LENIN EMBALMED.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 26 November 1924, Page 7

LENIN EMBALMED.

BUSKIN “DISCOVERY.” NEW PROCESS CLAIMED. The body of Nikolai Lenin, Soviet Premier, which rests on a brilliant red brier in an hermetically sealed glasscovered coffin, has been exhibited W Ameriean and other foreign newspaper nieh. The embalmers appear to have accomplished something of a scientific miracle in fortifying the tissues of the dead Soviet leader against dissolution. All who knew Lenin, in life say that in death he looks as natural as on the day of his death.

Although the medical experts who embalmed the body say neither wax nor any colouring material was used, the face appears normal in every way, there being no indication of pigmentation of the flesh, emaciation v of the body or shrinkage of the features. The embalmers even contrived to impart a smile to the face.

The body is dressed in a semi-military suit of a material resembling American khaki. The hands rest easily on the chest, but with the right hand clenched, which was characteristic of Lenin in life.

Above the biack and red Coffin, with its pyramid-shaped glass canopy, ar© a set of fire axes and fire extinguishing apparatus. Armed Red soldiers stand at the head and foot of the heir.

Professor Sbarski, of the Moscow Institute of Chemical Science, who, with Professor Vorobeff, of Kharkov University, carried out the four month’s embalming process, said that neither the Egyptian nor any other foreign method of preservation had been adopted, but that for the first time in history a purely scientific chemical and medical formula, based on pathological research, had been employed. The water content of the body was displaced by a strong chemical solution containing glycerine, calcium and other elements.

The professor said experiments had been made on bodies furnished by the Russian morgues and pathological institutes.

Professor Sbarski said the methods of the ancient Egyptian embalmers had succeeded only in, mummifying bodies at the sacrifice of every trace of personality, while the new Russian method conserved everything life-like. If no marked change in. the temperature occurred in the tomb, Professor Sbarski said Lenin’s body should last for ever. The temperature is kept at 16 degrees Reamur (68 degrees Fahrenheit). Professor Sbarski said the cost of embalming was only 7500 dollars. A commission of experts which examined the body expressed the opinion that it would last in its present stat© from 36 to 40 years and perhaps longer. The face is illuminated by an electric light, the strong rays accentuating the pallor of the.face and emphasising with garish effect the crimson bed on which the body rests. Already 15,000 persons have viewed the body*. Their presence affected the temperature in the tomb by raising it only one degree. The rise is not considered by the experts as dangerous.

Embalmers in America are septieal about the reports from Moscow that Russian scientists had embalmed the body of Lenin so that the body would be preserved enduringly. “In Amercia we have long been far in advance,” Dr. Charles A. Henouard, head of a school of embalming, said to a reporter, “and it is unreasonable to suppose that the Russians have suddenly hit upon-something revolutionary. “The accounts state that the work wa s a great achievement, and then they proceed to describe it, and it turns out to be just what we are doing every day In. this country we can and do preserve the human body in. its .natural condition •jt the time of death, and here it is more difficult because of the climate. “Except for the cold weather, when Lenin died, the work could not have been so succesful.”

Frank E. Campbell,- a funeral director, said the embalming of Lenin did not appear extraordinary. Bodies were being preserved in the same way, he said, in glass caskets, hermetically sealed.

Dr. Ludlow Bull, acting curator of the Egyptian department, Metropolitan Museum, said it undoubtedly was true that the embalming of Lenin had little in common • with ancient Egyptian methods.

“Nothing was done to preserve the features of the Egyptian mummies,” he said. “The organs and brain were removed, and aromatic substances were injected, such a s wood pitch, as well as natural salts, as is now the case here.

“It must be remembered that the Egyptian climate has done as much towards preserving these ancient bodies ns the embalmers have done. Dry sand, no rain, places of entombment high above the river level— these things helped.

“The age of our oldest mummy is a little over 4000 years, but we have bodies buried in dry sand as old as 6000

years, indicating the power of nature’s preservative^. “I do not see that it is a remarkable achievement, having great value, even if a way had been found to preserve the body for ever. We have the death mask now, to inform ages about the appearances of our great men. Why preserve the outworn cell?”