Overcoming Death: Conserving the Body in Nineteenth-Century Belgium

Abstract

Anatomists in nineteenth-century Belgium developed several conservation techniques for the preservation of the corpse. Embalmed bodies and anatomical preparations were often conserved and perceived as if they were still alive and appeared to be sleeping. The slumbering corpses echoed a shift in nineteenth-century funeral culture and represented a beautiful death. By preserving the corpse as sleeping, anatomists aligned themselves with Catholic funerary rites. The sleeping corpse visualised a peaceful afterlife for the deceased person and hinted at the immortality of the soul. At the same time, preserving the corpse answered medical fears about rotting dead bodies and placed anatomy in a more favourable light. Anatomists made use of the “death as sleep” metaphor that originated in funeral culture and repositioned the corpse in a transitional zone between life and death, thus aligning the anatomical cabinet to the deathbed spectacle.

The start of the nineteenth century coincided with the development of a new aesthetics of death. Funerary rites became more elaborate; cemeteries and tombstones were increasingly adorned, and corpses were embellished before their burial . At the centre of this beautification of death movement was a new individualised and “sentimentalised” relationship with the dead. ¹ Paying respect and tribute to the personhood of the deceased became an important aspect of mourning and funeral culture. At the same time, a more romanticised view of the afterlife was portrayed with an emphasis on the promise of reunion in life after death. ² In European funerary culture, the “death as sleep” metaphor became a popular representation of death as it allowed mourners to separate the idea of death from a final state of being and corresponded with the Christian narrative of resurrection. In this narrative, the transition from life to death allowed the soul to fall asleep, only to awaken for the final judgement. ³ As Sarah Tarlow indicates, the comparison between sleep and death allowed for a “figurative understanding” of death (as the deceased were granted an eternal rest in peace). ⁴ The death as sleep narrative was accordingly part of the commemorative culture of Christian worship and it was materialised in tombstones and grave inscriptions. ⁵

The grave as a peaceful place of sleep stands in sharp contrast with the reality and corporeality of death—of decomposition and putrefaction. The process of decay is inevitable in the body once organs stop functioning and bacteria and enzymes start decomposing bodily tissue. In the nineteenth century, new conserving procedures for the dead body were developed in response to a growing fear about the decaying corpses of the dead. New embalming techniques seemed to materialise the death as sleep metaphor: the preserved corpse appeared to be sleeping. These conservation methods were developed in the anatomical theatre, where corpses were preserved for scientific research or educational purposes. Even though embalmed corpses destined for burial and anatomical preparations were displayed in a different context, they both represented the corpse lingering between life (or sleep) and death. Moreover, defining death as sleep offered anatomists a visual language to connect their practices to contemporary funeral culture. By looking at the use, display, and popularisation of conservation procedures for corpses, we will show how death was overcome by preserving the body and suggesting a state of sleep in both medical and funeral culture. The display of sleeping corpses further aligned medical practice to Catholic death rites and an emerging conspicuous funeral culture.

This chapter presents a case study on nineteenth-century Belgium, where anatomists explicitly connected their practices to a funeral culture by preserving and displaying dead bodies as if they were still alive and seemed to be merely sleeping. The death as sleep metaphor received a new application in these treatments of the corpse. In doing so, anatomists testified to a sentimentalised relationship with individual corpses. At the same time, they helped shape nineteenth-century death culture by presenting their conserved corpses as if they were sleeping.

The practice of conserving corpses was not entirely new in Western Europe in the nineteenth century. This first part of the chapter looks at an early modern method for conserving bodies used by the Dutch anatomist Frederik Ruysch (1638–1731). Ruysch’s work (re)gained renown in the nineteenth century when interest in the conservation and beautification of corpses was high. Inspired by Ruysch, the Belgian anatomist Adolphe Burggraeve (1806–1902) preserved corpses in such a way that they appeared to be alive and seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Focusing on the death as sleep metaphor, we examine how Burggraeve’s “sleeping corpses” became familiar representations of death in an era in which embalming was popularised in Belgium. The final part of the chapter will look at how anatomical preparations impacted on death cultures and people’s perceptions of what death looked like.

Conserving the Dead Body: The Preparations of Frederik Ruysch

For medieval physicians and churchmen, the conserving and collecting of body parts was a routine practice that formed an important aspect of how medical knowledge was passed on and how Christianity was practised. The first medical collections contained several osteological remains such as skeletons, while in churches different bones and skulls of saints were preserved. These collections of anatomical specimens and holy relics were designed to be displayed, and by the Renaissance period, they became increasingly adorned and made into commodities. ⁶ However, in the seventeenth century, anatomists working on (lay) bodies developed techniques to conserve tissues by macerating and storing body parts in alcohol-filled jars. This meant that they could create new spectacles of death, beyond the dry skeletons that originally filled their cabinets.

