Note: Jessica
Mitford (1917-1996) was Born in Batsford Mansion, England, to a wealthy,
aristocratic family. She rebelled against her sheltered upbringing, became
involved in left-wing politics, and eventually immigrated to the United States.
In the 1950’s, she began a career in investigative journalism, which produced t
he book The American Way of Death: Behind
the Formaldehyde Curtain (1963), about the abuses in the funeral business
as well as other critiques on the U.S. prison system and American Health care.
The drama
begins to unfold with the arrival of the corpse at the mortuary.
Alas, poor
Yorick! How surprised he would be to see how his counterpart of today is
whisked off to a funeral parlor and is in short order painted, rouged, and
neatly dressed-transformed from a common corpse into a Beautiful Memory
Picture. This process is known in the trade as embalming and restorative art,
and is so universally employed in the United States and Canada that the funeral
director does it routinely, without consulting corpse or kin. He regards as
eccentric those few who are hardly enough to suggest that it might be dispended
with. Yet no law requires embalming, no religious doctrine commends it, nor it
is dictated by consideration of health, sanitation, or even of personal
daintiness. In no part of the world but in Northern America is it widely used.
The purpose of embalming is to make the corpse presentable for viewing in a
suitable costly container; and here to the funeral director routinely, without
first consulting the family, prepares the body for public display.
* * *
Embalming
is indeed a most extraordinary procedure, and one must wonder at the docility
of American who each year pay hundreds of million of dollars of its
perpetuation, blissfully ignorant of what it is all about, what is done. Not
one in ten thousands has any idea of what actually takes place. Books on the
subject are extremely hard to come by. They are not to be found in most
libraries or bookshops.
In an era
when huge television audiences watch surgical operations in the comfort of
their living rooms, when, thanks to the animated cartoon, the geography of the
digestive system has become familiar territory even to the nursery school set,
in a land where the satisfaction of curiosity about almost all matters is a
national pastime, the secrecy surrounding embalming can, surely, hardly be
attributed to the inherit gruesomeness of the subject. Custom in this regard has
within this century suffered a complete reversal. In the early days of America
embalming, when it was performed in the home of the deceased, it was almost
mandatory for some relative to stay by the embalmer’s side and witness the
procedure. Today, family members who might wish to be in attendance would
certainly be dissuaded by the funeral director. All others, except apprentices,
are excluded by law from the preparation room.
A close
look at what does actually take place may explain in large measure the
undertaker’s intractable reticence concerning a procedure that has become his
major raison d’etre. Is it possible he fears that public information about
embalming might lead patrons to wonder if they really want this service? If the
funeral men are loath to discuss the subject outside the trade, the reader may,
understandably, be equally loath to go on reading at this point. For those who
have the stomach for it, let us part the formaldehyde curtain…
The body is
first laid out in the undertaker’s morgue—or rather, Mr. Jones is reposing in
the preparation room—to be readied to bid the world farewell.
The
preparation room in any of the better funeral establishments has the tiled and
sterile look of a surgery, and indeed them embalmer—restorative artist who does
his chores there is beginning to adopt the term dermasurgeon (appropriately
corrupted by some mortician-writers as “dermasurgeon”) to describe his calling.
His equipment, consisting of scalpels, scissors, augers, forceps, clamps,
needles, pumps, tubes, bowls, and basins, is crudely imitate of the surgeon’s,
as is his technique, acquired in a nine-or twelve-month post-high-school course
in an embalming school. He is supplied by a advanced chemical industry with a
bewildering array of fluids, sprays, pastes, oils, powders, creams, to fix or
soften tissue, shrink or distend it as needed, dry it here, restore the
moisture there. There are cosmetics, waxes, and paints to fill and cover
features, even plaster of Paris to replace entire limbs. There ingenious aids
to prop and stabilize the cadaver: a Vari-Pose Head rest, the Edward Arm and
Hand Positioner, the Repose Block (to support the shoulders during the
embalming), and the Throop Foot Positioner, which resembles an old-fashioned
stocks.
Mr. John H.
Eckels, president of the Eckels College of Mortuary Science, thus describes the
first part of the embalming procedures: “In the hands of a skilled particular,
this works may be done in a comparatively short time and without mutilating the
body other than by slight incision—so slight that is scarcely would cause
serious inconvenience if made upon a living person. It is necessary to remove
the blood, and doing this not only helps in the disinfecting, but removes the
principal cause of disfiguration due to discoloration.”
