Very nice work! I am assuming the caskets are empty and only symbolic?
Apparently, those are the actual caskets, containing the remains of President Garfield and his wife.
From WILL[/I] seep out of a casket!
Apparently, those are the actual caskets, containing the remains of President Garfield and his wife.
They must have to do a lot of on-going preservation work on both to prevent the smell of decomposition from filling that rotunda. It WILL seep out of a casket!
They must have to do a lot of on-going preservation work on both to prevent the smell of decomposition from filling that rotunda. It WILL seep out of a casket!
I have no expertise in the field of embalming, and no knowledge of what methods have been or are being applied to the bodies of President and Mrs. Garfield. I have no doubt that there are methods to preserve a body, that can prevent issues such as you bring up.
I'm now thinking of Vladimir Lenin's body, which has been preserved and on display since his death nearly a century ago. That would be a much more complex and difficult task than for the Garfields. In Lenin's case, it's not just sufficient to keep the smell of decomposition from permeating his tomb; his body is being preserved for public display, so it's appearance has to be maintained. Whatever is being done to preserve Lenin's body, is surely much more than needs to be done for the Garfields' bodies whi ch are kept in closed caskets, and not displayed to the public.
Back in the 1880's mortuary science was still in its infancy. It really only came about as a result of the Civil War when the remains of soldiers were preserved for long periods until they could be returned to their families for a proper interment. Arsenic was used in embalming fluid which not unsurprisingly led to a lot of deaths amongst the embalmers. After 136 years I am sure that not that much is needed as the remains of both him and his wife have become skeletonized, but certainly something had to have been done in the many years following his death. I know that President Lincoln was embalmed several times after his death to preserve his remains until it was finally buried under a slab of concrete after attempts were made to steal his remains.