Frederik Ruysch showed particular interest in the conservation of corpses, both as embalmed and anatomical preparations. Ruysch was particularly known for his skeletons of foetuses that were preserved and often mounted in a “landscape” of human body parts, such as injected arteries or kidney stones. The lifelike skeletons—that were placed in an upright position—held different vanitas symbols, such as feathers, pearls, and handkerchiefs. The inscriptions that accompanied the anatomical preparations reminded visitors of the frailty of life. For example, labels of the tableaux read: “Death spares no man, not even the defenceless infant”, or “What is life? A transient smoke and a fragile bubble”. ⁷ The tableaux of foetal skeletons were intended to present spectators with a moral message on death as the inevitable fate of man and served as memento mori.

Ruysch also developed a conservation technique for the preservation of human tissue by injecting them with substances such as (coloured) wax or mercury and storing them in alcohol. Though Ruysch was not the first to employ this method, he developed the skill to create specimens that mimicked the body’s natural state. ⁸ The uncanny character of the preparations came from their lifelike appearance: contemporary visitors to Ruysch’s collection emphasised the “rosy complexions” of the bottled babies, which made it appear as if “they had never died”. ⁹ His injection technique not only restored the suppleness of the body in its living state, it also allowed him to map fine anatomical structures such as the capillaries.

Ruysch’s lifelike specimens also formed a tribute to the infinite power of a divine Creator. His cabinet was recommended as a place where visitors stood “face to face with manifestations of the creation” and could observe the ingenious structure and functioning of the human body as it was designed by the Creator. ¹⁰ In his study on the preparations of Ruysch, Van de Roemer emphasises that the attributes of the specimens, such as embroidered textile, strengthened the religious reflections of visitors to the anatomical cabinet. The delicate lace that covered the anatomical preparations offered a visual association between the texture of textile (made by man) and the texture of the body (as created by a divine power). ¹¹ Moreover, the lifelike appearance of the preparations supported the emotional connection between dead body parts and their spectators.

Given this link between the display of bodies and musings on mortality and Creation in early modern collections, anatomical preparations could be seen to have similar functions to holy relics. ¹² Anatomical preparations offered mourners a “material and emotional link to the deceased” and “represent[ed] the living” in the same way that relics did. ¹³ While relics had a power associated with their origin in the bodies of saints and narratives of martyrdom, why did Ruysch’s preparations need to be beautiful in order to inspire people to reflect on death? The artistic embellishing of preparations helped to deal with people’s disgust at the corpse; the anatomical artistry consciously referenced the divine work of God, a juxtaposition that gave anatomists like Ruysch a spectacular power. ¹⁴ Marieke Hendriksen further argues that the “elegancy” of anatomical preparations in the early modern period was a necessary means by which anatomical knowledge was transmitted. The senses of touch, sight, and smell might overpower those who approached the (unpreserved) corpse to learn, yet the beauty of the preparations demonstrated the beauty of the anatomical body. In turn, the perfection of dissected or injected body parts generated anatomical knowledge. ¹⁵ Though the taste for elegance in seventeenth-century anatomical preparations soon waned, Ruysch’s work was celebrated until well into the nineteenth century precisely because he was able to eliminate “the disgust inspired by the cadaver”. ¹⁶

Death in Nineteenth-Century Belgium

In the early modern period, representations of the decaying body served as memento mori—a reminder of one’s own mortality—but by the nineteenth century, the thought of bodily dissolution came to be seen as distressing. Nineteenth-century death culture aimed to conceal the “reality of death and decay”. ¹⁷ This was because, from the late eighteenth century onwards, there was a transformation in how people mourned. An individualised relationship with the dead emerged and burial became increasingly aestheticised as part of the wish to pay tribute and respect to the personhood of the deceased. ¹⁸ This created a new sensitivity about the decay of the corpse, because it threatened to affect people’s emotional relationship with the dead, and raised fears about the medical dangers of rotting bodies.