Another
textbook discusses the all-important time element: “The earlier this is done,
the better, for every hour that elapses between death and embalming will add to
the problems and complications encountered…” Just how soon should one get going
on the embalming? The author tell us, “On the basis of such scanty information
made available to this profession through its rudimentary and haphazard system
of technical research, we must conclude that the best results are to be
obtained if the subject is embalming before life is completely extinct—that is,
before cellular death has occurred. In the average case, this would mean within
an hour after somatic death.” For those who feel that there is something a
little rudimentary, not to say haphazard, about this advice, a comforting
thought is offered by another writer. Speaking of fears entertained by early
days of premature burial.” How true; once the blood is removed, chances of live
burial are indeed remote.
To return
to Mr. Jones, the blood is drained out through the veins and replaced by
embalming fluid pumped in through the arteries. As noted in The Principles and
Practices of Embalming, “every operator has a favorite injection and drainage
point—a fact which becomes a handicap only if he fails or refuses to forsake
his favorite when conditions demand it.” Typical favorite are the carotid
artery, femoral artery, jugular vein, subclavian vein. There are various
choices of embalming choices. If Flextone is used, it will produce a “mild,
flexible rigidity. The skin retains a velvety softness; the tissue is rubbery
and pliable. Ideal for a woman and children.” It may be blended with B. and G.
Producers Company’s Lyf-Lyk tint, which is guaranteed to reproduce “nature’s
own skin texture…the velvety appearance of living tissue.” Suntone comes in
three separate tints: Suntan; Special Cosmetic Tint, a pink shade “especially
indicated for female subjects”; and Regular Cosmetic Tint, moderately pink.
About three
to six gallons of a dyed and perfumed solution of formaldehyde, glycerin,
borax, phenol, alcohol, and water is soon culating through Mr. Jones, whose
mouth has been sewn together with a “needle directed upward between the upper
lip and the gum and brought out through the left nostril,” with the corners
raised slightly “for a more pleasant expression.” If he should be bucktoothed,
his teeth are cleaned with Bon Ami and coated with colorless nail polish. His
eyes, meanwhile, are closed with flesh-tinted eye caps and eye cement.
The next
stop is to have at Mr. Jones with a thing called a trocar. This is a long,
hollow needle attached to a tube. It is jabbed into the abdomen, poked around
the entrails and chest cavity, the contents of which are pumped out and
replaced with “cavity fluid.” This done, and the whole in the abdomen sewn up,
Mr. Jones’s face is heavily creamed (to protect the skin from burns which may
be caused by leakage of the chemicals), and he is covered with a sheet and left
unmolested for a while. But not for long—there is more, much more, in store for
him. He has been embalming, not yet restored, and the best time to start the
restorative work is eight to ten hours after embalming, when the tissue have
become firm and dry.
The object
of all this attention to the corpse, it must be remembered, is to make it
presentable for viewing in attitude of healthy repose. “Our custom require the
presentation of our dead in the semblance of normality…unarmed by the ravages
of illness, disease, or mutilation,” says Mr. J. Sheridan Mayer in his Restorative
Art. This is rather a large order since few people die in the full bloom of
health, unravaged by illness and unmarked by some disfigurement. The funeral
industry is equal to the challenge: “In some case the gruesome appearance of a
mutilated or disease-ridden subject may be quite discouraging. The task of
restoration may seem impossible and shake the confidence of the embalmer. This
is the time for intestinal fortitude and determination. Once the formative work
is begun and affected tissues are cleaned and removed, all doubts of success
vanish. It is surprising and gratifying to discover the results which may be
obtained.”
The
embalmer, having allowed an appropriate interval to elapse, returns to the
attack, but now he brings into play the skills and equipment of sculptor and
cosmetician. Is a hand missing? Casting one in the plaster of Paris is a simple
matter. “For replacement purpose, only a cast of the back of the hand is
necessary; this is within the ability of average operator and is quite adequate.”
If a lip or two, a nose, or a ear should be missing, the embalmer has at hand a
variety of restorative waxes with which to model replacements. Pores and skins
textures are simulated by stippling with a little brush, and over this cosmetic
are laid on. Head off? Decapitation cases are rather routinely handled. Raged
edges are trimmed, and head joined or torso with a series of splints, wires,
and sutures. It is a good idea to have a little something at the neck—a scarf
or a high collar—when times of viewing come. Swollen mouth? Cut out tissue as
needed from inside the lips. If too much is removed, the surface contour can be
easily restored by padding with cotton. Swollen necks and cheeks are reduced by
removing tissue through vertical incisions made down each side of the neck.
