Means of Preservation
In some cases an attempt is made to preserve some or all of a body. These methods include:
- Cryopreservation
- Mummification; the most well-known examples are from ancient Egypt
- Taxidermy: A few people, such as the philosopher Jeremy Bentham, have had their dead bodies stuffed.
- Plastination: The preserved (embalmed) body is prepared by dissection or slicing and fluids are replaced with inert plastic for anatomical study by medical students or display in museums. This technique was pioneered by Gunther von Hagens of the Institute for Plastination.
Human remains of archaeological or medical interest are often kept in museums and private collections. This practice is controversial (See NAGPRA). In the cases of Native Americans in the United States, possession of remains and related objects is regulated by the NAGPRA Act of 1990.
Read more about this topic: Disposal Of Human Corpses
Famous quotes containing the words means of, means and/or preservation:
“As a means of contrast with the sublime, the grotesque is, in our view, the richest source that nature can offer.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“It was always accounted a virtue in a man to love his country. With us it is now something more than a virtue. It is a necessity. When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect.”
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965)
“The bourgeois treasures nothing more highly than the self.... And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his own preservation and security. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed by God, as he prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that deathly inner consuming fire.”
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)