History of Embalming / and of Preparations in Anatomy, Pathology, and Natural History; Including an Account of a New Process for Embalming

by J.-N. Gannal

We have just seen that M. Bougery, M. Amussat, and, in general, all who consign themselves to continued anatomical researches, follow this process, and have found benefit from it. It is desirable that it should have been adopted in some grand amphitheatre of anatomy, and that its use should have been subjected to the chances of an extensive practice. It appears that the additional expense which its application would occasion, has opposed its introduction, thus far, into such an establishment.

Nevertheless, it is incontestible, that the use of the injections of M. Gannal deprives subjects of all putrid odour, and it is to be hoped that it will diminish, if not altogether put an end to the serious accidents which happen too often to anatomists who are so unfortunate as to be wounded in dissecting. This is yet only a presumption; extended experience can only determine the fact.

Your commission thinks, then, that it has reason to recommend the adoption of this process in the amphitheatres of dissection, notwithstanding it may occasion a slight increase of expense. How trifling, indeed, is this consideration, when it is proposed to render anatomical studies more easy, and more healthful; when it is calculated to render them more fruitful, since each subject could be made to serve a greater number of students, who, working without disgust or repugnance, would much better preserve the free exercise of their faculties!

All things considered, the expense, already inconsiderable, and which will become still less hereafter, is then equivalent to real economy, if, for example, the cost of an anatomical education to a student be calculated. By the aid of the new process, fewer subjects are necessary for the same number of students; or rather, with the same number of subjects, the education of a much greater number of students may be completed.

Your commission has been strongly impressed with these considerations; it has thought that the process under consideration was sufficiently proved; that it might, even now, be practised habitually in dissecting amphitheatres; and that this has not already been effected, is evidently due to administrative circumstances.

Consequently, it has the honour to propose to you to award to M. Gannal a prize of $1600.

The members of the commission agreed that it was expedient to recommend my process to the dissecting amphitheatres: their wish is in part accomplished, since, by decision of the central administration of hospitals, the subjects are henceforward to be subjected, in the capacious chambers of Clamart, to one of the injections, the compositions of which I have given. This decision will not astonish those of our readers who are aware that M. Serres is charged with the direction of the anatomical arrangements at Clamart; this gentleman, whose works have elevated him to so distinguished a rank, has been long known for the zeal and noble disinterestedness with which he advances all useful discoveries.

2.—Preservation of subjects of normal anatomy, of pathological anatomy, and of natural history.

As it is my intention to publish hereafter a complete work on the preservation of pieces of pathological anatomy, and of objects of natural history, which, besides the details into which I might enter, would lead me beyond the proper limits of this work, I shall confine myself here to some results obtained during the last three years, and the composition of the liquids derived therefrom.

1. In 1833, I took the thigh and all the organs contained in the abdominal cavity of an infant at full term, and treated them after the manner to be hereafter indicated, and at the present moment, 8th December, 1837, I preserve the pieces in two jars. They display no sensible alteration, and are as fit for study as when first separated from the subject.