EMBALMING, the art of preserving the body after death, invented by the Egyptians, whose prepared bodies are known by the name of mummies, and are called in the hieroglyphs sahu, and by St. Augustine gabbaroe. This art seems to have derived its origin from the idea that the preservation of the body was necessary for the return of the soul to the human form after it had completed its cycle of existence of three or ten thousand years. Physical and sanitary reasons may also have induced the ancient Egyptians; and the legend of Osiris, whose body, destroyed by Typhon, was found by Isis, and embalmed by his son Anubis, gave a religious sanction to the rite, all deceased persons being supposed to be embalmed after the model of Osiris in the abuton, of Phi lie. The art appears as old as 2000 B. c., at least the bodies of Cheops, Itlycerinus, and others of the age of the 4th dynasty having been embalmed. One of the earliest recorded embalmments on record is that of the patriarch Jacob; and the body of Joseph was thus prepared, and transported out of Egypt. The process has been described by Herodotus and Diodorus; but their accounts can only refer to their own age, and are only partially confirmed by an examination of the mummies. The following seems to have been the usual rule observed after death. The relations of the deceased went through the city chanting a wail for the dead. The corpse of a male was at once committed into the charge of the undertakers; if a female, it was retained at home till decomposition had begun. The paraschistes, or flank-inciser of the district, a person of low class, whose establishment was situated in the cemeteries or suburbs, conveyed the corpse home. A scribe marked with a reed-pen a line on the left side beneath the ribs, down which line the paraschistes made a deep incision with a rude knife or Ethiopian stone, probably flint. He was then pelted by those around with stones, and pursued with curses. Another kind of embalmer, the taricheutes, or preparer, then proceeded to remove the entrails and lungs, with the exception of the heart and kidneys. The brain was extracted by another taricheutes, by a crooked instrument, through the nose. All this having been effected, the body was ready for the salts and spices necessary for its preservation, and the future operations depended upon the sum to be expended on the task. When Herodotus visited Egypt, three methods prevailed: the first, accessible only to the wealthy, consisted in passing peculiar drugs through the nostrils into the cavities of the skull, rinsing the belly in palm-wine, and Slang it with resins, cassia, and other substances, and stitching up the incision in the left flank. The mummy was then steeped in natron for seventy days, and wrapped up in linen, cemented by gums, and set upright in a wooden coffin against the walls of the house or tomb. This process cost a silver talent, which, considering the relative value of ancient money at one third of that at present, would amount to about £725. The second process consisted in removing the brain, as before, but only injecting the viscera with kedrion, or cedar oil, and soaking the corpse in a solution of natron for seventy days, which brought away or destroyed the viscera and soft portions, leaving only the skin and bones. The expense was a mina, relatively worth about £243. The third process, in use for the poorer classes, washed the corpse in myrrh, and salted it for seventy days. The expense was a trifle, not mentioned. When thus prepared, the bodies were ready for sepulture, but were often kept some time before being buried—often at home—and even produced at festive entertainments, to recall to the guests the transient lot of humanity. When buried, they were sent to the cholchytc; a higher class than the tarichsutce, who had charge of the tombs, the mummies, and the masses for the dead. All classes were
embalmed, even malefactors; and those who were drowned in the Nile or killed by crocodiles received an embalmment from the city nearest to which the accident occurred. As the art, however, existed for many centuries, it may be easily conceived that mum mies were preserved by very different means, and quite distinct from those described by classical authors, some having been found merely dried in the sand; others Salted by nation, or boiled in resins and bitumen, with or without the flank incision, having the brains removed through the eyes or base of the cranium, with the viscera returned into the body, placed upon it, or deposited in jars in shapes of the genii of the dead, the skin partially gilded, the flank incision covered with a tin plate, the fingers cased in silver, the eyes removed,. and replaced. The mummies are generally wrapped in linen ban dages, and placed in costly coffins. See SARCOPRAGES. The sacred animals were also mummied, but by simpler processes than men. Mummies, it may be observed in pass ing, were used in the 15th and 16th centuries of the Christian era for drugs and other medical purposes, and nostrums against diseases, and a-peculiar brown color, used as the background of pictures, was obtained from the bitumen. The Ethiopians used similar means to preserve the dead, and the successful nature of embalming may be judged from the numerous mummies in the different museums of Europe. Other less successful means were used by nations of antiquity to embalm. The Persians employed wax; the Assyrians, honey; the Jews embalmed their monarchs with spices, with which the body of our Lord was also anointed; Alexander the great was pre served in wax and honey, and some Roman bodies have been found thus embalmed. The Guanches, or ancient inhabitants of the Canary isles, used an elaborate process like the Egyptians; and desiccated bodies, preserved by atmospheric or other circumstances for centuries, have been found in France, Sicily, England, and. America, especially in Central America and Peru. The art of embalming was probably never lost in Europe: and De Bils, Ruysch, Swammerdam, and Clauderus boast of great success in the art. There was a celebrated cabinet of M. De Rasiere in 1727, containing prepared bodies; and the mode of embalming princes and others, by prepared balms and other substances, is detailed byPenicher, consisting in the removal and separate embalmment of the heart and viscera, and removing the brain, and introducing the preparations by incisions all over the body. Dr. Hunter injected essential oils through the principal arteries into the body. Boudet, during the French empire, embalmed the bodies of the senators with camphor, balsam of Peru, Jews' pitch, tan and salt; but the discovery of Chaussier of the preservative power of corrosive sublimate, by which animal matter becomes rigid, hard, and grayish, introduced a new means of embalming by Beclard and Larrey; but owing to the desiccation the features do not retain their shape. The discovery of the preservative power of a mixture of equal parts of acetate and chloride of alumina, or of sulphate of alumina, by Bannal in 1834, and of that of arsenic by Tranchini, and of pyroxilic spirits by Babington and Rees in 1839, and of the antiseptic nature of chloride of zinc, have led to the application of these salts to the embalming or preparation of bodies required to be preserved for a limited time; but there is no reason to believe that bodies so preserved will last as as Egyptian mummies. See Pettigrew, _History of' Mummies (4to, Loud. 1834); Gannal, Traire d'Embaumement (8vo, Paris, 1838), translated by Harlan (8vo, Philadelph. 1840); Magnus, Das Einbalsamiren der Leichen (8vo, Braunsch. 1839).