In nineteenth-century funeral rituals, more attention was paid to the bodily integrity of the deceased. Amid the cultural shift towards an individual relationship with the dead, anatomists and medical students at European universities developed new and more efficient ways to conserve the corpse for use in their studies. Their desire to halt decay did not exclude their desire to beautify the corpse; rather, these new conservation methods overlapped with the aesthetic methods that upper-class mourners were using in their funerary practices. ¹⁹

In France, new embalming techniques were popularised and commercialised by medical men in the first half of the nineteenth century. A similar shift occurred in America where new conservation techniques were marketed by funeral directors in the emerging funeral industry. ²⁰ In Belgium, funeral rites and ceremonies were exclusively in the hands of the Catholic Church in the first half of the nineteenth century. Religion played a crucial part in the moments leading up to death and in the organisation of funerals. Confession, absolution, and prayer accompanied the final hours of a dying person. ²¹ In Catholicism, the final sacraments allowed the soul to live on in the afterlife and supported the idea of heavenly immortality.

After death, the laying out of the corpse was part of a dignified farewell. This particular task was usually performed by the sisters of a Catholic order and was often reserved for the highest echelons of society. For example, the bodies of bishops were washed, covered with odorous spices and laid out after death. Displaying the corpse was seen as a mark of respect and appreciation for the deceased. Care for the dead body was an expression of faith in resurrection and the immortality of the soul. ²² Cherishing the corpse would provide that dead body with the opportunity to resuscitate and reunite with the soul in the afterlife. Physicians who wanted to promote their embalming techniques capitalised on this belief: conserving the corpse equalled care for the corpse and guaranteed its physical integrity.

In the homes of the destitute, the laying out of corpses was more of a necessity than an aspect of the funeral rite. Due to the lack of municipal morgues, pauper corpses often stayed in people’s one-bedroom houses in attendance of a funeral. ²³ As the embalmment of corpses in nineteenth-century Belgium was exclusively reserved for royals, nobility, and the bourgeoisie, the preservation of pauper corpses in the domestic sphere was often problematic. ²⁴ Decaying pauper corpses were increasingly seen as a medical hazard. The time between the moment of death and the actual funeral was therefore strictly limited. Yet, the presence of the beloved deceased in the domestic sphere also contributed to the image of the “corpse at peace”. ²⁵ In her study on the expression of grief among the working classes in nineteenth-century Britain, Julie-Marie Strange notes that the “relaxation of the facial muscles” and the similarities between “shroud and nightdress” led spectators to associate death and sleep. ²⁶

The post-mortem fate of paupers who died in the hospital was radically different from those who passed away at home. Patients’ corpses were transferred to the anatomical theatre and dissected when the family was unable to cover the funeral costs. The putrefying corpses in the anatomical theatre evoked repugnance among the people in the neighborhood who often complained about bad odours. The practices of anatomists therefore enjoyed a bad reputation among a non-medical audience. Anatomists tried to disconnect the corpses from the realities of death by embalming and conserving their source material.

Between Life and Death: The Preparations of Adolphe Burggraeve

While Ruysch’s anatomical preparations had been excessively adorned with textile or attributes in the early modern period, by the end of the eighteenth century, a more realist, “representational” and modest style was developed for anatomical representations of the body. ²⁷ Elaborate displays of decorated body parts went out of fashion. As anatomy moved away from providing spectacles of death for lay audiences, anatomists developed more sober representations of the anatomical body. ²⁸ However, the desire to overcome the disgust and horror of the corpse remained an important aspect of the work of anatomical collectors into the nineteenth century. ²⁹ This removal of disgust chimed in with contemporary mourning cultures and provided a new context for the display of anatomical preparations.

In Belgium, the creation and institutionalisation of anatomical collections was an important aspect of the development of a national science after its independence in 1830. Anatomists at the new universities put great effort in the establishment of anatomical museums. At the University of Ghent, Adolphe Burggraeve and his aide Edouard Meulewaeter developed several conserving techniques to ensure the expansion of the institution’s anatomical collection in the 1830s. Together they created mercury-injected specimens, injected bone preparations, and injected preparations of the mucous membrane next to larger wet specimens of diseased organs or foetuses. Their preparations were lauded for their natural appearance and delicacy, and were seen as the ultimate proof of Burggraeve’s craftsmanship. Though elegance went out of style, the preparations housed in the anatomical museum at the University of Ghent show that anatomists were still concerned about creating the most lifelike preparations possible.

