Embalming in the USA is a descriptive essay describing how Embalming works. Embalming is the rather unsightly practice of preserving our dead. It is necessary so that bodies refrain from decomposing while they're being viewed in a funeral setting. The process starts by draining the blood by making slits at the wrist and filling the body with Formaldehyde. A large needle is stuck into the stomach to drain it of its fluids. Eyes are tied shut and so is the mouth. The entire operation is rather grotesque.
Reading about the embalming process was definitely enlightening. While I knew the filling of formaldehyde I wasn't aware of the other things morticians did to the body. Like draining the stomach, sealing shut the orifices and the eyes. Putting the body back together in the case of dismemberment. It puts a cold and logical feel to something that is supposed to entirely logical. It makes an emotional catastrophe into a job aspect. Some one once told me, "The money is in being a mortician, because you can run out of products, but you can never run out of corpses." The statement itself is a very grim prospect but in its own twisted way it is the truth.
Embalming in the USA is not just a description of the job, but the effects of the job. And it can apply to other aspects of our lives, metaphorically.
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