Human Anatomy Study Guide

A Better Understanding About Embalming

You may wonder who performs the embalming. Is it the mortician or is it a specific embalmer. The roles of a mortician and an embalmer are most decidedly not the same. Typically, a mortician is a person who arranges for the final funeral, burial or cremation of the decedent. The mortician is very often the person we refer to as the funeral director though in some places there is further distinction between the two jobs.

The embalmer is typically a specialist with extensive training in the practice of embalming which is considered both an art and a science. The embalmers training will entail very intensive study in anatomy, thanatology (the study of death), chemistry and embalming practices as well as very often an apprenticeship in a funeral home which is followed by formal testing and, almost exclusively (especially in the United States), licensing. Laws regarding the level of training needed to be a practicing embalmer vary from place to place.

Embalming practices also vary from country to country or religious practice to religious practice. We’ll focus mainly on the most prominent embalming practices in the Western World. Here, embalming is a several step process that has evolved greatly over time and continues to improve due to careful study and research.

The following spells out the typical steps of the most common embalming techniques. Still, we must remember that these techniques often vary from place to place. Some may find the following discussion to be graphic or uncomfortable.

The process of embalming always begins with the identification of the body (most normally by checking wrist or arm tags. Next, the embalmer continues by ensuring that, in fact, the person is truly deceased.

Very often, a cloth is placed over the midsection of the corpse for the sake of modesty. Next, the remains are washed in special disinfectant solutions. Throughout this process, the embalmer massages and flexes the arms and legs of the deceased in order to alleviate the effects of rigor mortis.

In death, the jaw will ultimately become slack without the musculature needed to hold the mouth shut. The embalmer’s next task is to set and close the mouth. The mouth may be closed in different ways. Most commonly, it is shut by suturing with a needle and ligature. Sometimes the mouth is set
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by using an adhesive. Other times, the mouth is closed and posed into a life-like expression by threading a wire into the jaw with a needle injector.

Technical embalming most typically is done in four stages.

These are:

1. Arterial Embalming. This is the injection of embalming chemicals into the blood vessels, most often by direct injection into the right carotid artery (in the neck). This serves to replace the blood in the veins with embalming chemicals. The injection of embalming solutions is achieved by using a pump while the embalmer massages the body in an effort to break up any clots in the circulatory system and to make sure that the embalming fluid is properly distributed. If the deceased suffered from circulatory problems, it is often necessary for the embalmer to use different points of injection.

2. Cavity Embalming. This involves the suction of internal fluids and the injection of embalming chemicals into body cavities. During this process, the body cavities are injected with concentrated chemicals that contain formaldehyde.

3. Hypodermic Embalming is the injection of embalming chemicals under the skin.

4. Surface embalming, is a method especially for visibly injured body parts.

Typically, the process of embalming takes about two hours. The process may take longer in cases where there’s a need for extensive reconstruction of the facial features (following an accident, for example).

You should remember that a person will always look different after they have died. The very things that give us our look in life are gone when we pass away. The absence of breath, the lack of muscle movement, the settling of the blood in the body all contribute to making the deceased look very different than you remember them.

By: Hal Stevens

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Hal is the author of several critically acclaimed eBooks specifically written to help people deal with end of life issues. His eBooks include topics such as: cremation, writing and delivering a eulogy, eco-friendly green funerals, funeral planning, organ donation, and buying and selling cemetery plots. To find out more about his CemeterySpot family of free services and resources, to learn more about his books, and to get a free gift, please visit: www.cemeteryspot.com.

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