows, are sheltered from the wind by the
rocks; whilst the two extremities, on the contrary, are exposed to all
the violence of those which blow from one side of the gorge to the
other. About fifty steps beyond this principal building, and a little
out of a right line with it, is situated the _morgue_, a sort of square
chamber, the walls of which, three or four feet thick, are constructed
of good stone, and the arched roof of which is very solid. Two windows
of about four feet square, are pierced in the direction of the breadth
of the valley, directly facing each other, so that a perpetual current
of cool air traverses the interior of the chamber. There is, further,
but a single table in this morgue, upon which they place the bodies
when first introduced; after a while they are arranged around the walls
in an upright attitude. At the time of my passage of the Great Saint
Bernard, (31st _August_, 1837,) there were several of these mummified
bodies along the walls of the chamber, but a greater number were
entirely divested of flesh, and lie scattered about the earthy floor of
the room. They informed me, that decomposition only took place when the
bodies fell by accident to the ground; which was owing to the humidity
occasioned by the snow, which occasionally entered with the currents
of air through the windows of the morgue.[G] (Note communicated by Dr.
Lenoir.)
[G] Early in September, 1833, I had an opportunity of inspecting the
contents of the morgue of Saint Bernard. Among the group of bodies of
every age and sex, we were particularly struck with two figures, one,
that of a man, whose countenance was horridly contorted by the act
of desiccation; each limb, and every muscle of the body, had assumed
the expression of a wretch in purgatory. The other was that of a
mother holding her infant to her bosom, the latter, with an imploring
expression, looking up to the face of the mother, whom it appeared
to have survived some time, as is generally the case when mother and
child are frozen together--a greater power of forming animal heat
existing in children.--_Tr._
The existence of the mummies of the sands, is attested by numerous
travellers, and all the authors who have written on embalming mention
them. They are every where found, where an arid and burning atmosphere
deeply penetrates the masses of fine sand, easily agitated by the
winds. In Egypt, for example, Herodotus frequently speaks of these
bodies dried by the sun. Cambyses, on the authority of this author,
suffered horrible effects from these sands, driven before the wind;
he lost almost his whole army during his expedition to the temple of
Jupiter Ammon.
Pere Kircher gives us an interesting description of these sand storms:
“In the countries of Africa situated beyond the Nile, is a vast desert
of sand, the immense waves of which appear in the boundless horizon
like those of the sea. Agitated by the winds, these sands produce such
frightful tempests, that they swallow up under their enormous masses,
travellers, beasts of burden, and merchandise. Bodies thus engulfed,
become desiccated after a series of years, both by the ardour of the
sun’s rays, and by virtue of the burning sand: this is the reason that
some have asserted that mummies might be formed by natural causes only,
& c.”[H] Penicher, Clauderus, De Maillet, Rouelle Le Comte de Caylus,
cite examples of the same nature. A whole caravan, or some travellers,
disappear under a mass of sand; years, centuries, pass by, then a new
revolution in the disposition of these masses restores to the light of
day, those bodies which a previous revolution had engulfed; blackened,
dried, and lightened by the loss of all their fluids. In Mexico, Mr.
Humboldt met with true mummies. Travellers have visited battlefields,
situated on a soil deprived of rain, and in a burning atmosphere. They
saw with astonishment, that these fields were covered with the dead
bodies of Spaniards and Peruvians, dried and preserved for a long time.
At the side of these phenomena which nature offers us, come the mummies
of which Maillet speaks in his letters on Egypt.
[H] The following is the passage of P. Kircher, of which we gave only
a few passages in our citation.
“Est in Transpilana Africæ regione, desertum ingens sabuli,
arenarumque cumulis in immensum exporrectum, unde et sabulosi maris
non immerito nomen obtinuit; hæ siquidem arenæ ventis concitatæ tam
sævas subinde tempestates movent, ut arenis in clivos aggestis,
turbinum violentia, et jumenta et viatores una cum mercibus suis,
nulla evadendi spe relicta, vivos sepiliant. Refert Pomponius Mela
de rupe qua dam in hoc deserto existente, austro consecrata, quæ
simul atque vel manu tacta fuerit, austro mox provocato, Sævissimas
procellas moveat, sabulo in tantum intumescente, ut pelagus undarum
vorticibus, fluctuumque æstibus concitatum videraqueat. Hanc rupem
dum olim sylli inconsultius adeunt sive occultiori naturæ impetu,
sive magicis incantationum præstigiis, vento mox exoriente, et
sabulosos cogente montes, ad unum omnes extincti ferunter. Est et
in hoc deserto, ammonium oraculum et serapium, sphyngesque ingentes
quarum aleæ usque ad caput, aleæ ex dimidio arena obrutæ, strabone
teste, spectantur. Hoc itaque celeberrimum oraculum consulturus olim
Alexander Magnus, dum pleno aleæ itineri se accingit, ad illud quidem
incolumis pervenit, sed quos milites ex suo exercita non sabulosi
pelagi turbines, hos æstus, sitisque confecisse traditur. Sed ut
unde digressus revertar, in hoc sabuloso deserto dicunt non nulli
mumias solius naturæ industria confici; dum aiunt, viatorum deserti
tempestatibus extinctorum corpora tum solis tunc ferventissimæ
hugus arenæ pinguioris virtute, longo tempore siccata, tostaque, in
hunc statum degenerare. Sed tametsi subinde, in hoc Lybiæ deserto
hugusmodi a sole exsiccata corpora reperiantur, illa tamen minime
mumiæ discendæ sunt.”
