The vegetable kingdom furnishes but few products capable of preventing or retarding putrefaction; alcohol is nearly the only substance possessing the property. It preserves in the same manner as the salts, by imbibing a portion of the water of composition; it bleaches, discolours, and hardens the organs. Alcohol is the only substance employed up to the present for preservation; but its action upon the tissues, its extreme volatility, the difficulty of transporting it, and its extreme dearness, makes another process desirable.
Tannin cannot be employed, because water does not contain enough of it in solution to render an injection of it preservative; a corpse immerged, even in a great mass of tannin, is no better preserved, the skin is tanned, but the flesh decomposes.[O]
Gallic acid acts in the same manner, but yet more feebly than tannin.
An oily, volatile, and very odorous substance, recently discovered, and to which the name Creosote, has been given, has been presented as a universal panacea, which, among other properties, ought to possess that of well preserving bodies. In order to assure myself of the truth of this assertion, on the 18th October, 1835, I injected a subject with one hundred scruples of creosote, dissolved in seven quarts water. On the 23d, the abdomen was very much swollen, and of a very strongly pronounced blue-green colour; on the 26th, the left side of the face, the right arm, and all of the left leg, were green; on the 30th of October, putrefaction was so much developed that it became necessary to bury the body. It may be objected, that the subject should have been at the same time steeped in a bath saturated with this substance; but its high price discouraged me from making such an experiment; besides I think that the odour of the creosote will always prove an obstacle to its employment.
Alum, the acid sulphate of alumine, and of potash, have given me the first good results; but, slightly soluble when cold, they will not suffice when the atmospherical temperature rises above fifteen degrees, (cent.) A mixture of alum, of chloride of sodium, (common salt,) and of nitrate of potash, has succeeded better with me. I have tried the action of sulphate of soda, of chloride of calcium, (muriate of lime,) of hydrochlorate of ammonia, &c.; they were almost useless.
The mixture of two parts of alum, of two parts of salt, and of one part of nitre, in a sufficient quantity of water to mark the liquor at ten degrees, injected, preserves bodies very well bathed in the same liquor, but only when the temperature is under ten degrees for a more elevated temperature it is necessary to warm the liquid, and add the salt mixture until the areometer marks twenty-five or thirty degrees.
Of all the saline substances which have given me satisfactory results, the aluminous deliquescent salts are to be preferred. The acetate and chloride of alumine have perfectly succeeded with me. In fine, a mixture of equal parts, of chloride of alumine at twenty degrees, and of the acetate of alumine at ten degrees, may be considered, employed in injection, as a good method which we now possess for the preservation of bodies.
Now that I have explained the action of chemical agents upon animal matters, I shall enter upon the details of experiments.
I presented my work to the Institute on the fourth of March, 1833. The Academy of Sciences named for its examination, a commission composed of MM. Savart, Flourens, Chevreuil, and Serres, reporter. A few days after, M. Serres placed at my disposition, at the Hospital La Pitié, and in his private cabinet, a corpse, which I bathed in a tub containing a solution at ten degrees, two parts of alum, two parts of common salt, and one part of nitre. This subject, repeatedly examined, appeared to be well preserved. At the end of about six weeks it was opened; the flesh and the viscera were in a good state of preservation, but particular circumstances put an end to this examination.