PRESERVATION OF DEAD BODIES.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 2609, 1 April 1891, Page 1

PRESERVATION OF DEAD BODIES.

Although no useful object can be served by the artificial preservation of corpses, and though we are strongly of opinion/that til*} best thing that cart happen to our tenement of clay, when it is no longer informed by the divines particula aurai, is for it to be resolved as speedily and inoffensively as possible into its constituent elements, yet the prevention of decomposition is a subject of the highest scientific interest, and knowledge of the means of effecting this might conceivably be useful to medical men. A French physician — Dr. Variot — has recently been giving attention to this subject, and he has discovered, or, to speak, we believe, more accurately, perfected a method of preserv* ing dead bodies by galvanoplasty. To facilitate adherence of the metallic deposit he paints the skin with a concentra* ted solution of nitrate of silver, and reduces this with vapours of white phosphorus dissolved in sulphide of carbon, the skin being thus rendered dark and shiny. The body is then ready for the electric bath, which is served by a thermoelectric battery, giving a regular adherent deposit of copper if the current is properly regulated. With a layer of £to£ of a millimetre the envelope is solid enough to resist pressure or shock. Dr Variot further incinerates the metallic mummy, leaving holes for the escape of gasses. The corpse^ disappears, and a faithful image, or rather statue, remains. This method certainly seems superior, from the esthetic and sentimental, not less than from the sanitary point of view, to mummification; and if the old Roman fashion of adorning houses with the owner's ancestors sliould ever be revived, Dr. Variot't* galvancplastic siviulacra would doubtless be found cheaper and mOK realistic, if, perhaps, less artistically precious, than a collection of "grandsires cut in alaljaster" by an eminent sculptor. — . British Medical Jouraal.