770 



I have never fully understood why the Europeans have had such 

 difficulty in filling them to their satisfaction for the dissection room. 

 I find plaster of Paris colored with red lead eminently satisfactory. 

 It is easily handled and never flows from a cut vessel. We inject a 

 very fluid plaster colored with red lead under a high pressure (250 — 

 500 mm Hg.) About two liters of this fluid will flow into the arteries 

 in the course of a minute or two and then it is immediately allowed 

 to flow out. This procedure distends all of the small arteries and 

 leaves practically no plaster in the large ones, for the plaster remains 

 in the small arteries but flows out again from the large ones. 



Subjects treated in the above mentioned manner can be kept for 

 a long time in almost any fluid, or in an ordinary ice-box (4" or 

 5 " C). I have kept them in the latter for a year but there is a 

 tendency for the feet and hands to mould. The above mentioned 

 methods are not perfect for the preservation of material, and when 

 the are employed they have a marked tendency to make the dissect- 

 ing room disagreeable and dirty. 



When subjects, fresh or well embalmed, are placed in cold storage 

 (below " C) they may be preserved indefinitely. Yet simply freezing 

 the subject does not accomplish our object perfectly. We are in the 

 habit of believing that cold air is dry and will prevent evaporation 

 but even at a very low temperature (—5" C) there is a marked 

 evaporation. Our vault is cooled from above and the slight difference 

 of temperature between the floor and the ceiling of the vault is 

 sufficient to dry completely the fingers and toes of the subject in the 

 course of six months. The moisture which leaves the floor of the 

 vault forms into large icicles about the steel pipes immediately below 

 the ceiling of the room. 



I have often been struck with the remarkable property of the 

 epidermis to prevent evaporation of the part even after it has been 

 in a warm room for several months. This property can be increased 

 to a very great extent by oiling the skin, a method we employ al- 

 together to prevent them from drying while the dissection is taking 

 place. Vaseline is altogether superior to oil and after many trials 

 we use it exclusively to keep the skin soft and moist, both in the 

 cold storage and in the dissecting room. 



After the body has been embalmed it is smeared over with a 

 large quantity of crude and cheap vaseline and then wrapped with 

 the continuous roll of water-closet paper. A second coating of 

 vaseline is placed over the paper covering the feet and hands, and 

 then the whole body is wrapped in muslin. This mummy-like body 

 is now frozen and preserved in the cold storage. I have now kept 



