Kitabı oku: «History of Embalming», sayfa 8

This part of the operation was made with extreme minuteness; the organs cut into pieces about the size of the fist, were separately dried in balsamic powders, then supplied abundantly with chloride of lime, and surrounded with stoupes steeped in the alcoholic solution of the sublimate; each package, thus constituted, was invested in two plates of lead, and placed in the cavity of the thorax; aromatic powders, chloride of lime, and stoupes, steeped in the sublimate, separated the different layers.

The heart, (for the satisfaction of the relatives,) was left entire, and replaced in its natural position, after having been subjected to the same preparations. The cranium was filled with the same substances employed for the preservation of each organ.

6. The segment raised on a level with the lambdoidal suture, the integuments are to be united by methodical suture, and the same is to be done for the abdomen and thorax.

The seam on the scalp was not visible, because it was covered by the hair, with which the head was yet abundantly covered. The trunk was not deformed.

7. Application of the bandages.– Previously to applying the bandages, a coat of varnish is given to the whole body, with the exception of the face, and immediately upon this varnish are placed layers of lead; it is then only, that methodical bandages are made to cover all the parts, from the fingers and toes to the head; each turn of bandage was fixed by a point of suture, then covered again with another layer of varnish, with new plates of lead, and finally, with a new bandage applied with the same care as the first.

The face, until now remaining free, was submitted to the same applications, but so arranged that it could be uncovered at any time, without disturbing the rest of the bandages.

The body was then covered with a cloth, surrounded with a mantel of satin, and deposited in a leaden coffin: it was left exposed to the air for more than twenty-four hours, without exhaling any other odour than that of the aromatics employed.

The operation which had commenced at ten o’clock in the morning, was not terminated until after two in the morning.

The operation was very painful on account of the gas, particularly the chlorine, which was freely exhaled towards the latter part of the process, fatiguing the assistants, who were all tormented with a very violent irritating cough.

Such are the details of this embalming, which had been announced as constituting the perfection of the interesting necropsy described in one of the late numbers of the Bulletin Clinique.

A. Loreau,

E. Chanut.

What strange naivetè on the part of the embalmer! he had just stated that the operation was very painful on account of the gas, particularly of the chlorine, which was freely exhaled during the latter part of the process, very much fatiguing the assistants. Ought you not to have anticipated this, you who were charged with such preparations? Ought you not to have known even the inutility of such an incoherent mixture of substances?

It is not excusable, indeed, to be ignorant that the chloride of lime, (chloride of the oxide of calcium,) mixed with the deuto-chloride of mercury, produces, with the disengagement of chlorine, two new products, first, the chloride of calcium, (muriate of lime,) and the deutoxide of mercury, (red precipitate,) an insoluble substance, to which no one has ever attributed conservative properties. Upon what principle, further, upon what positive knowledge are we authorized to make so frequent use of the chloride of lime in embalming? No scientific data justifies this practice. Is it because it possesses disinfecting properties? But this is the very reason why it should be rejected, for in what manner does it act upon putrid miasmata? Is it not by decomposing them? No one doubts this, excepting always the embalmers; who are probably also ignorant that it possesses in the highest degree the property of decomposing animal and vegetable matter. I have proved in the course of my researches, that a fresh corpse, injected with one of the chlorides of the oxide of sodium, calcium, potassium, is in a complete state of dissolution, at the end of forty-eight hours.

These researches, which I have pushed in various directions, have weighed hardest upon the substance which has been extolled as excellent, and as very superior to any thing used by the ancients in embalming: I applied myself to establish, as far as practicable, the precise degree of confidence that the deuto-chloride of mercury merited under these circumstances. It is very true that it preserves animal matter plunged into a solution of it; but to what degree, and under what rules? The following is a brief exposition:

1. Coarse anatomical pieces, (a preparation of the muscles of the arm, for example,) plunged into and maintained in a saturated solution of the deuto-chloride of mercury, and then dried, are protected from corruption, but they become brown, stiff, and so deformed as scarcely to be recognized.

