The American Way of Death Revisited - Jessica Mitford [37]
In this, I was somewhat disappointed. The discussions seemed inconclusive, and the funeral spokesmen themselves often appeared to be unclear about the points they were making.
My first interview was with Dr. Charles H. Nichols, a Ph.D. in education from Northwestern University, who became the educational director of the National Foundation of Funeral Service. Among his published works are “The Psychology of Selling Vaults” and “Selling Vaults,” which appeared in the Vault Merchandiser in 1954 and 1956 respectively. His duties at the foundation include lecturing to undertakers at the School of Management on such subjects as “Counseling in Bereavement.”
Dr. Nichols readily volunteered the information that embalming has made an enormous contribution to public health and sanitation, that if done properly it can disinfect the dead body so thoroughly that it is no longer a source of contamination. “But is a dead body a source of infection?” I asked. Dr. Nichols replied that he didn’t know. “What about foreign countries where they do not as a rule embalm; is much illness caused by failure to do so?” Dr. Nichols said he didn’t know.
Mr. Wilber Krieger was an important figure in funeral circles, for he was not only managing director of an influential trade association, National Selected Morticians, but also director of the National Foundation of Funeral Service. To my question “Why is embalming universally practiced in the United States?” he answered that there is a public health factor: germs do not die with the host, and embalming disinfects. I told him of my conversation with Dr. Jesse Carr, and of my own surprise at learning that even in typhoid cases, embalming is ineffective as a safety measure against contagion; upon which he burst out with, “That’s a typical pathologist’s answer! That’s the sort of thing you hear from so many of them.” Pressed for specific cases of illness caused by failure to embalm, Mr. Krieger recalled the death from smallpox of a prominent citizen in a small Southern community where embalming was not practiced. Hundreds went to the funeral to pay their respects, and as a result a large number of them came down with smallpox. Unfortunately, Mr. Krieger had forgotten the name of the prominent citizen, the town, and the date of this occurrence. I asked him if he would check on these details and furnish me with the facts; however, he has not yet done so.
I had no better luck in a subsequent conversation with Mr. Howard C. Raether, executive secretary of the National Funeral Directors Association (to which the great majority of funeral directors belong), and Mr. Bruce Hotchkiss, vice president of that organization and himself a practicing undertaker. In this case, our conversation was recorded on tape. I asked what health hazard is presented by a dead body which has not been opened up, for purposes of either autopsy or embalming.
MR. RAETHER: Well, as an embalmer, Bruce, aren’t there certain discharges that come from the body without it having been opened up?
MR. HOTCHKISS: Yes, most assuredly from—orally—depending upon the mode or condition preceding death.
Then I asked, “Can you give any place, then, where the public health has been endangered—give us the place and the time?”
They could not. We talked around the point for several minutes, but these two leaders of an industry built on the embalming process were unable to produce a single fact to support their major justification for the procedure. I told them what Dr. Carr had said about embalming and public health. “Do you have any comment on that?” I asked. Mr. Raether answered, “No; but we can take a look-see and try to give you some instances.”
When the results of the look-see arrived, eight weeks later, in the form of an impressive-looking document titled “Public Health and Embalming,” I was surprised to find that it was the work not of a medical expert but of Mr. Raether (who is a lawyer)