X-Message-Number: 4977
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 00:45:13 -0700 (PDT)
From: Doug Skrecky <>
Subject: The New Egyptians

                        THE NEW EGYPTIANS
            (November 1991 Funeral Service Journal(UK))
                         BY DOUG SKRECKY

     Summum corporation of Salt Lake City, Utah USA is in the
 mummification business. For a hefty fee of about $8000 they will mummify
 the corpse of the deceased. Unlike cryonics companies no claims about
 possible future reanimation are used to sell this service. Instead the
 selling point is to the vanity of well heeled yuppies who are unwilling
 to allow their bodies to decompose after they die. It is not impossible
 that some of these American mummies may one day find a final resting
 place beside the ancient Egyptian pharoahs in museums of the distant
 future. If current trends hold up there may soon be more people signed up
 to be mummified than all those signed up to be frozen by cryonics
 companies. Is the funeral industry missing out on a substantial amount of
 business by not offering an alternative to cremation or traditonal
 internment procedures? 
     Mummification could involve expensive apparatus such as a
 refrigerated vaccuum dessicator or ... provided the corpse is first
 embalmed dessication need only require the use of a small room large
 enough to hold the body and a high capacity dehumidifier. With the output
 of the dehumidifier blowing directly onto the corpse complete
 mummification would take about a week. In order to insure high quality
 preservation higher doses of formaldehyde than is customarily used in
 embalming would need to be employed, in addition probably to small
 amounts of glutaraldehyde as well. The best results with formaldehyde
 alone seem to be obtained by altering the embalming procedures to a two
 step process. For instance by first perfusing with a 4% formaldehyde
 solution at pH 6.5 rapid penetration of tissue is obtained as
 formaldehyde does not react with proteins significantly at this low PH. 
 Then after switching to a pH 11 formaldehyde perfusion rapid fixation
 occurs which is quite uniform since the tissue has been already saturated
 with formaldehyde from the previous step. *1
      After embalming has been completed it may be worthwhile to perfuse
 the corpse one last time with a sugar saturated solution before
 commencing dessication. Strictly speaking even mummification may offer at
 least some chance however small for future revival. Cryonics companies
 base their claims of revival on the use of cryoprotectants to minimize
 freezing damage. Similar claims might conceivably be made for
 mummification if agents to protect against drying damage were used. It is
 now known that one of the most effective such agents is sucrose or common
 table sugar. *2
      After mummification is completed longterm storage would require a
 corrosion resistent casket, which would then be packed with a dessicant
 such as calcium oxide. Although steel and even bronze caskets eventually
 corrode underground tests have found that type 316L stainless steel
 remains inert in all fresh water exposures. The only known vulnerability
 of this mid price stainless alloy in fresh water is by corrosion induced
 by some types of bacteria. No corrosion would be thus be expected in the
 arctic permafrost. For local burial sites which are located on high
 ground well away from the seashore a 316L SS casket would seem to stand a
 good chance of remaining intact for at least a few centuries. This is
 something of a bargain as tests have found that more expensive high
 molybdenum stainless steels and nickel alloys used for seawater service
 are LESS resistant than 316L SS to microbiologically induced
 corrosion. *3
     The total costs associated with mummification would appear to be no
 larger than those incurred with some of the more elaborate traditional
 internments. While future reanimation can not be guarenteed by any method
 of preservation mummification can offer a highly credible option for
 ensuring longterm preservation of human remains. 

 *1. "Importance of Fixation in Immunohistochemisry: Use of Formaldehyde
 Solutions at Variable pH for the Localization of Tyrosine Hydroxylase" 
 844-850 Vol.29. No.7 1981 The Journal of Histochemistry and
 Cytochemistry
 *2. "Interactions of Sugars With Membranes" 367-384 Vol.947 1988
 Biochimica et Biophysica Acta
 *3. "Ranking Alloys for Susceptibility to MIC - A Preliminary Report on
 High-Mo Alloys" 55-57 January 1991 Materials Performance


     .....In the above article I talked about perfusing with formaldehyde. 
 Unfortunately in many cases any kind of perfusion would be impossible
 once blood has coagulated in capillaries. In these cases with only
 injection into the major arteries and veins being possible an alcohol
 based fixative would appear to be necessary if decent tissue preservation
 is the goal. Alcohol penetrates tissue much faster than aldehydes (and
 even faster than glycerol). 
     If possible revival is the main concern a much better procedure would
 be to treat just the brain using state-of-the-art freeze-dry techniques
 and cremate the rest of the body to reduce costs. 
     Lead has been suggested as a possible replacement for titanium or
 stainless steel. However underground tests have found lead to be much
 more vulnerable to corrosion than these, although lead was more resistent
 than low alloy steel, zinc or aluminum. (See Corrosion and Corrosion
 Control by Professor Herbert Uhlig MIT)


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