2. The injection of this liquid is not sufficient to arrest the progress of decomposition – this salt not being sufficiently soluble.

3. The simple immersion of a corpse in it hardens the skin, but the muscles and all the viscera are decomposed.

4. The injection of it, followed by immersion, preserves the object well enough for the space of two or three months, but putrid decomposition attacks the thoracic and abdominal viscera, as well as the brain and thick muscles, at the end of this time.

5. A subject injected with alcoholic sublimate, then opened, emptied, and macerated, afterwards exposed to the air, dries easily;¹⁶ but it assumes a deep gray colour, and the tissues become hardened to such a degree, that it hardly preserves a human form. These are the rigorous results of experience. In the preservation by the aid of deuto-chloride, one portion of the subject is sacrificed to preserve a few remains; the most noble of all the organs, the brain, the throne of thought, cedes its importance to a few bones clothed with dried muscles, and a skin transformed, and not easily known again.

These are but feeble advantages, and paid for much too dearly; for the inconveniences and dangers of this mode of preparation, appears to us sufficient to cause them to be abandoned.

It is very expensive, dangerous for the operators; it alters the instruments, and the bodies which receive the influence of its emanations. Recently, during the embalming of some great personage, all the gildings of a vast saloon, where the operation was performed, were destroyed by the action of the deuto-chloride.

Nevertheless, the embalmings made with this substance, and of which the three first observations cited in this chapter are the most remarkable examples in our knowledge, afford the most decided expressions of the advanced state of the art.

What are the ameliorations resulting from our discoveries? They are as follows: 1. A substance easy to manage without danger to the operator, without any inconvenience to the instruments and other metals, is substituted for the sublimate; 2. The operation can be entirely finished in half an hour; 3. The numerous incisions, the mutilations, the subtraction of the viscera, &c., the prolonged maceration, are replaced by an injection through an opening of some lines in extent; 4. In place of a substance discoloured, leathery, and dried, reserving more or less the human form, my process preserves the subject, such as it is, at the moment of death, with the colour and suppleness proper to each tissue;¹⁷ 5. Finally, the expense which, by the preceding method, amounts to from four hundred to two thousand dollars, need not now exceed sixty dollars. Thus a body may be indefinitely preserved for a sum less than the price of a leaden coffin furnished by the undertakers, a coffin which accelerates the putrid decomposition, in place of preventing it.

I confine myself here to the announcing of some results obtained by my predecessors; for previous to entering into details of the experiments which I have tried, it remains for me to trace the picture of the means employed down to our period for the preparation and preservation of pieces of normal anatomy, pathological anatomy and natural history. This will form the subject of chapter VII.

When I shall have made known the whole of the resources of this other branch for the preservation of animal matters, each one can form an accurate opinion, after a complete knowledge of the facts, of the part which belongs to my labours, and of the place which they ought to occupy in the scale of natural sciences.

CHAPTER VII.
METHODS OF PREPARING AND PRESERVING SUBJECTS OF ANATOMY, PATHOLOGY, AND NATURAL HISTORY, PREVIOUS TO THE PROCESS OF GANNAL

Among the investigations belonging to the domain of medicine, normal anatomy and pathological anatomy occupy the first rank; they constitute the necessary basis of exact study: all men of genius have experienced this.

This conviction has been the source of the persevering efforts of numerous distinguished savans, who reasonably supposed that they would merit the esteem and gratitude of their species, if they could succeed in composing collections of engravings, or artificial models, representing the form, colour, &c., of each of the organs, or if they could discover methods of preparation capable of preserving the organs themselves with all the physical properties which they possessed at the moment of death.

It is not necessary to enter into discussions upon the high importance of these different kinds of investigations; for every one comprehends it, and the gravest authorities have pronounced upon this matter. Who does not know the vast importance which our illustrious Cuvier attributed in the progress of the natural sciences, to him who first conceived the idea of preserving objects in alcohol? It is perceptible, indeed, at the first glance, that the most beautiful and valuable of libraries for the physician and naturalist would be a collection of artificial subjects; or still better, of all the organs of the bodies of animals, and of man, skilfully prepared and preserved, without any alteration of the properties which it is important to know.

