The age of the person deceased, and the condition of the body after death, as also the length of time elapsed since death took place, as affecting the mode of treatment, have all been discussed in a former part of this work, and it would hardly be necessary to have a new elucidation upon the same subject.
The important point we wish to impress now upon the minds of our professionals is, that circumstances in this case are to be strictly investigated; also, that a uniform treatment of all cases, however different the circumstances and conditions, will not prove successful; and that a thorough knowledge and experience are necessary to achieve satisfactory results.
Discrimination and judgment are to be used in every case. Some are too ready to condemn a certain process, or to question the properties of some antiseptics, because their first trial of either has proved an ignominious failure; whereas the real cause of all the trouble lies in their ignorance of the laws which govern the mode of proceeding, and the use of the chemicals placed at their disposition.
Others, again, are prone to extol the merits of some preparation, the component parts of which they do not know, but it may have done them good service in several instances; and when, contrary to their expectations, it fails to answer the purpose, they lose faith in it, discard it altogether as worthless, and never entertain the idea that an alteration in the quantity used, or in the combination and strength of the constituents, is the real source of mischief.
Hence, it is a fact not to be denied that a diagnosis (if it may be called so) is necessary before the work of embalming be entered into. And he who would endeavor to preserve the body of a stout, fleshy person by the same means employed in the preserving of a body emaciated by long sufferings, and under different conditions of temperature, might not meet with a success equal to his expectations.
CHLORINE:
ITS PROPERTIES AND USES.
Chlorinated Lime.—In consequence of its powers as a disinfectant, chlorinated lime is a very important compound in its application to medical police; it possesses the property of arresting or preventing animal or vegetable putrefaction, and perhaps of destroying pestilential and infectious miasma. It is used with advantage in preventing bodies from exhaling an unpleasant odor before interment in the summer season. In juridical exhumations its use is indispensable, as it effectually removes the disgusting and insupportable fetor of the corpse.
The mode in which it is applied in these cases is, to envelope the body in a sheet completely wet with a solution made by adding about one pound of the chloride to a bucketful of water. It is employed also for disinfecting dissecting rooms, vaults, cemeteries and other places, which exhale offensive effluvia.
In destroying contagion and infection it appears to be highly useful. In short, all places deemed infectious from having been the receptacle of virulent disease may be more or less disinfected by its use, after having undergone the ordinary process of cleansing.