Here facts are almost entirely wanting, and the history of the art we are studying, can only be followed in the recitals of historians, to control whose veracity we have no longer those monuments which Egypt offers us in such great numbers. Among the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, and all modern nations, we see the honours of embalming accorded to kings, princes, and men of distinction; but no tomb that has been opened, has rendered a single mummy so perfect, as those which we admire among the Egyptians; and if some rare and distant examples inform us of a durable preservation, the marvellous and extraordinary details accompanying it causes us to doubt the fact itself.
Thus, on the assertion of Gabriel Clauder, they saw in the time of St. Augustin, the bodies of Alexander, and of Ptolemy; their tomb has been visited for many ages, and they were enabled to distinguish the skin preserved with the members. But, continued they, all bodies do not resemble that of Alexander the Great, which was during his life, according to the report of Plutarch, and of Quintus Curtius, of a composition so rare and wonderful, that his skin, mouth, and all his person, rendered a very agreeable odour, and perfumed his clothes. It is said that his corpse, by the negligence of his friends and of his captains, remained several days without being embalmed, and that, nevertheless, when they went to visit it, it was found sound, without blemish, having even the complexion as fresh and florid as if he had been living, although he died of a continued fever: his appearance was so natural that the Egyptians and Chaldeans, who were charged to embalm him after their own manner, were at first afraid to approach him, thinking he might not be dead.
Such marvellous accounts are not sufficiently in harmony with the rigorous course which we have thus far followed, to induce us seriously to discuss them; we confine ourselves to the statement of each down to our own day, where well established facts will offer ample matter for reflection.
The Jewish people, who, like others, testified their respect for the dead, never admit the care of embalming the body as a common usage. Thus, Abraham purchased the field where Sarah was buried; Joseph had the body of his father magnificently embalmed; Moses only carried away the bones of Joseph; David praised the people of Gilead, for having buried with pomp Saul and his sons, &c. In most of these examples, no mention is made of embalming; nevertheless, the body of Jesus Christ was embalmed.
The following is nearly the method: each sex took care of its dead; they, first of all, close the mouth and eyes of the expired person, afterwards they shaved, washed, and rubbed it with perfumes; they tied it with bands, and buried it in several cloths of very fine linen or woollen, and finally, they put it into the sepulchre. Cornelius Jansenius thinks that the myrrh and aloes which they employed, had the virtue powerfully to resist putrefaction. It is useless to say that this opinion is without foundation; that the great quantities of aromatics which they consumed, was rather for pomp, than for the long preservation of the subject. They took no pains to dry the body; they did not disembarrass it of the intestines, and, in spite of all these odoriferous drugs, as Penicher justly remarks, decomposition must soon have revealed itself, as was testified by the body of Lazarus when resuscitated.
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.