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Page 15
Desiccation, in striking contrast with embalming, is the process of
nature rather than of art, and involves no mutilation and no
substitution of foreign substances for human flesh, and does not by
unnatural means preserve the semblance of the human form so long that a
susceptible sentiment is shocked and a due return of material humanity
to the elements that gave it birth prevented. Desiccation is so far a
natural process that it seems not to have been thought of until nature
had done the work and shown the product, and through many centuries, and
upon an extensive scale, nature had employed the process before it
occurred to man to copy her and adopt her method for the disposition of
his dead.
Wherever the air that enwrapped the lifeless form of man or beast was
dry, desiccation anticipated and prevented decomposition. In deserts,
upon elevated plains, upon the slopes of lofty mountain ranges, to which
the winds that passed their summits bore no moisture, the dead have not
decayed, but have dried undecomposed. In the morgue attached to the
Hospice of St. Bernard, the dead, lifted too late from their shroud of
snow, and borne thither to await the recognition of their friends, dry,
and do not decay. In the "Catacombs" of the monastery of the Capuchins
at Palermo, and in the "Bleikeller" at Bremen, the same phenomenon has
appeared. Even Egypt is a confirmation of these statements, for it is
probable that, had much less care been taken to preserve the dead, they
would not there have yielded to decay as in other lands; and that
moisture is so far absent from the atmosphere that the dead would have
been preserved from decay by desiccation had not embalming been resorted
to. Upon the elevated Western plains of this continent, the bodies of
beasts and men by thousands have been preserved from decomposition by
desiccation. To take one instance out of many that might be cited: A
cave was not long ago discovered high up among the Sierra Madre
Mountains, within which were found, where they had rested undisturbed
for many years, the lifeless figures of a little aboriginal household,
dried and undecayed. Father, mother, son and daughter, one by one, as
death had overtaken them, had been brought thither, bound so as to keep
in death the attitude that had marked them when at their rest in life,
and there they bore their silent but impressive witness to the
beneficent action of the unmoist air that had stayed decay and kept them
innocuous to the living that survived them. In Peru, instances of this
simple, wholesome process abound on almost every side; upon the elevated
plains and heights, as also beside the sea, the dead of Inca lineage,
with the lowliest of their subjects, are found in uncounted numbers,
testifying that in their death they did not injure the living, because
desiccation saved them from decomposition; and a recent traveller has
vividly described the scene that a battlefield of the late war presents,
and that illustrates the same process, where, though years have passed
since the last harsh sound of strife was heard, the fierce and bitter
combatants still seem eager to rush to conflict or to sink reluctant
into the embrace of death. And all these instances furnish conclusive
proof that decomposition can be controlled, and that its loathsome and
unwholesome transformations can be prevented, if only the simple
conditions are secured that have already so extensively effected this
result. That these conditions can be secured no one can doubt, for,
every-day, in almost every clime, by processes familiar and available to
man, the atmosphere has moisture added to it or taken from it; and the
extraction of the moisture from a portion of the atmosphere is all that
is required to introduce the process of Peruvian desiccation into the
sepulchres of Chicago or New York.
It will naturally be further asked: "Is this all that has been done to
demonstrate the efficiency and availability of desiccation for the
dead?" To this the answer would be sufficient that the evidence that has
been adduced is ample, and that, at once, in perfect confidence as to
the result, mausoleums might be erected, with provision for the
withdrawal of the moisture from the atmosphere, and for the passage of
the desiccated air through the sepulchres in which the dead should rest.
So little is involved, and so much has been accomplished without the
application of any human skill, that it seems inevitable that, as soon
as the resources of modern architecture and sanitary science are drawn
upon, the desired result will be at once attained. But, to make
assurance doubly sure, several carefully-conducted experiments have been
made, under the supervision of the directors of the New Mausoleum
movement, that prove that the conditions of desiccation can be
controlled and that decomposition can be prevented, that where it has
begun it can be stayed, and that prolonged preservation, with a fair
approximation to the appearance in life, can be made sure for the
recognition of absent friends, for transportation or the furtherance of
the ends of justice.
When, now, it is added that desiccation has been ascertained to be an
efficient agent in the destruction of disease germs, as proved by the
experiments of Dr. Sternberg, of the Hoagland Laboratory, and by the
investigations of other experts, enough seems to have been said to
establish the truth of the assertion that entombment can be made
sanitary, and that, therefore, entombment offers the satisfactory
solution of the problem how to dispose of the dead so as to do no
violence to a reverent and tender sentiment, and at the same time not to
imperil the public health.
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