It must be admitted that a collection in which all the organs would be disposed in series, where they would be seen passing by their successive degrees of increment and decrement, offering their differences, individual and sexual, their points of contact and separation in the various classes of the animal kingdom, their anomalies, their pathological affections, their intimate structure, &c., it must be admitted I say, that such a collection would be an inexhaustible source of knowledge; it would acquire additional value by the addition of a series of pieces representing the detailed anatomy of each of the parts involved in surgical operations.

But this library, so eloquent and instructive, does it exist at the present time? Do we possess the means of forming such? The examination of the various processes, ought to furnish us with an answer to this question; it will besides enable our readers to estimate for themselves the part that our method may enjoy in the accomplishment of this object.

And first, in admitting the utility of engravings of models in wax, and in artificial carton,¹⁸ in white wood, or in other compositions kept secret by their authors, we feel that whatever may be the accuracy of these different representations, they never can afford but an incomplete idea of the thing represented. 1st. Plates and engravings, so advantageous for reference, to recall the study made upon the corpse, have lost their importance in proportion as the means of obtaining dead bodies have become more easy: they are calculated to render great service and contribute to the progress of science in the fine anatomical works of Meckel, Lauth, Haller, Zinn, Hunter, Cruikshank, Cowper, Vic-d, Azyr, and of numerous other learned authors; at the present day, even, they are justly esteemed in the great works of MM. Cloquet, Bourgerie, &c. (The plates of the work of M. Bourgerie, are executed with remarkable care, and will form an epoch in the history of anatomical works.) But they occupy a secondary place, only to aid the memory; for of whatever good they may be, they must always have many inconveniences: 1. They fatigue attention, because it is necessary so often to multiply the figures, when it is requisite to examine an object under all its aspects where it is of importance to perceive it; 2. The organs are rarely seen of their natural dimensions; 3. Whatever may be the exactitude of the drawing, it is difficult to form a just idea of the relief and dimension of the organs; 4. The relations which they indicate are always incomplete; it is impossible thus to represent all the organs in their position, and in their natural relations.

2d. Models in wax, nearer to nature than plates, reproduces objects with admirable truth for the eye, but for the eye only. They were recently estimated of such importance, that courses on modelling were introduced into the schools in many cities of France; nevertheless, it cannot be concealed that pieces thus prepared leave much to be desired: 1. The relations of the organs which they indicate are very limited: 2. It is necessary then to multiply them to infinity, if it be desirable to represent under various points of view, the different points of the human body, which is indispensable, in order to comprehend their relations and connections: 3. And still the mind comprehends with difficulty the totality of objects viewed in a great number of pieces: 4. They cannot be handled and displaced as is requisite for study, without injury to them.

3d. Artificial pieces, which possess many of the inconveniences of wax models, are more proper to give a knowledge of the parts, which enter into the structure of man; nevertheless, if they be white wood, like the subjects of Fontana, or in Carton, like those of Ameline, or of M. Azoux,¹⁹ they leave much to be learned of the properties which are requisite to an accurate and complete knowledge of the parts. Finally, these three means of communicating knowledge possess their degree of utility, but they can never support a comparison with the proper matter of the organs; they may serve to complete a museum, but never to form one; so we content ourselves to mention them here, in order to assign them a rank.

Anatomical pieces which place before the eyes the organs, themselves, are then the elements, “par excellence,” for the formation of collections, which are to serve as studies of normal anatomy, of pathological anatomy, and of natural history, but, the preparation and preservation of these pieces is a new science; we ought not to be astonished at it, notwithstanding the advanced state of our anatomical knowledge, if we reflect on the difficulties of all kinds, which prejudice excited in our predecessors. It is stated, it is true, that Ruysch, had discovered the means of preserving the dead body, with all the appearance of life, without drying, with florid complexion, and supple limbs. But, is this really the fact? and have we not good reasons to doubt such assertions, since no collection of anatomical pieces, prepared by this process, has descended to us, and no explanation has confirmed our knowledge of them?