“There has been discovered,” says he, “recently, in this plain of
mummies, a mode of burying hitherto unknown. At the extremity of this
vast open country, and towards the mountains, which bound it on the
west, have been discovered beds of carbon, on which are laid bodies
clothed only with some linen, and covered with a mat, upon which rests
the sands seven or eight feet in thickness. Nevertheless, it is to be
observed, that these bodies, although they were not embalmed, or at
least but slightly so, the same as those that they have neglected to
enclose in cases, were none the less beyond the reach of corruption.”
I promised to demonstrate the simple connection which exists between
the products of nature, and those of human industry, to show that the
first were the origin of the second. The facts which I have just
exposed, I think, place this proposition beyond a doubt.
The preservation of bodies among the Guanches, which is already a step
advanced in the art, will form the subject of the following chapter.
CHAPTER III.
EMBALMING OF THE GUANCHES.
The Guanches, with the Egyptians, are the only nation among whom
embalming had become national, and there exists in the process and
mode of preservation of both such striking analogy, that the study of
the Guanch mummies is, probably, the surest means of arriving at some
positive notions of their origin and relationship. To make ourselves
understood in the subject which now occupies us, we ought to remark,
that the details known of the mode of embalming among the Guanches,
will enlighten and complete the descriptions that ancient authors
have transmitted to us of the Egyptian processes: it is thus that it
appears to us without a doubt, that their silence on desiccation in the
act of mummification, is a simple omission on their part: that this
desiccation was continued during the seventy days of preparation; that
it constituted the principal part of the processes adopted; and that,
because among the Guanches desiccation was placed in the first rank,
if we are to credit the relations of authors. We see in this, one of
the finest examples of the utility of the comparative study of the
manners and usages of different nations: light is thrown on both by the
comparison of facts.
The pains taken by the Guanches to evaporate the fluid parts of
their dead bodies, is the cause which determines us to place their
mummies immediately after those of the deserts of Lybia; because their
processes approach nearest to that of nature. The details which we are
about to give, are extracted from the excellent work of M. Bory de
Saint Vincent on the Fortunate Isles.
“The arts of the Guanches were not numerous, the most singular without
doubt is that of embalming.
“The Guanches preserved the remains of their relations in a scrupulous
manner, and spared no pains to guarantee them from corruption. As a
moral duty, each individual prepared for himself the skins of goats,
in which his remains could be enveloped, and which might serve him for
sepulture. These skins were often divested of their hair, at other
times they permitted it to remain, when they placed indifferently the
hairy side within or without. The processes to which they resorted to
make perfect mummies, which they named _xaxos_, are nearly lost. Some
writers have, nevertheless, left details on this subject, but perhaps
they are not more exact than those which Herodotus has transmitted to
us upon the embalming of the Egyptians.
“With the Guanches, the embalmers were abject beings; men and women
filled this employment respectively, for their sexes; they were well
paid, but their touch was considered contamination; and all who were
occupied in preparing the xaxos lived retired, solitary, and out of
sight. It is, then, out of place, that Sprats has advanced the idea,
that embalming was confined to a tribe of priests, who made a sacred
mystery of it, and that the secret died with the priests. There
were several kinds of embalming, and several different employments
for those who had charge of it. When they had need of the services
of the embalmers, they carried the body to them to be preserved,
and immediately retired. If the body belonged to persons capable of
bearing the expenses, they extended it at first on a stone table; an
operator then made an opening in the lower part of the belly with a
sharpened flint, wrought into the form of a knife and called _tabona_;
the intestines were withdrawn, which other operators afterwards washed
and cleaned; they also washed the rest of the body, and particularly
the delicate parts, as the eyes, interior of the mouth, the ears,
and the nails, with fresh water saturated with salt. They filled
the large cavities with aromatic plants; they then exposed the body
to the hottest sun, or placed it in stoves, if the sun was not hot
enough. During the exposition, they frequently endued the body with an
ointment, composed of goats’ grease, powder of odoriferous plants, pine
bark, resin, tar, ponce stone, and other absorbing materials. Feuille
thinks that these unctions were also made with a composition of butter,
and desiccative and balsamic substances, among which are mentioned the resin of larch, and the leaves of pomegranate, which never possessed the property of preserving bodies. |
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