Kiss the Corpse and Then You Die
Kiss the Corpse and Then You Die The custom of kissing the corpse often led to death from infectious disease.
Posts tagged
‘Victorian funerals’
Ordering a Funeral for Mother
Ordering a Funeral for Mother A devoted son orders a lavish funeral for his mother–who is not dead and declines the festivities.
The Last Word: Coffin-Plate Capers
The Last Word: Coffin-Plate Capers Stories of Victorian and Edwardian coffin-plates as ornament, family record, protest, and omen.
Corpses on Ice: The Dangers of the Undertaker’s Ice-Box
Corpses on Ice: The Dangers of the Undertaker’s Ice-Box If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you may have read about the grim German waiting mortuaries, the dark side of those popular Fisk cast-iron burial caskets, people who asked to be stabbed to the heart after death to make sure they were really most sincerely dead, and about the Victorian fear—obsession, really—with being buried alive. It was difficult enough for 19th-century physicians to tell when someone was a lifeless corpse, given diseases like cholera that mimicked death and an apparent epidemic of catalepsy. Yet beyond doubtful diagnoses of death, there was another, lesser-known mortuary danger: the undertaker’s ice-box.
O, Death, Where Is Thy Bling?
O, Death, Where Is Thy Bling? The Gilded Age was a golden age for the conspicuous consumption of coffins and other funerary goods, inspiring a kind of mortuary arms race. Keeping up with the Boneses…. Two Victorian examples.
Sewing Shrouds: 19th-century Burial Clothing
Sewing Shrouds: 19th-century Burial Clothing .In search of what the well-dressed corpse is wearing, I ask the question, “Who made dresses for the dead?” and find a series of candid articles about the 19th-century shroud industry.