Burggraeve searched for years for a preservation method that could equal the results of Ruysch. Inspired by an encounter with some lifelike preparations in the Netherlands, Burggraeve devised a procedure that he felt matched that of Ruysch. With the assistance of his aide Meulewaeter , Burggraeve found a way to inject corpses with coloured gelatine, and then conserved the preparations in soured alcohol. They added over a 1000 specimens to the University’s anatomical cabinet, but only a few preparations from the original collection have survived. One of them is a newborn child dressed in a white christening gown, floating in a transparent glass jar (Fig. 4.1). This preparation received considerable attention in the nineteenth-century medical press; its natural skin tone and the rosiness of the cheeks and lips were particularly lauded. The velutinous quality of the skin was said to give the preserved body the “transparence of life” and suggested the bodies were at peace. ³⁰ A preparation of a half-dissected girl displays a similar serenity, but paradoxically it also incorporates the violence of a dissection (Fig. 4.2). On the one hand, the girl on display is clearly dead; her head is cut in half to show the matter within. On the other hand, she appears to be sleeping peacefully. When, in 1837, Burggraeve presented some of his preparations to a medical audience, their lifelike appearance caused many to recall the work of Ruysch, an association Burggraeve was keen to highlight. Indeed, like Ruysch, Burggraeve adorned his preparations with textile decorations and kept his conservation method a secret. ³¹

Fig. 4.1

Anatomical preparation of a newborn child (Museum for the History of Medicine, Ghent. Collection: University Museum, Ghent)

Fig. 4.2

Anatomical preparation of a girl with hand (Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Anatomy and Embryology Research Group. Collection: University Museum, Ghent. Photographer: Benn Deceuninck)

The purpose of the textile decorations was twofold: Firstly, it was meant to cover up mutilated body parts, as was its function in the seventeenth century. ³² The autopsy scars on the body of the newborn infant, for example, were concealed by the christening dress. Secondly, the adherence of textile to body parts also had a symbolic function: the christening gown of the newborn infant emphasised the innocence of the child, but also confirmed the possibility that the child would live a peaceful afterlife. ³³ In the nineteenth century, it was customary to bury babies in their baptismal clothing as proof that they had been baptised and could enter the Kingdom of Heaven. ³⁴ By dressing the child in a white gown, Burggraeve aligned the preparation of the child with contemporary funeral practices.

As an anatomical preparation, the body of the newborn child hardly demonstrated anatomical structures or knowledge. However, it did visualise a new “death way” to visitors to the anatomical museum. The dress softened the harsh reality of death, made the corpse into an aesthetic object, and hid the scars inflicted by the post-mortem examination. In Burggraeve’s preparation of the girl, the reality of the dissection was not hidden. Rather, the traces of the dissection and the carving of the scalpel were clearly visible on the body. Her trunk appears to have been detached violently from her chest, and Burggraeve highlighted her anatomical structures by means of coloured gelatin injections. The textile attached to the preparation, however, served the symbolic purpose of drawing out an association with sleep. Draped as if it were a pillow, the fabric seems to suggest that the deceased is resting and has found peace, despite the disintegrated state of her body.

Burggraeve’s preparations not only caught the attention of his fellow medical professionals, but the results of his injection method were also noticed in the Belgian newspaper press where audiences read about how one could hold onto the bodies of the deceased. Burggraeve’s invention was contextualised by referring to the human fascination with the dead body and our wish to overcome the “destruction” of life. In one newspaper article the “idea of death” was said to be “too dreadful for man”, which explained, for the journalist, why many different cultures embalmed and conserved the dead. ³⁵ The display of lifelike anatomical preparations to a lay audience, it is clear, allowed for a peaceful and consoling confrontation with death.

Embalmment Mania: Jean-Nicholas Gannal’s Conservation Method

Anatomists continually sought for better ways to conserve putrefying corpses. In the anatomical theatre, the same corpse that served as an object of scientific enquiry one day could be the locus of fears about illness and disease from medical students the next day. A fear of rotting corpses also prevailed among the citizens of densely populated areas who saw the dead body as a breeding ground for diseases such as typhus and cholera. ³⁶ In this context, anatomists intervened in medical and popular fears about the dead by developing ways to conserve bodies, preserve their physical integrity and extend their “liveliness”. In the 1820s and 1830s, the French chemist Jean-Nicholas Gannal (1791–1852) gained critical acclaim for his procedure to embalm cadavers. After working as an apothecary in the army of Napoléon Bonaparte , Gannal grew interested in the conservation of anatomical preparations and small animals, and later created a method for embalming human corpses from his operating base in Paris. He did this by making a small incision in the neck, rinsing the arteries, and then injecting the corpse with arsenic. At first, only corpses destined for the anatomical theatre were treated this way, but later on he also developed a conservation method that became popular in the funeral industry. ³⁷

