This table is important, as it gives the composition of the different liquids of which we shall see the application.
The liquid of injection, of which we have indicated the preparation and the quantity, is sufficient during winter, and moderate temperatures; but when it passes 20° it ought to be more abundant, or the solution more concentrated.
When it is intended to preserve the body for a longer period, it is necessary to neutralize the sulphuric acid, which is taken up by the addition of acetate of lead. Two hundred and fifty scruples of this salt for one killogram of the dry sulphate produces the desired effect. If the preservation is to be indefinitely prolonged, the use of the acetate of lead will have a tendency at length to blacken the epidermis. Indeed, as it is impossible to cause all the lead to disappear, the small quantity of this salt remaining in the liquid will be then decomposed by the hydro-sulphuric acid disengaged by the corpse, or rather by the sulphur which it contains, and the salt of lead is changed into sulphuret, a black insoluble powder, giving to the body all the exterior aspect of the negro.
I preserved in my cabinet an infant treated after this method; its skin, after the lapse of a year, became black, not of that colour assumed by animal matters in drying, but of the finest negro colour that could be conceived.
I finish with these details; for the facts of prolonged preservation of which we have just spoken are derived from the wants of the anatomists; and, previous to proceeding to other considerations, it is best to exhaust all that we have to make known concerning my processes of preservation applied in amphitheatres to subjects intended to be dissected. The preservation of these subjects, it is known, would be prolonged without any advantage beyond two or three months at all seasons.
I shall therefore terminate all that is relative to this first portion of my labour, by the report of the committee of the members of the Institute. They have admitted the result of my labours to be of great utility, and that it merits the encouragement of the grand Monthyon prize, founded on the discovery of any means calculated to remedy the insalubrity of any art or profession.
The following is the report:
Upon the preservation of the dead body, by M. Gannal.
The Academy is well aware, having recommended an encouragement to the author, that M. Gannal has made numerous experiments on the preservation of dead bodies, either with the view of making dissecting amphitheatres more healthful, or to obtain a method of embalming at the same time economical and certain.
As far as concerns embalming of dead bodies, it will be conceded that before advancing an opinion, it would be necessary to prolong the proofs for several years, which has not yet been accomplished for the process under consideration. Besides, as this investigation would be without the bounds of the duties of your commission on noxious arts, even when it shall have attained perfection, we were only disposed to examine it under the head of instruction. The judgment which we are about to give should then be considered as applying exclusively to processes concerning the amphitheatres of dissection. In this latter case, the experiments being less tedious, could be varied and multiplied sufficiently to demonstrate that we actually possess a process capable of preserving dead bodies, during the longest period that the most minute dissection could exact.