We may then conclude, that the means of preparing and preserving, does not date much earlier than the commencement of the present century. None of them, however, has had for object the preservation of the entire subject: that which offers us the most numerous parts united in the same preparation has only a reference to anatomy, properly so called; it is the process of M. Swan, of England, given by him as a new method of making dried anatomical preparations, preserving to them the appearance and the advantages of fresh preparations, without possessing the inconveniences of them; this process is, as we shall see, only an application of the discovery of Chaussier, on the preservative properties of the deuto-chloride of mercury. We give it here, before passing in review the methods of preparation practised for each organ or each tissue.

“In order to describe the manner of making these preparations, I shall only take the arm by way of example.

“The member should be selected as clear from fat as possible. A solution of two ounces of oxymuriate of mercury, in half a pint of rectified spirits of wine, must be injected into the arteries, and the day after make another injection with the same quantity of white spirit varnish, to which must be added one-fifth part of turpentine varnish, and a small quantity of vermillion. The limb should next be placed in hot water, and remain there until it is sufficiently heated for a coarse injection into the arteries, and even the veins if necessary. If the veins are to be injected they had better be emptied of blood, with water, before forcing into the arteries the solution of oxymuriate of mercury, because there returns always by the veins some portion of this injection which coagulate the contained blood, and hinders the coarse injection from passing into the smaller branches.

“After the limb has been injected it may be dissected. Every time the work is left, it is better that the parts uncovered, should be enveloped in a linen cloth wet with water; and when the dissection is recommenced a great advantage will be remarked, which is that the parts injected with the solution of the sublimate will suffer very little alteration in several days, and are found in the same state in which they were left, whilst, by the common method, in one or two days, all is so changed that there is little profit in seeing what has been done, and if the dissection is long, they will scarcely be recognised when finished.

“Another advantage is that it may be dissected any where, since the preparation is without odour.

“When all the parts are uncovered, and all the fat and cellular tissue has been removed, the member thus prepared must be put into a solution of two ounces of oxymuriate of mercury, to one pint of rectified spirits of wine, and let remain entirely covered with this for at least fifteen days, for it cannot remain too long. A box of oak, painted white and varnished is the best recipient for the limb, whilst in solution; the cover must fit closely, in order to prevent the evaporation of the spirits of wine.

“The member must be withdrawn every two or three days, and any remaining cellular tissue is to be removed, and when returned to the tub the part which previously touched the bottom must be placed uppermost. The best thing upon which to place the preparation, when withdrawn from the solution, is a butcher’s tray, after having been well oiled; without this precaution the tray imbibes moisture, from which results a great loss of the solution. When the limb has remained long enough in the solution, it is to be taken out, to be painted and varnished.

“Before proceeding to these operations, the member kept in a state of extension, is suspended and dried, then endued with white varnish. On the same day the nerves, the tendons, and tendinous expansions, ought also to be varnished; which must be repeated once a day, for three consecutive days. The fifth day, the tendons, ought to be covered with a layer of yellow varnish, and white paint mixed in equal parts; this operation is to be repeated the seventh, eighth, and ninth day. The nerves, must also be endued, as often as necessary, with a mixture of equal parts of white paint, and white varnish.

“As soon as the muscles have become stiff, they may be painted, taking care that the nerves and tendons, are not touched by the paint. Nearly a month after the limb has been withdrawn from the solution, those of the nerves and tendons that are not sufficiently coloured should be repainted and varnished, as often as may be judged necessary. But always allowing a day’s interval between each application of paint and varnish.

“These operations being finished, wash lightly the tendons and nerves with boiled flax seed oil; this layer being dry, give a second over the whole limb; finally, several layers of copal varnish will terminate the operation. The first layer of copal varnish to be applied to the arteries with a slight addition of vermillion, and of Prussian blue, for the veins.

