o consideration the excellent manner in which they preserved
their human or other bodies for thousands of years by the aid of
injections, spices, essential oils, or what not, they may, I think, be
fairly placed in the front rank as the first taxidermists the world
has known. For an account, of the arts used in embalming see
Herodotus, who says:

In Egypt certain persons are appointed by law to exercise this art
(embalming) as their peculiar business; and when a dead body is
brought them they produce patterns of mummies in wood imitated in
painting, the most elaborate of which are said to be of him (Osiris)
whose name I do not think it right to mention on this occasion. The
second which they show is simpler and less costly; the third is the
cheapest. Having exhibited them all, they inquire of the persons who
have applied to them which method they wish to be adopted, and this
being settled, and the price agreed upon, the parties return, leaving
the body with the embalmers.

In preparing it according to the first method, they commence by
extracting the brain from the nostrils with a curved iron probe,
partly clearing the head by this means, and partly by pouring in
certain drugs; then, making an incision in the side with a sharp
Ethiopian stone, they draw out the intestines through the aperture.
Having cleansed and washed them with palm wine they cover them with
pounded aromatics, and afterwards filling the cavity with powder of
pure, myrrh, cassia, and other fragrant substances, frankincense
excepted, they sew it up again. This being done, they salt the body,
keeping it in natron seventy days, to which period they are strictly
confined. When the seventy days are over they wash the body and wrap
it up entirely in bands of fine linen smeared on their inner side with
gum, which the Egyptians generally use instead of glue. The relatives
then take away the body, and have a wooden ease made in the form of a
man, in which they deposit it, and, when fastened up, they keep it in
a room in their house, placing it upright against the wall. This is
the most costly method of embalming.

For those who choose the middle-kind, on account of the expense, they
prepare the body as follows: They fill syringes with oil of cedar, and
inject this into the abdomen, without making any incision or removing
the bowels, and, taking care that the liquid shall not escape, they
keep it in salt during the specified number of days. The cedar oil is
t