Neither did the Persians, probably, propose by embalming, any thing beyond a very limited preservation; the passage which we cited in the first chapter is in proof of this. Besides, this custom with them does not possess a general character. Cyrus, King of Persia, said to his children: “when I have ceased to live, place my body neither in silver, nor in gold, nor in any other coffin, but return it immediately to the earth, for how can it be more happily and more desirably disposed, than to be returned to that which produces and which nourishes most excellent things?” It will be perceived, that Cyrus, in forbidding that any care should be taken with his body, does not allude to embalming, which, of all other means, would have been the most efficient in preventing its elements from returning to the common mother. The Greeks and the Romans, among whom we have particularized some examples of embalming, practised it in a coarse and imperfect manner. The examination of their method would be here without interest. In order to recover some traces of this art, we must refer to De Bils, Ruysch, Swammerdam, Clauderus, &c. They only boast of their astonishing success, without giving us the means of studying their methods. What we do know of them suffices only to make us doubt, as we have seen, the perfection of their processes. De Bils, of whom we have not yet spoken, had a cabinet which excited the admiration of visiters; he never revealed his secret, and he even shed an odour of aromatics through his anatomical rooms, in order to deceive observers. Clauderus, who suspected the deception, applied his moistened finger to one of the bodies, and carrying it to his lips recognised the taste of salts. He started from this fact to attempt numerous researches, and succeeded in forming different compounds, of which the preservative powers are, without doubt, exaggerated; we shall give the analysis of them hereafter. De Rasière, ècuyer, sieur Dèsenclosses, published in 1727, a description of a cabinet, in which he preserved a hundred specimens; the following extract from his pamphlet presents several descriptions of subjects skilfully prepared; it is preceded by an engraving, representing the cabinet, of which he gives the description. _Extract from the description of the cabinet of anatomy, of M. De Rasière, ècuyer, sieur Dèsenclosses, 1727._ This cabinet is eighty feet long, by sixteen wide, the glass windows are double, and exposed to the south, with a good ceiling and boarded, which renders it very proper for the preservation of the curious pieces which it encloses, and which are more than one hundred in number, differently worked, and arranged so that entire men are placed in the inferior departments, and the infants in the superior; all the fleshy pieces are enclosed in glass cases, and the skeletons in niches covered by a curtain.