Civil War and Embalming:
It had not been the strategy of the United States to send back the bodies of their dead
soldiers to their families. Though the Egyptians that time had used this practice and it was popular, yet it was not the common thing for the United States to preserve the bodies. The bodies of the soldiers used to burry just after their death.
During civil war the great number of dead soldiers generated problem because it became very difficult to give them proper funeral. On top railroads were not ready to transport their bodies (Dave Gorski, 2005).
At the time of civil war the Army
Physicians were suggested by President Abraham Lincoln to use a procedure of embalming the bodies of dead soldiers. Hence, their bodies could be sent to their
homes.
There was an option that the bodies should be sent in airtight containers on ice. There was a team of surgeons who took the job as ‘embalming surgeons’. Most of them had been the military surgeons. Dr. Thomas Homes, the father of modern embalming’, became the leader of this team (Dave Gorski, 2005). He actually did substantial research on embalming fluids to protect corpses for some medical schools in the country. Homes got registration in the college
of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York. He did his graduation as medical surgeon from this university (James C. Lee, 2006).
Dr. Homes used many kinds of patent associated to embalming. He used a fluid named arsenic for embalming. Though arsenic is poisonous for living beings, at the same time it is very good for preserving human flesh (Dave Gorski, 2005). In spite of arsenic the other methods were creosote and mercury.
Dr. Homes became very popular with his embalming of Col. Elmer Ellsworth who was a former clerk in Lincoln’s Springfield law office. He was successful as an embalmer and undertaker. As the war developed and the disaster grew his services were highly required (James C. Lee, 2006). After Col. Elmer’s death Dr. Homes offered free embalming also and it
was approved (Dave Gorski, 2005). The President Abraham Lincoln’s body was also
embalmed and he was the first president whose body was embalmed. Mrs. Lincoln specially requested for this. The main purpose was to return his body to Springfield Missouri, which was supposed to be 1700-mile funeral procession. His burial in Springfield became the first type of its modern funeral.
By making his own and also the other undertakers’ efforts that he had taught the skill of embalming, Homes activities reached to considerable amount. He taught many undertakers
how to use the embalming instruments and his embalming fluid costed them $ 3 per gallon (James C. Lee, 2006).
After understanding the commercial value of embalming, Homes gave resignation from his commission and he started giving embalming to the public in $ 100.
It was estimated that during the war Homes embalmed 40000 soldiers. Overall it is expected that 10,000 to 40,000 soldiers were embalmed at the wartime. Many of these soldiers were the officers. The cost of embalming for an officer was fixed $ 50 and for an enrolled man it was $ 25 (Dave Gorski, 2005).
In the process of embalming, first, the physicians buried the soldiers and then they informed their family members. After that they removed the body from the grave and embalmed the
soldiers with the help of a hand pump and then he was sent to his home. The physicians immediately came to know that the family of the soldiers would pay excellent for the return of the soldiers so among good doctors there was a fight to receive the soldiers’ bodies
It was very common for the physicians to look for the battlefield for the officers. Generally, they embalmed the soldiers and contacted their families for getting payments. Most of the physicians used to advertise their services in the newspaper and even in the handbills oft
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