CHAPTER VI. ON EMBALMING THE DEAD. From the earliest times, the attention of mankind has been given to the preservation of the bodies of the dead. With the ancient Egyptians, the art was carried to its highest degree of perfection. The motive which led these people to devote so much care to this object, is still conjectural; yet it would seem to have originated, in part at least, as a sanitary measure, for preserving the purity and healthfulness of the atmosphere. While so little is known of the method by which they produced such wonderful results, as to have placed the process among what have been termed the “Lost Arts,” yet, from a careful examination of a large number of mummies, it would appear that the operation consisted: _First._ In the removal of the abdominal and thoracic viscera, through an opening in the left side beneath the ribs; and of the brain through the nostrils, by breaking through the crebriform plate of the ethmoid bone; or through the mouth, by boring through the basilar process of the occipital bone. _Second._ Subjecting the body for a long time to the action of an alkali, (natron,) after having filled the cavities with various gums and spices, etc., and thus removing the fatty portions. _Third._ A rapid desiccation, after further additions of balsams, resins, etc. _Fourth._ Enveloping the whole body in numerous bandages saturated with gum or bitumen. Modern nations, have long practiced evisceration, in connection with the use of various substances for preserving bodies. In the middle ages, the art of embalming consisted in mixing aromatic substances with salt, and filling the bodies with the same. Henry I. of England, is said to have been thus embalmed in 1135. Long and deep incisions were made in various parts of the body, these filled with the composition, and then carefully sewed up, the body afterwards enveloped in a beef’s skin, and enclosed in a coffin. Louis C. Bils, a nobleman of Holland, and Ruysch, a Dutch physician, in the latter part of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, acquired great celebrity from their success in embalming bodies. Both died, however, without imparting their secrets to others. The discovery of the preservative properties of corrosive sublimate in 1762, was soon followed by its employment by Chaussier, Beclard and Larrey, in the preserving of bodies. Dr. Franchina of Naples, employed arsenic also, with considerable success; but from the danger to dissectors, where these poisons had been employed, their use after the discovery of the preservative properties of chloride of zinc, was quite discontinued. The latter substance, with carbolic acid, constitutes the best antiseptis known at the present time, and these are more generally employed than any other for preserving dead bodies.