As news about Gannal’s embalming procedure spread across Europe, hospitals and hygiene commissions became interested in applying his method for the conservation of corpses for dissection . The Medical Commission of the city of Brussels looked to Gannal’s method as a possible solution to the health risks and insalubrity caused by the circulation of cadavers for anatomical courses. ³⁸ Anatomists claimed that the embalming of corpses could halt the exhalation of “mephitic miasmas” and the emanation of “poisonous gas”, which caused typhoid fever. ³⁹ The teaching hospitals—where corpses were dissected—also reacted positively to Gannal’s method. Embalming was considered an excellent solution to the problem of the high number of accidents and illnesses caused by “le piqure anatomique”, or injuries caused by infection from dissection instruments. ⁴⁰ In 1841, four years after Gannal had patented his injection method, Cécilien Simonart, the prosector of the Brussels anatomy department, approved Gannal’s method for the conservation of anatomical preparations and for embalming procedures. ⁴¹

Following the popularity of Gannal’s conservation procedure, many scientists took it upon themselves to create new embalming methods. Research on new embalming procedures rocketed in the 1840s, which caused the Gazette médicale belge—a publication that regularly reported on new conserving techniques—to ask its readers “when will this embalmment mania stop?” ⁴²

The Application of Conserving Procedures

News on Gannal’s embalming technique reached Belgium at the same time as Burggraeve displayed his preparations. Like Burggraeve’s method, Gannal’s injection technique received considerable attention in the newspaper press where it was also presented as a successor to Ruysch’s procedure. ⁴³ Burggraeve’s anatomical preparations and Gannal’s embalmed corpses were described in similar terms by journalists, who lauded the freshness of their conserved bodies that had all the “appearances of life”. ⁴⁴

Both of these conserving procedures were developed behind the doors of the anatomical theatre, but it was Gannal who successfully tapped into a new market by attracting the interest of the funeral industry in France. In fact, Gannal claimed to have created two methods for the embalming of bodies. The first method was used in the anatomical theatre, whereas his second injection technique was used in funeral treatments. His commercial endeavours were so successful that Gannal patented his embalming method for funerals. Gannal’s fame grew and Belgian newspapers eagerly reported on the eccentric embalmer from Paris who had transformed the way dead bodies appeared. As one journalist wrote: “we can say that the physiognomy of death has become nothing more than that of sleep and rest”. ⁴⁵ Gannal’s procedure gained even more fame when it was allegedly used to conserve the already decaying body of Napoléon in 1840 after its exhumation. ⁴⁶

In 1845, the anatomist Charles Poelman (1815–1874) acquired Gannal’s embalming patent for Belgium and received critical acclaim for it among his fellow physicians. Gannal’s method had been celebrated for its low cost, allowing for a “popular application” of the embalming procedure. ⁴⁷ Although Poelman did not use the method to advance medical education, the medical press in Belgium supported its application because it evoked the “interest and affection of families” who wished for their beloved ones to “remain after death the way they had been”. ⁴⁸ Another reason for the popularity of the Gannal method was that it respected the integrity of the body during the conservation process. In contrast to earlier embalming techniques, Poelman did not remove organs or the brain, thought of by Poelman as the instrument of the soul , “that which man made into man”. ⁴⁹ This respectful technical process supported the desire among upper-class Belgians for corpses to appear as if they were sleeping. ⁵⁰

Through his embalming, Poelman responded to, and redefined, funeral rituals in Belgium. He acknowledged the growing importance of the tomb as a “pious object of veneration that speaks to our soul” and place where the living and the dead could reunite in an “invisible communion”. ⁵¹ Poelman urged that people considering a tomb should also consider embalming as a means to commemorate the dead, something he called a “sacred obligation”. ⁵² As presented by Poelman, embalming was a consolation for the living and a means by which they could still maintain a relationship with the dead.

In the 1840s, just as Poelman promised to create a corpse that appeared to be sleeping, a Belgian pharmacist named Joseph Michiels promised to immortalise the corpse as a kind of living statue. Michiels experimented with several bodies in an effort to conserve them by covering them with copper, gold, or silver. His efforts were praised in the Belgian medical press as a method to conserve pathological specimens and as a form of embalming. ⁵³ Michiels presented his preparations at one of the meetings of the Belgian Royal Academy of Science and Fine Arts in 1843, where an audience admired the “perfect representation of the traits of the face” in the preparations. ⁵⁴ Though Michiels presented his conservation method in the form of anatomical preparations, the scientific community encouraged and discussed its application in a non-medical context: “families can place their parents in accessible galleries, as an alternative to enclosing them in dark tombs”. ⁵⁵ Instead of tracing the features of the face, as the death mask process did, ⁵⁶ Michiels traced the entire body and transformed it into a sculpture, or a “statue for everyone”, as one local newspaper reported. ⁵⁷ Michiels’s conservation method allowed families to hold on to the corpse, literally, and keep it at home as if it were a jewel or decoration. As the Journal de Médecine de Bordeaux noted: “it seems that a gilded corpse would do well in a comfortably furnished apartment”. ⁵⁸

