# embalming

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embalming/5572>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 24, 1999, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embalming/5572 "1999-12-24T14:13:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![galen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecc23a/32.png) [@galen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galen)\
**Post date:** [December 24, 1999, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embalming/5572/1 "1999-12-24T14:13:00Z")

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## What do morticians do when they embalm a body? I heard that they suck out the guts.

The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it. (Karl Marx, 1845)

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**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\
**Post date:** [December 24, 1999, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embalming/5572/2 "1999-12-24T21:30:00Z")

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Who told you this? A really, really old Egyptian?

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**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\
**Post date:** [December 25, 1999, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embalming/5572/3 "1999-12-25T01:22:00Z")

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Alan is right – you confused embalming with mummification.

In modern embalming the innards are left intact (unless they’ve been donated, of course). An embalming fluid is pumped into the veins to replace the blood, and various cosmetic changes are made to make the deceased look “natural.”

It isn’t the point of embalming to preserve the body for any length of time – just long enough to get through the funeral.

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“East is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.” – Marx

Read “Sundials” in the new issue of Aboriginal Science Fiction. [www.sff.net/people/rothman](http://www.sff.net/people/rothman)

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**Author:** ![savcash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@savcash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/savcash)\
**Post date:** [December 26, 1999, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embalming/5572/4 "1999-12-26T17:45:00Z")

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You can read up all about this on the site: [http://www.casketstores.com/NCRABB.htm](http://www.casketstores.com/NCRABB.htm)  
But it is not just the pumping in.out of the blood. (They use a “trocar” in the gut to  
release any gas)

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“Does love have a limit? Neither does forgiveness”

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**Author:** ![Konrad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f475e1/32.png) [@Konrad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Konrad)\
**Post date:** [December 27, 1999, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embalming/5572/5 "1999-12-27T06:05:00Z")

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I think The Onion did a really nice special on this. Don’t know if it’s in the archives.