Facial features are set by putting cotton in the nose, eye caps below the eyelids, and a mouth-former in the mouth, with cotton or gauze in the throat to absorb purging fluids.
The mouth is then tied shut with wire or sutures. Glue may be used on the eyelids or lips to keep them closed in an appropriate pose. Facial hair is shaved if necessary. Arterial embalming is begun by injecting embalming fluid into an artery while blood is drained from a nearby vein or from the heart.
The two gallons or so needed is usually a mixture of formaldehyde or other chemical and water. Chemicals are also injected by syringe into other areas of the body. The second part of the embalming process is called cavity embalming.
A trocar—a long, pointed, metal tube attached to a suction hose—is inserted close to the navel. The embalmer uses it to puncture the stomach, bladder, large intestines, and lungs. The anus and vagina may be packed with cotton or gauze to prevent seepage if necessary. A close-fitting plastic garment may also be used.
Nails are manicured, any missing facial features are molded from wax, makeup is used on the face and hands, and head hair is styled. There are other factors involved that affect the longevity, and some of these include humidity, heat, cold, soil type, availability of oxygen, body weight and size, clothing, and the surface on which the body rests.
Even the type of coffin the deceased is buried in plays a part. Soft timbers such as pine break down more than the hardwood variety. As a result of these variables, it is almost impossible to give an exact estimate of the time an embalmed corpse will last when buried in a coffin. You could say that it could be from as little as a few years to as much as years or even more. If the deceased is buried six feet down without a coffin in ordinary soil, an un-embalmed adult normally takes weeks to decompose to a skeleton.
However, an embalmed body placed in a coffin enables the body to last for many years depending on the type of wood used. An embalmed body can last up to ten years or longer under normal burial circumstances. The reason for embalming is to preserve the body for a certain amount of time, to try to stave off the deterioration of the body.
I had seen her death coming for years and worked through the pain to accept it. But at that moment, I thought she might sit up and look at me, and a lot of my hard-won acceptance was lost. More than thirty years later, I still resent what was done to her, and to me. The experience left me wondering, If we grieve because the person we loved has died, why do we so often make a dead person appear alive?
The common practice of embalming has one purpose: it slows the decomposition of a dead body so that a funeral can be delayed for several days and cosmetic work can be done on the corpse. Despite the appearances it creates, it is a violent process, and the corpses still decompose. It just makes a dead body look, more or less, not dead, for a little while.
About a century ago, embalming was rare. But during the Civil War , thousands of dead soldiers were embalmed.
They died so far from home that the only alternative was a battlefield burial, so a rudimentary process using arsenic was used. Then, a few years later, President Lincoln was embalmed so that his body could cross the several states in a funeral train; in the public mourning, many Americans saw a preserved body for the first and last time.
By the early twentieth century, embalming was being promoted to the general public. It was the main skill of the new profession of undertaker. Professionally managed funerals with temporarily preserved bodies quickly became the convention; this is how the majority of Americans were buried in the 20th century. I have come to believe that the opposite is true. Embalming and the so-called restorative arts are about denial and, as a result, they unwittingly cause us greater pain.
What good is served by turning away from the fact of loss? But even that shell won't last forever. A century in, the last of your bones will have collapsed into dust. And only the most durable part of your body, your teeth, will remain. Teeth, grave wax, and some nylon threads.
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