A 1902 advertisement for Bisga embalming fluid finally reveals what is at stake in embalming. The advertisement portrays a perfectly preserved corpse, embalmed three months previously, fully dressed in business attire, seated, and holding a newspaper. At first glance, the advertisement seems to suggest that through embalming one can retain one's middle-class appearance, and thereby the status achieved in life in the grave. Certainly, this was a perception that circulated in mass culture...

But in appearing to reaffirm middle-class markings through embalming, the Bisga advertisement reveals a more ominous truth: because of the laws regulating the use of corpses, the apparent gentleman's body most certainly belonged to an individual who had been destitute. He simply was remade to appear middle class.

Dr. Variot, one of the foremost practitioners in the Paris hospitals, is the author of the system, whose result has been termed "L'anthropoplastic galvanique." His mode of procedure is as follows: He places the body in a double frame, with four uprights fastened together, with square trays, and then covers the frame with a pneumatic bell. The body is perforated by a metallic wire, one end going through the roof of the skull, while the other rests in the tray at the feet. This wire not only acts as a support to the corpse but as a conductor of electricity. The uprights and other portions of the frame are carefully insulated with india rubber, gutta percha or praffine. A small thermo-electric battery furnishes the current. A metallic contact descends from the upper tray and rests lightly upon the surface of the cadaver. The surface of the feet and the palms of the hands also rest upon two contacts, and, in addition, contacts are echeloned on the uprights and frame, and can be applied or disconnected at pleasure.

Before the apparatus is plunged in a galvanic bath the body has to be rendered a perfect electric conductor. For this purpose the operator either paints the corpse with a solution of nitrate of silver or he puts a powdered preparation of the same on the surface of the skin. The caustic penetrates the surface, and the skin turns an opaque color. Afterward the nitrate of silver has to be reduced or separated from its oxide, but this presents no great difficulty. The double framework is then placed in a reservoir, from which the air is exhausted by a pump, and vapors of white phosphorus dissolved in sulphur of carbon are introduced. This is a dangerous operation, as are all operations in which dissolved phosphorus plays any part. After the phosphoric vapors have reduced the nitrate of silver the corpse becomes a grayish white, and is a perfect facsimile of a plaster of Paris statue. The metallization is then very simple, being effected by a galvanic bath in the usual way.

The French capital is greatly excited over this method of making indestructible mummies. Should it come into favor metallized bodies may soon take the place of wax figures and statuary in museums, galleries and even private residences. Not only can the last expression of the deceased be preserved, but various poses produced, and by deft manipulation the countenance of the corpse changed to express almost any emotion. The body of the warrior may be made to assume a martial attitude. The dead preacher could be electroplated in the act of exhortation. Statesmen and heroes could bequeath their remains to a sorrowing nation, and coated with gold, silver or brass preside in person over their own monuments. In fact there is no end of practical or romantic purposes to which our plated bodies might be put, from the pointing of a moral to the adornment of a tale, and even to the portrayal of some striking episode in national life.