“The worst thing in here is the formaldehyde, right?”
That’s what I asked my embalming instructor the first day we went into the lab, after our OSHA training and lectures on PPE. I’d had no funeral experience of my own before then and was carrying preconceptions that I’d picked up from pop-culture morticians, namely that a dead body was nothing to be afraid of and traditional formalin embalming was pointless and harmful.
To be clear, a dead body in and of itself is nothing to be afraid of, even a smelly one. We’ve moved beyond the miasma theory of medicine. Dead is not the problem; it’s the pathogens that may still be alive. OSHA teaches the idea of universal precautions: i.e., treat all biological material as if it might be infectious. Morticians are rarely privy to a person’s entire medical profile, and we don’t assume that family members are either. I’ve worked with people who felt that wearing gloves when picking up a decedent at a house call was disrespectful to the family. I counter that unwittingly picking up a nasty pathogen and transferring it to the next house you visit is far more disrespectful. I’m not especially squeamish about corpses, but COVID immediately cured me of any inclination to skimp on PPE when interacting with the living.
But formaldehyde! It’s a carcinogen! It’s a dangerous chemical and therefore bad!
It is a carcinogen! It is toxic! Please don’t drink it. But the false dichotomy of “chemical” (and therefore bad) vs. “natural” (and therefore good) is especially frustrating in our current climate of science ignorance and denial. Lava, fire ants, and hippopotamuses are all natural. So, in fact, is formaldehyde.
Formaldehyde is one of many aldehydes—from the Latin alcohol dehydrogenatum, or dehydrogenated alcohol—a diverse group of organic compounds. Traces of aldehydes such as cinnamaldehyde, vanillin, and trans-2-decenal contribute to the distinctive odors of cinnamon, vanilla, and cilantro. Others, like formaldehyde and its cousin glutaraldehyde, definitely don’t smell so pleasant.
Plants and animals produce endogenous formaldehyde, and it exists throughout the universe, including in interstellar medium. If a metal band hasn’t written a song about that, one should. Recent research suggests that formaldehyde is a likely source of organic carbon solids in the solar system, which may have helped create the organic compounds and molecules that led to life on Earth. You’re welcome?
On Earth, formaldehyde is an intermediate product in methane combustion, present in cigarette smoke, car exhaust, or forest fires. In humans, it forms in the metabolism of certain amino acids and is then further metabolized into formic acid. Formaldehyde breaks down quickly when exposed to sunlight or soil bacteria, and does not bioaccumulate. Which is good news for ghouls, maggots, and whatever cats may nibble on me after I die.
Russian chemist Alexander Butlerov first synthesized formaldehyde in 1859, but misidentified it. It was conclusively identified in 1867 by German chemist August Wilhelm von Hoffman. In mortuary school, these are the only two names we learn—from there it skips directly to formaldehyde’s use in funeral embalming.
Phase 1: Discover formaldehyde
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit!
I couldn’t teach that without derailing the lecture with my own questions, so I crawled down a rabbit hole. As it happens, when formaldehyde was first discovered, germ theory was gaining traction, to the lamentation of bacteria and the great rejoicing of hospital patients. Joseph Lister began using carbolic acid, aka phenol (also an embalming chemical), as an antiseptic in 1865. By 1889 the French chemist Auguste Trillat secured a patent to produce formaldehyde as an industrial reagent; Trillat in turn licensed companies in France and Germany for its manufacture. One of the first possibilities seen in formaldehyde was its potential use as a disinfectant.
This brings us to 1892, when a German physician and researcher named Ferdinand Blum was hired to test formalin (formaldehyde in liquid suspension) as a bactericide. While doing so, Blum spilled some on his fingers and noticed how the tissue hardened. This tidbit immediately caught my interest, for I too have had formalin leak through punctured gloves and noticed that exact same reaction. (Don’t worry—it wears off.) Blum proceeded to test the fluid on tissue samples, and discovered that formalin preserved tissues as well as alcohol did, and with less distortion. And that, dear readers, is how it eventually became a staple in anatomical preservation and funeral embalming. In the United States, it replaced arsenic as a preservative—and no matter how much you may dislike formaldehyde, I assure you that arsenic is worse.
But wait! I have more formaldehyde-adjacent history to share. Ferdinand Blum was Jewish (though he converted to Protestantism after marrying his Catholic wife), and fled Nazi Germany in 1939 to continue his medical and scientific career in Switzerland. Blum’s daughters, Pauline Jack and Gertrud Roesler-Ehrhardt, stayed in Germany to help Jewish refugees escape the Nazis. Pauline was an opera singer, through which circles she met the English sisters Ida and Louise Cook who worked to smuggle the valuables of Jewish refugees across the German border so they could safely immigrate to Britain. (Ida Cook is also known as Mills & Boon romance author Mary Burchell.)
I set out to fill in the gaps about formaldehyde’s history and discovered a Nazi-fighting opera singer. The world is an amazing place sometimes.
Amanda Downum is the author of The Necromancer Chronicles, Dreams of Shreds & Tatters, and the World Fantasy Award-nominated collection Still So Strange. Not content with armchair necromancy, she is also a licensed mortician. She lives in Austin, TX with an invisible cat. You can summon her at a crossroads at midnight on the night of a new moon, or find her on Twitter as @stillsostrange.