“When the deceased is casketed, the pillow will hide the suture incisions…as an
extra precaution against leakage, the suture may be painted with liquid
sealer.”
The opposite condition is more
likely to present itself—that of emaciation. His hypodermic syringe no loaded
with massage cream, the embalmer seems out and fills the hallowed and sunken
areas by injection. In this procedure the backs of the hands and fingers and
the under-chain area should not be neglected.
Positioning the lips is a problem
that recurrently challenges the ingenuity of the embalmer. Closed too tightly,
they tend to give a stern, even disapproving expression. Ideally, embalmer
feel, the lips should give the impression of being ever so slightly parted, the
upper lip protruding slightly for a more youthful appearance. This takes some
engineering, however, as the lips tend to drift apart. Lip drift can sometimes
be remedied by pushing one or two straight pins through the inner margin of the
lower lip and then inserting them between the two front upper teeth. If Mr.
Jones happens to have no teeth, the pins can just as easily be anchored in his
Armstrong Face Former and Denture replacer. Another method to maintain lip
closure is to dislocate the lower jaw, Which then held in its new position by a
wire run through holes which have been drilled through the upper and lower jaws
at the midline. As the French are fond of saying, il faut souffrir pour etre belle*.
If Mr.
Jones has died of Jaundice, the embalming fluid will very likely turn him
green. Does this deter the embalmer? Not if he has intestinal fortitude. Making
pastes and cosmetics are heavily laid on, burial garments and caskets interiors
are color-correlated with particular care, and Jones is displayed beneath
rose-colored lights. Friends will say “How well he looks.” Death by carbon
monoxide, on the other hand, can be a rather a good thing from the embalmer’s
viewpoint: “One advantage is the fact that this type of discoloration is an
exaggerated form of the natural pink coloration.” This is nice because the
healthy glow is already present and needs but little attention.
The
patching and filling completed, Mr. Jones is now shaved, washed, and dressed.
Cream-based cosmetics, available in pink, flesh, suntan, brunette, and blond,
is applied to his hands and face, his hair is shampooed and combed (and, in the
case of Mr. Jones, set), his hands manicured. For the horny-handed son of toil
special care must be taken; cream should be applied to remove ingrained grime,
and the nails cleaned. “If he were not in the habit of having them manicured in
life, trimmed and shaping is advised for better appearance—never questioned by
kin.” Jones is now ready for casketing (this is the present particles of the
verb “to casket”). In this operation his right shoulder should be depressed
slightly “to turn the body a bit to the right and soften the appearance of
lying flat on the back.” Positioning the hands is the matter of importance, and
special rubber positioning blocks may be used. The hands should be cupped
slightly for a more lifelike, relaxed appearance. Popper placement of the body
requires a delicate sense of balance. It should lie as high as possible in the
casket, yet not so high that the lid, when lowered, will hit the nose. On the
other hand, we are cautioned, placing the body too low “creates the impression
that the body is in a box.”
Jones is next wheeled into the
appointed slumber room where a few last touches may be added—his favorite pipe
placed in his hand or, if he was a great reader, a book, a book propped into
position. (In the case of little Master Jones a Teddy bear may be clutched.)
Here he will hold open house for a few days, visiting hours 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
* It is necessary to suffer in
order to be beautiful.
Questions
on Meaning
1. What
was you emotional response to this essay? Can you analyze your feelings?
2. To
what does the author attribute the secrecy that surrounds the process of
embalming?
3. What,
according to Mitford, is the mortician’s intent? What common obstacles to
fulfilling it must be surmounted?
4. What
do you understand form Mitford’s remark in paragraph 10, on dispelling fears of
live burial: “How true; once the blood is removed, chances of live burial are
indeed remote”?
5. Do
you find any implied purpose in this essay? Does Mitford seem primarily out to
rake muck, or does she offer any positive suggestions to Americans?
Question on Writing Strategy
1. What
is Mitford’s tone? In her opening two paragraphs, exactly what shows her
attitude toward her subject?
2. Why
do you think Mitford goes into so much grisly detail? How does it serve her
purpose?
3. What
is the effect of calling the body Mr. Jones (or Master Jones)?
4.
Into what stages has the author divided the
embalming process?
5.
To whom does Mitford address her process
analysis? How do you know she isn’t writing for an audience of professional
morticians?