Overcoming Death: The Post-Mortem Subject

In the anatomical theatre, the corpse was fragmented and exposed for the purposes of medical education and spectacle, but in a funeral context, the integrity and respectful treatment of the corpse was paramount. Medical historians therefore connect the practice of anatomy with processes of objectifying the corpse. ⁵⁹ By cutting, injecting, and displaying body parts, anatomists turned the corpse into an object that lacked personhood . However, the creators of anatomical preparations frequently elided this process by signposting the identity and personality of the deceased.

Take Burggraeve’s anatomical preparations at the University of Ghent. The newborn infant was conserved in its entirety and wore a gown that symbolised youth and innocence. It also suggests a link with the family of the deceased infant. Baptism clothing was often recycled from the mother’s wedding dress and was used to baptise several children from the same family. Burggraeve probably used the dress to suggest that the separation between the child and its family was only temporary. While this kind of preparation appealed to upper class Belgians, it was likely that the child was from the poor and destitute class that usually provided bodies for anatomists.

Burggraeve’s preparation of the girl, meanwhile, made her recognisable and appealed to visitors who saw a person sleeping in a glass tomb. The addition of the hand to the preparation gave an extra dimension to the display of the body, emphasising the personality, femininity, and elegance of a body that was fragmented and placed in a jar. Like the textile, the hand also served a symbolic purpose, probably referring to the well-known preparations of children’s hands by Ruysch and the Dutch anatomist Bernhard Siegfried Albinus (1697–1770). The excellence of the conserved hand also alluded to the manual skills of the anatomist. ⁶⁰ Although both of these bodies were anonymous, visitors sensed the subjectivity of the people in the jars and this made death seem less unpleasant. As a journalist put it, “we can please ourselves by contemplating the sweet animation of life in the corpse”. ⁶¹ Burggraeve’s bodies can be defined as “post-mortem subjects”, a category John Troyer uses to think about the emergence of preservation technologies that made “the dead body look more alive”. ⁶² Burggraeve’s preparations seem to hover somewhere between life and death, an uncanny situation that led one journalist to describe how “the tricked eye can still see the blood and life circulating”. ⁶³

In the preparation of the girl, the presence and colour of the hand suggests life, but the state of the head points to the liminal position of the anatomised subject. Her head is literally positioned between life and death: on the one side she is peacefully sleeping; on the other side, her open skull makes the brain visible to visitors. In this, the preparation resembled nineteenth-century wax anatomical models in its form and in its connection with funerary sculptures through their incorporation of life and death in the body. ⁶⁴ This disconnection from the realities of death echoed a wider cultural transformation in the status of the dead, embalmed body. By the nineteenth century, the scientific value of elegant or elaborately decorated anatomical preparations had diminished. However, Burggraeve’s lifelike preparations had renewed value as icons that could diminish people’s fear of corpses. The beauty of these preparations becomes “apparent in contrast to [their] destruction”, disguising the presence of death and decay. ⁶⁵

Conclusion

The work of nineteenth-century anatomists and embalmers impacted on how people were mourned and their dead bodies considered in Belgium. Preservation showed that death did not inevitably lead to decay, that death could be thought of as a sleeping. In the Belgian newspaper press, Gannal and Burggraeve’s techniques were compared to the work of Ruysch, who had used a secret method to create his lifelike preparations. This chapter has argued that anatomists and embalmers materialised the death-as-sleep metaphor. Belgium shared with other nations a concern about the health issues associated with decaying bodies and anatomical practice. On an individual level, people desired an illusion that death was not the end, and that the personality of the deceased could be frozen in the corpse itself. Responding to this, anatomists developed methods for conservation in a medical context which received broader cultural applications. The displays discussed in this chapter demonstrate the journey of conserving and embalming practices from the anatomical theatre to the funeral parlour, from the world of medical education to the world of mourning practices. While anatomists could exert control over bodies and their decay through the use of preservatives and chemicals, visitors to anatomical cabinets could feel that they also exerted control over their own destiny by imagining that dead bodies looked like they were sleeping.

Notes

• 1. Philippe Ariès, The Hour of Our Death (Harmondsworth, 1981)‚ pp. 409–474.

• 2. Teresita Majewski and David Gaimster, International Handbook of Historical Archaeology (Berlin, 2009), p. 145.

