Practical taxidermy : a manual of instruction to the amateur in collecting, preserving, and setting up natural history specimens of all kinds to which is added a chapter upon the pictorial arrangement of museums / by Montagu Browne.

  • Browne, Montagu.
Date:
[1884?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical taxidermy : a manual of instruction to the amateur in collecting, preserving, and setting up natural history specimens of all kinds to which is added a chapter upon the pictorial arrangement of museums / by Montagu Browne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    In preparing it according to the first method, they commence by extracting the brain from the nostrils with a enrved iroD probe, partly clearing the head by this means, and partly by pouring in certain drugs ; then, making an incision in the side with a sharp Ethiopian stone, they draw out the intestines through the aperture. Having cleansed and washed them with palm wine they cover them with pounded aromatics, and afterwards filling the cavity with powder of pure myrrh, cassia, and other fragrant substances, frankincense excepted, they sew it up again. This being done, they salt the body, keeping it in natron seventy days, to which period they are strictly confined. When the seventy days are over they wash the body and wrap it up entirely in bands of fine linen smeared on their inner side with gum, which the Egyptians generally use instead of glue. The relatives then take away the body, and have a wooden case made in the form of a man, in which they deposit it, and, when fastened up, they keep it in a room in their house, placing it upright against the wall. This is the most costly method of embalming. For those who choose the middle kind, on account of the expense, they prepare the body as follows : They fill Byringes with oil of cedar, and inject this into the abdomen, without making any incision or removing the bowels, and, taking care that the liquid shall not escape, they keep it in salt during the specified number of days. The cedar oil is then taken out, and such is its strength, that it brings with it the bowels and all the inside in a state of dissolution. The natron also dissolves the flesh, so that nothing remains but the skin and bones. This prooess being over, they restore the body without any further operation. The third kind of embalming is only adopted for the poor. In this they merely cleanse the body by an injection of syrmcea, and salt it during seventy days, after which it is returned to the friends who brought it. The account given by Diodorus is similar, if we except the cost and time of embalming. The most expensive way of embalming costs a talent of silver (about ,£250 sterling) ; the second, twenty-two minte (,£60) ; and the third is extremely cheap. The persons who embalm the bodies are artists who have learnt this secret from their ancestors. They present to the friends of the deceased who apply to them an estimate of the funeral expenses, and ask them in what manner they wish it to be performed, which being agreed upon, they deliver the body to the proper persons appointed to that office. First, one who is denominated the Bcribe, marks upon the left side of the body, as it lies on the ground, the extent of the incision which is to be made; then