“In order to preserve the liver, it is necessary first to inject the vena porta and excretory ducts with white varnish, to which has been joined one-fifth of turpentine varnish, and some coloring matter, such as red lead. Then make the coarse injection, after which the liver is to be put into the solution for a least fifteen days; it is not necessary to heat it before injecting. The ligaments are to be prepared in the same manner as the tendons.

“We give below the paints, and varnishes, employed in the preceding preparations:

1. —White Varnish.

Put the whole in a bottle, and agitate until it is perfectly mixed.

2. —Mastic Varnish.

Dissolve in a pint of spirits of turpentine.

Agitate daily, until the mastic is dissolved.

3. —Yellow Varnish

Infuse one ounce of gum-gutta in powder in eight ounces of spirits of turpentine for fifteen days; then, with equal parts of this clear drawn liquor, Canada balsam, and mastic varnish, form the yellow varnish.

4. —White Paint

Three ounces of white lead, and an ounce of spirits of turpentine serves to form it.

5. —Paint for the muscles

It is made of Lac, Prussian blue, and white varnish, to which is added one quart of turpentine varnish.

6. —Red Injection.

Melt together.

7. —Green injection.

8. —Blue injection

To form this it is only necessary to add to the green injection, half a drachm of powdered Prussian blue.”

The advantages of such preparations do not answer, in any degree, to the promises of the title; the artificial preparations of M. Azoux are much more preferable, since his cartons represent the form which the anatomical pieces of Swan have lost by desiccation.

Section 1. —Generalities of the operations which precede preservation

Desiccation and immersion in liquids are the only means of preservation.

The choice of subjects which are to serve for these preparations, says M. le Docteur Patissier, is not a matter of indifference. Young subjects, and lean women, are preferable for the nerves and bloodvessels; adults, and thin and dry old men, for the preparation of bones which it is intended to articulate, and which it is desirable to obtain in their greatest degree of development; individuals of an athletic constitution for muscular preparations.

The most favourable time for the preparation and preservation of anatomical subjects, is generally during a cold and dry winter, or the ardent heat of summer; the more rapid is the evaporation of the humidity of animal matters, the more sure is their preservation.

The method of preservation ought to be preceded by some other operations, such as dissection, maceration, injection, ablution, corrosions, ligature of vessels, separation and distention of parts.

a. Dissection.– It consists in stripping the part which it is intended to preserve, of the tissues and organs which are foreign to it: if the object be the preparation of muscles, for example, these organs are left alone with their insertions in the bones, or rather, the vessels, previously injected, preserve their relations with the muscles and the bones. Nevertheless, in the dissection of the hard parts, whether it is proposed to follow the branches of the vessels and nerves which penetrate, or are distributed in their substance, or whether it is desired to develop and render their organization more apparent; it is less convenient to have recourse to instruments than to chemical re-agents, which bring into view the parts which it is desirable to study. When the object is the preparation of a bone only, the operation consists of two parts, excarnation, and etiolation, the details of which will be presented in the article upon bony tissues.

b. Macerations and corrosions.– These operations are frequently brought into use by the naturalist: water, acids, alkalies, volatile oils, &c., serve to produce varied effects in the preparation of the different tissues. The maceration of different portions of the skeleton is produced by water. The employment of other liquids has for object, in attacking several parts which they dissolve, to expose others which it is desirable should be left bare.

Thus, in order to absorb the grease which exudes from the skeletons of certain fish, or of bones, the maceration of which has not been perfected, it is useful to steep the piece in a marly alluminous paste, which must be alternatively put to dry and soften in the sun, in order that the clay may absorb the fetid oils with which the bones are impregnated.

In order to dissolve the grease with which certain parts are covered some time after their preparation, as happens to some natural skeletons, it is often necessary to steep the piece in an alkaline liquor, or rather, to allow it to macerate for some weeks in a very penetrating volatile oil. It is only by the aid of such processes that we are able to follow encephalic nerves in many of the cetacea, although these parts present in these animals extremely singular dispositions.