• 3. Nas E. Boutammina, La Mort: Approche Anthropologique et Eschatologique (n.p., 2015); W.M. Spellman, A Brief History of Death (London, 2014), p. 125; Jozef Lamberts, “De Rooms-Katholieke Uitvaartliturgie”. In Lambert Leijssen et al. eds., Dood en Begrafenis (Leuven, 2007), pp. 119–131.

• 4. Sarah Tarlow, “Belief and the Archaeology of Death”. In Liv Nilsson Stutz and Sarah Tarlow eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial (Oxford, 2013), p. 620.

• 5. Sarah Tarlow, Bereavement and Commemoration: An Archaeology of Mortality (New York, 1999); Tarald Rasmussen and Jon Øygarden Flæten eds., Preparing for Death, Remembering the Dead (Göttingen, 2015), p. 35.

• 6. Myriam Nafte, “Institutional Bodies: Spatial Agency and the Dead”, History and Anthropology, 26:2 (2015), pp. 206–233; Ken Jeremiah, Christian Mummification: An Interpretative History of the Preservation of Saints, Martyrs and Others (Jefferson, North Carolina, 2012).

• 7. Christine Quigley, Skulls and Skeletons: Human Bone Collections and Accumulations (Jefferson, North Carolina and London, 2001), p. 184.

• 8. Dániel Margócsy, Commercial Visions: Science, Trade, and Visual Culture in the Dutch Golden Age (Chicago, 2014), p. 111.

• 9. Luuc Kooijmans, Death Defied: The Anatomy Lessons of Frederik Ruysch (Leiden and Boston, 2011), p. 315.

• 10. Gijsbert M. van de Roemer, “From Vanitas to Veneration: The Embellishments in the Anatomical Cabinet of Frederik Ruysch”, Journal of the History of Collections, 22:2 (2010), p. 178.

• 11. Ibid., p. 182.

• 12. Rina Knoeff, “Ballpool Anatomy: On the Public Veneration of Anatomical Relics”. In Robert Zwijnenberg and Rina Knoeff eds., The Fate of Anatomical Collections (Farnham, 2015), pp. 279–292.

• 13. Ibid., p. 288.

• 14. Van de Roemer, “From Vanitas to Veneration”, p. 181.

• 15. Marieke M.A. Hendriksen, Elegant Anatomy: The Eighteenth-Century Leiden Anatomical Collections (Leiden and Boston, 2014), pp. 11–12.

• 16. Adolphe Burggraeve, Cours théorique et pratique d’anatomie: comprenant l’histoire de l’anatomie, l’ovologie, l’organogénésie et les monstruosités, l’anatomie des tissus et l’anatomie pathologique (Ghent, 1840), p. 296.

• 17. George Nash, “Pomp and Circumstance. Archeology, Modernity and the Corporatisation of Death: Early Social and Political Victorian Attitudes towards Burial Practice”. In Paul Graves-Brown ed., Matter, Materiality, and Modern Culture (London and New York, 2000), p. 114.

• 18. Michael Sappol, A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-Century America (Princeton, New Jersey, 2004), p. 18.

• 19. Anne Carol, L’Embaumement. Une Passion Romantique: France, XIXe Siècle (Seyssel, 2015), p. 117.

• 20. Gary Laderman, Rest in Peace: A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home in Twentieth-Century America (Oxford, 2003).

• 21. Patricia Jalland, Death in the Victorian Family (Oxford, 1996), p. 18.

• 22. Précis Historiques. Bulletin des Missions Belges de la Compagnie de Jésus, Congo, Bengale, Ceylan (Brussels, 1855), p. 359.

• 23. “Enterrement des Pauvres à Bruxelles”, Assemblée Générale des Catholiques en Belgique. Première session à Malines, 18–22 août 1863, Vol. 2 (Brussels, 1864), pp. 356–357.

• 24. Christoph De Spiegeleer, “Sterven, Begraven en Herdenken van Koninklijke en Politieke Elites in België tussen 1830 en 1940. Een Culturele en Politieke Geschiedenis” (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 2016), p. 142.

• 25. Julie-Marie Strange, Death, Grief and Poverty in Britain, 1870–1914 (Cambridge, 2005), p. 77.

• 26. Ibid., p. 78.

• 27. Michael Sappol, Dream Anatomy (Bethesda, Maryland and Washington, D.C., 2006), pp. 25–34; Jonathan Simon, “The Theater of Anatomy: The Anatomical Preparations of Honore Fragonard”, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 36:1 (2002), pp. 63–79; Hendriksen, Elegant Anatomy, pp. 178–181.

• 28. Simon, “The Theater of Anatomy”, p. 75.

