The New American Invention—or
Horror
Emma Hardinge Britten, “The Latest American Invention—or
Horror.” The Two Worlds (London), December 14, 1888:52.
Cremation was a new and controversial practice in America at this
time, first attempted by ex-spiritualists and Theosophists in 1876, but
had a reformist and progressive justification as a sanitary measure and,
in some sense, as an anti-clerical protest. It also involved the
creation of new technologies and so gained a desirable cachet of modernity
from that fact. Spiritualists also had no expectation of the resurrection
of the body—JB
Compressed Corpses.
A Pittsburg physician, named Cooper, has applied for a patent on a process to preserve human bodies by compression, caused by a curious combination of steel presses and hot rollers. He excludes all the moisture, and reduces a full-grown body to the size of 12 by 15 inches, rendering it as hard and imperishable as marble.
He has made several experiments with perfect success. The doctor, and others who have investigated the process, thinks it will supersede cremation, as bodies thus preserved are not only not offensive but can be made to assume various ornamental shapes and kept as constant reminders of the departed.
The doctor has on his centre table the remains of a child, pressed into the shape of a cross. It is highly ornamental, is perfectly odourless, and would be taken for the purest marble by one who did not know what it was.
The doctor proposes to place a large number of specimens of animals preserved in this way on exhibition in a few days. A company will be formed to push the invention.
N.B.—Should this notable corpse company be inaugurated and its methods come into vogue, how peculiar will be the sensations of any lady who, for example, making a morning call on a friend, should be gently cautioned after this fashion: “Please don’t set your reticule on that slab” (apparently a marble one), “it might scratch it, you know; that’s my grandfather in a compressed state.” Then to the young hopeful of the family: “Oh, Johnny! you little nuisance, you! don’t put lighted matches on that mantelpiece; don’t you know it’s your Aunt Jane?” A five o’clock tea is announced, and as the footman goes round with wafer cakes on an elegant salver, the lady of the house says: “Pray try those wafers, I’m sure you’ll like their flavour. Those plates are my twins (died of the measles, you know), and that salver” (recherché, is it not?) “was my first husband.” “Oh! Johnny, you awful boy! If you haven’t gone and lighted up those two candles, when you know that the pair of candelabra are your Uncle and Aunt Jackson!” (Rest of the explanations lost, as the visitor is carried out fainting.)
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
[
Ephemera Home]