It is with the same view that should be macerated either in water elevated to a certain degree of temperature, or in acid liquors, the hard tissues, in the interior of which it is proposed to denude certain parts. Thus the nerves and vessels of the roots of the nails, the horns, the skin, cannot be well exposed but by this process. The canals, which traverse certain bones, cannot, as we have already shown, be easily followed, unless the piece has remained for a longer or shorter time in an acid liquor.

Macerations in alkaline and etherial liquors are still of great assistance, as the researches so happily conceived and executed by Bichat have proved.

Finally, corrosions are indispensable to the removal of the parenchyma from injected preparations, when it is intended only to preserve the interior network of vessels.

The following are the attentions which this operation exacts: The injected part is consigned to a vessel of pure water for two or three days, which is occasionally to be renewed, in order the better to disgorge the vessels of any blood they may contain. It is afterwards to be solidly fixed on a piece of wax at the bottom of a porcelain vase, pierced with holes near the base, through which the liquor used to wash them may flow off without deranging the vessels. This corrosive liquor is the muriatic acid, or spirit of salt; the aquafortis of engravers, or nitric acid, may be used for the same purpose.

The first time, the preparation is to remain two or three hours in this acid, which is then drawn off and replaced by the same quantity of water, which is allowed to flow on it in small streams. This water is left for four or five days, according to the season, until the water begins to be covered with a scum, and the preparation begins to be cottony at its surface; the liquor is poured off a second time, and the pot or vase is placed beneath the cock of a fountain, from which escapes a delicate stream of water, which will carry off slowly and without shocks, any detached parts; when it is perceived that the washing carries off no more animal matter, the acid is poured into the pot, of which the opening is to be reclosed with a stopper of glass or porcelain, warmed and endued with wax. This operation is to be repeated every four or eight days, until the tunics of the vessels are altogether denuded, and the injected matter is seen throughout.²⁰

c. Injections.– These are evacuative, repletive, antiseptic, or preservative. The first have for object, as their name indicates, to disembarrass the vessels or hollow organs, of the matters and fluids which they contain; they consist of water, of acids very much reduced, of diluted alcohol, &c. Thus it is serviceable to inject water or alcohol into the bloodvessels to prepare them for the reception of the repletive and preserving injections. The second are either definite or temporary.

The substances employed in these injections are vehicles for colouring matter. The nature of the vehicles determines that of the colours, which ought to be as far as possible, analogous to those of the humors, which the vessels contained during life.

As vehicles, those fluids which always retain their fluidity are rarely employed, for parts thus injected cannot be dissected, and they are, besides, apt to allow the colouring matters which they contain in suspension, to be deposited.

Liquids saturated with glue or gelatine, made use of in ordinary injections, have the inconvenience of not being equally solidifiable at different degrees of temperature, or harden too rapidly by cooling; they are made with the glue of commerce, either simple, or mixed with gummy or saccharine matter; that commonly used, is called Flanders glue, although it is manufactured in Paris, and that called mouth glue, which only differs from the other in containing a little gum or sugar. That which succeeds best, because it melts with the heat of the hand, and which nevertheless coagulates at a temperature of twenty-five or twenty-six degrees of Reaumer’s thermometer, which is one of the highest points to which our atmosphere attains, is made of the membranes of fishes, or icthyocolla. An ounce is to be melted in a sand-bath, in double its weight of water, and mixed afterwards with two ounces of alcohol, previously warmed. In these sorts of gelatinous injections, there is much choice in the colouring matters. All those that are ground like gum, and which are used in miniature painting, and in painting “a la gouache,”²¹ may be employed; they remain very well suspended.

The sticks of carmine of Delafosse, and the carmine lacks of Hubert, may then be used with advantage for the arteries; for the veins, Prussian blue, ground in vinegar, and the white of zinc of Antheaume, or that of oyster shells well porphyrized, for the colour of metallic oxide is subject to change in animal matter; they are also subject to the inconvenience of becoming precipitated by repose before the vehicle cools, and thus obstruct the smaller vessels.