• 29. Elizabeth Hallam and Samuel Alberti, “Bodies in Museums”. In Elizabeth Hallam and Samuel Alberti eds., Medical Museums: Past, Present and Future (London, 2013), p. 4.

• 30. Hippolyte Kluyskens et al., “Rapport sur les Préparations Anatomiques de M. le Professeur Burggraeve, lu dans la Séance de la Société de Médecine de Gand du 7 Novembre 1837”, Société de Médecine de Gand (1837), p. 320.

• 31. Veronique Deblon and Pieter Huistra, “Het Geheim van de Anatoom: Adolphe Burggraeve en de Ontwikkeling van de Belgische Anatomie in de Negentiende Eeuw”. In Studium. Tijdschrift voor Wetenschaps-en Universiteitsgeschiedenis, 9:4 (2017), pp. 202–216.

• 32. Marieke M.A. Hendriksen, “The Fabric of the Body”, Histoire, Médicine et Santé, 5 (2014), pp. 21–32.

• 33. Kitty de Leeuw, Kleding in Nederland, 1813–1920 (Hilversum, 1992), p. 431.

• 34. Lou Taylor, Mourning Dress: A Costume and Social History (London, 1983), pp. 137–138.

• 35. “Conservation des Cadavres”, L’Indépendant, 26 August 1837.

• 36. Cindy Stelmackowich, “Bodies of Knowledge: The Nineteenth-Century Anatomical Atlas in the Spaces of Art and Science”, RACAR: Revue d’Art Canadienne / Canadian Art Review, 33:1/2 (2008), pp. 75–86; Jonathan Strauss, Human Remains: Medicine, Death, and Desire in Nineteenth-Century Paris (New York, 2012), p. 95.

• 37. Carol, L’Embaumement, pp. 55–56.

• 38. H.J. Vandencorput, “Conservation des Cadavres par le Procédé de Mr. Gannal” (1840). Letter from the Medical Commission to the City Council, File 58 (General Affairs: Correspondence concerning the Gannal procedure for the conservation of cadavers in the amphitheatre), Archives Social Services Brussels.

• 39. Ibid.

• 40. André Uytterhoeven, “Avis au Conseil d’Administration des Hospices et Secours concernant le Procédé Gannal” (1840). File 58 (General Affairs: Correspondence concerning the Gannal procedure for the conservation of cadavers in the amphitheatre), Archives Social Services Brussels.

• 41. L’Indépendance Belge, 20 August 1841.

• 42. Gazette Médicale Belge, 28 April 1844, p. 76.

• 43. “De l’Embaumement et de la Mommification”, Le Messager de Gand, 3 May 1837.

• 44. Kluyskens et al., “Rapport”, p. 320.

• 45. “De l’Embaumement”.

• 46. Le Messager de Gand, 24 August 1840.

• 47. “Embaumements”, Bulletin de la Société de Médecine de Gand, 11 (1845), pp. 124–125.

• 48. Ibid.

• 49. Charles Poelman, Notice sur les Embaumements: Procédé Gannal (Ghent, 1845), p. 9.

• 50. Carol, L’Embaumement, p. 146.

• 51. Poelman, Notice, p. 3.

• 52. Ibid., p. 4.

• 53. “Conservation, Embaumement et Modelage en Relief des Cadavres et Pièces Anatomiques, au Moyen de la Galvanoplastie”, Gazette Médicale Belge (1843), p. 141.

• 54. Claude-Louis Sommé, “Nouveau Procédé pour la Conservation des Corps”, Bulletin de l’Académie Royale des Sciences et Belles-Lettres de Bruxelles (1843), pp. 23–24.

• 55. Ibid., p. 24.

• 56. Quigley, Skulls and Skeletons, p. 43.

• 57. “A Chacun sa Statue”, Le Messager de Gand, 22 July 1843.

• 58. “Vicissitudes de l’Embaumement”, Journal de Médecine de Bordeaux (1843), pp. 519–520.

• 59. Samuel J.M.M. Alberti, Morbid Curiosities: Medical Museums in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Oxford and New York, 2011), pp. 99–101.

• 60. Hendriksen, Elegant Anatomy, p. 84.

• 61. “Conservation, Embaumement”.

• 62. John Troyer, “Embalmed Vision”, Mortality, 12:1 (2007), p. 24.

• 63. “Conservation, Embaumement”.

• 64. Elizabeth Hallam and Jenny Hockey, Death, Memory and Material Culture (Oxford and New York, 2001), p. 65.

• 65. Elisabeth Bronfen, Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity and the Aesthetic (Manchester, 1992), p. 5.