Giving decency to humanity

When we stop breathing, we are not able to follow through on the choices we might have made. Someone else has to do it for us. We are at that point even called by a different name, corpse, cadaver, the deceased, the remains of and many more.
The period between death and burial is in my view the most important part of separation of the dead from the living. How you look at that very moment is the last image family and friends will have of you when you are gone for good and it has to be just right.
The responsibility to present your lasting image for family and friends lies firmly and squarely with me and my colleagues in the funeral services industry. If you ask me about my calling and that of my team, I will say  “My mission is to give decency to humanity in their times of helplessness”.
We move you from point to point when you cannot do that by yourself; we bath and clothe thee when you no longer know the meaning or value of bathing and dressing.
We provide thee with a house to sleep in when you are an unwelcome guest in your own house. Indeed, we do give decency to humanity, don’t we?
Properly done, this moment can leave family and friends alike with images of peace, serenity and restfulness of their dear departed and can leave them in disappointment, disgust, sadness and a feeling of serious loss, when done improperly.
Embalming is the art or science that we use in helping create this last and final impression.
Embalming is a process we perform to ensure a better presentation of the deceased for viewing by relatives and friends as, everything else being equal, an embalmed body will look better than one that is not.
Some people die after weeks or months of illness. The long illness removes the sparkle in their eye, the smoothness in their skin. You visit them in hospital, you are shocked to see your once bubbly and chubby loved one tattered and torn, and finally they die.
I have often heard many people say “He or she looked so restful and peaceful”. This only applies when families make an informed choice in selecting the professional undertakers to take care of their loved one on death.
Since most people consider body viewing to be helpful in the grieving process, presentation of the body at the time of viewing complements the effort. It is the role of a mortician or an embalmer to do the honours.
Embalming itself is a formal study of anatomy, chemistry and specific embalming theory combined with practical instruction in a mortuary. Modern embalming techniques have been an accumulation of many decades, even centuries, of research and invention.
It is a general legal requirement for international repatriation of human remains that they be fully em-balmed.
The deceased is placed on the mortuary table to verify the identity. Any clothing on the deceased is rem-oved and any personal effects such as jewellery inventoried. The body is washed with disinfectant and germicidal solutions.
During this pr-ocess the embalmer bends, flexes and massages the arms and legs to relieve rigor mortis. Care is taken to make the expression look as relaxed and natural as is possible and sometimes a recent photograph of the deceased is used as a template for setting the features.
Arterial embalming
This involves the injection of embalming chemicals into the blood vessels. As the fluid is injected, blood and intestinal fluids are displaced and their place is taken up by the embalming fluid.
A centrifugal p-ump is used in this process. The em-balmer massages the body to break up circulatory clots as to ensure the proper distribution of the embalming fluid.
The process of raising vessels with injection and drain-age from a solitary location is known as a single-point injection. In cases of poor circulation of the arterial solution additional injection points are used. Cases where more than one vessel is raised are referred to as multiple-point injection.
Cavity embalming
Is the removal of the internal fluids from, and the injection of embalming chemicals into body cavities, using an aspirator and trocar.
The embalmer makes a small incision just above the navel and pushes the trocar in the chest and stomach cavities to puncture the hollow organs and aspirate their contents.
He then fills the cavities with concentrated chemicals that contain formaldehyde. The incision is either sutured closed or a “trocar button” is screwed into place.
Specialist embalming
Badly decomposing bodies, trauma cases, frozen and drowned bodies, and those to be transported for long distances require special treatment beyond that for the normal case.
This is commonly called restorative art or demisur-gery. For such cases, the benefit of embalming is startlingly apparent as the deceased end up appearing natural enough that the embalmer appears to have done nothing at all.
Embalming autopsy cases differs from standard embalming because the nature of the post-mortem examination sometimes disrupts the circulatory system, due to the removal of organs.
Long-term preservation requires different techniques, such as using stronger preservative chemicals and multiple injection sites to ensure thorough saturation of body tissues.
A typical embalming takes several hours to complete. After the body is washed and dried, a moisturising cream is applied and the body is then dressed for funeral services.
Cosmetics are also applied in the case of women to make them appear more lifelike and to create a memory picture for the deceased’s friends and relatives.
Embalming is the art and science of temporary preservation of human remains to forestall decomposition and to make them suitable for display at a funeral.
The three goals of embalming are sanitisation, preservation and presentation. Ancient Egyptians are perhaps the old world culture that developed embalming to the greatest extent to which it has now developed, starting with mummification.
Some of the best body preservation methods in the world were done for the Han dynasty Royals of China. In Europe embalming had a much more sporadic existence.
Contemporary embalming methods advanced markedly during the American Civil War, which involved many servicemen dying far from home, and their families wishing them returned for local burial.
Rudimentary embalming methods were practised with mostly arsenic being used until in 1867 when a German chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann discovered form-aldehyde, whose preservative properties were soon discovered and which became the foundation for modern methods of embalming.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries arsenic was frequently used as an embalming fluid but has since been replaced by other more effective and less toxic chemicals of which formaldehyde is the most prominent.
– Philip Mataranyika is the CEO of Nyaradzo Funeral Assurance Company. He can be contacted on mavmat67@hotmail.com