“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] [B] The colour of the tissues is changed, however, being bleached by the acetate of alumine--but this is far preferable to the black putridity, which renders the anatomical subject so disgusting and unhealthy, when subjects are scarce.--_Tr._ 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.