Why Has It Become Standard Practice in the U.S. to Embalm Our Dead?

Unlike Lenin, Lincoln and Rudy Valentino, you don't need to show proof that you ignited revolutions, civil wars and extra-marital affairs in order to be embalmed. You just need to reside in America and be pronounced dead. If, on the other hand, you wish to remain intact until burial or cremation but you fail to communicate this information to your loved ones, your family will probably hand over the care of your body to a funeral home which will strongly advise that you be disinfected, preserved, cosmetized and deodorized for your going-away party.

Since it's become imperative that we confront the hidden costs of our modern lifestyle and reevaluate whether our needs are truly needs and not just wants, it's no surprise that our death industry and its standardized practice of embalming is getting a second look. Formaldehyde, the main preserving agent, has been classified as a human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and as a probable human carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Improper disposition of embalming fluids has also come under scrutiny for its violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act. "Formaldehyde and phenol," notes the EPA, "present human health risks, if ingested in drinking water."

If Canada and England show a penchant for the posthumous makeover, the United States is the only country in the world where chemical conservation of our dead is common practice even though embalming is not required in most states. "Embalming is an option," says Shun Newbern, quality control embalming supervisor at Rose Hills Memorial Park & Mortuary in Southern California. "With that option come procedures to make people presentable and assure that during the service there is no odor. It's only temporary. It only lasts 100 years." Only?

1. 100 years ago

"Embalming was the lifeblood of the American funeral industry from the beginning of the 20th century," writes Gary Laderman, author of The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death, 1799-1883 and Rest In Peace: A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home In Twentieth-Century America. "Without this procedure," he adds, "Funeral directors would have had a difficult time claiming that they were part of a professional guild, and therefore justified as the primary mediators between the living and the dead from the moment of death to the final disposition."

Up until the Civil War, losing friends and family members was more frequent but no less painful than today. The main difference was that we cared for our dead at home. We bathed them, dressed them and placed them in the coldest room of the house -- also known as the parlor -- so that relatives and friends could pay their respects before burial. The Civil War interrupted this cycle. The dead didn't always come home. "After the funeral journey of Abraham Lincoln's embalmed body from Washington D.C. to Springfield, (embalming) slowly gained legitimacy," Laderman writes. "Lincoln's body served as son to those who lost children to anonymous graves." Yet, at the beginning of the 20th century, embalming was still a procedure regarded with skepticism and repulsion by many. Embalming "had been employed in medical schools usually in secret to preserve cadavers for instruction in the middle of the 19th century," writes Laderman.

Embalming also faced opposition from Christian leaders who argued that it gave rise to a morbid fascination with the body over the soul. Ministers resented the growing legitimacy of funeral directors since their role at time of death had already diminished. "Dying in the isolated space of the hospital room institutionalized the experience as a passage requiring scientific and increasingly technological intervention, rather than prayers and the presence of the community. As medical institutions grew in stature, technological advances revolutionized treatment, and health care became accessible to more and more people, a new perspective on death began to take hold in the US: Life must be sustained at all costs, with death viewed as a devastating defeat."