Should you cut or prick your hand or fingers in any way while handling the dead, be sure and apply the Preservative AT ONCE to the wound, as it will insure safety from the inoculation of the poison virus by which many undertakers have lost their lives. I would also say to the undertaker, in every instance where he is called upon to lay out the dead, to first bathe his hands with the Preservative; this insures perfect safety and should never be omitted, for you can not tell at just what point you will meet with this deadly virus; and as I have before stated, the Preservative in this respect is positively indispensable to the undertaker.
I have already spoken in the highest praise of the Excelsior Preservative, but the half has not been told. The undertaker who places any estimate on the value of his own life, can not afford to be without this all important antidote against the dangerous inoculation of the poison or deadly virus which he is liable to encounter at any moment in handling the dead.
It is a very dangerous thing in any contingency to handle the dead, notwithstanding it has been done thousands of times without injury to the undertaker, yet this is due to great precaution on his part, or from the fact of his hands being in perfect condition, having no scratch, cracks, hang-nails, or abrasion of the skin through which the poison could be inoculated into his system, whereas, others with a simple scratch or hang-nail that they were not aware of until too late, have thus been poisoned and lost their lives.
Cases of purging or sloughing of the skin are of the worst type, these juices being fearfully poisonous, and the longer the body lays without treatment the worse it grows, hence the more dangerous to handle; therefore I say, it matters not what the undertaker charges for his services, he is never half paid for the risk he runs of losing his own life while fulfilling the duties of his profession in handling and taking care of the dead.
There is no public servant that takes upon himself one-half the personal risk, or whose services should be better appreciated by the community than those of the professional undertaker, and when the customer complains of prices, or where the undertaker’s charges are brought in question, these facts should be fully explained.
A fatal case happened under my own personal observation in California where the undertaker laid out a Chinaman that was purging at the mouth. Some of the poisonous fluid got into a hang-nail, and in three days he died, although a council of physicians was called, but nothing devised or prescribed could help him, simply for the want of a perfect antidote like the Excelsior Preservative, which, if applied, as directed in this manual, is a certain preventative against the deadly ravages of this virus. And I will once more say to the undertaker, you must be on your guard at all times, and as self-preservation is paramount to all other considerations in matters of this kind, be sure to bathe your hands in the Preservative before commencing to handle or lay out the dead, and also bathing them with it thoroughly immediately afterwards.
CHAPTER XIII.
Chemical Affinities.
I will here give a few of the reasons why the Excelsior Preservative will do all that I represent.
To those who are acquainted with chemical laws, hardly any discovery seems too strange to be true. Chemical laws and their affinities are truly wonderful, and if we are to produce a certain result on the dead human system, we must make use of chemicals that have affinities for the parts to be acted upon, and no affinity whatever for those parts that we desire to leave intact or undisturbed.
Careful study and experience have taught me that albumen and gluten are the principal if not the only putrescible substances with which we have to deal in the preservation of the dead.