How do they match: Embalmers

  • Prepare bodies for interment in conformity with legal requirements.

  • Assist coroners at death scenes or at autopsies, file police reports, and testify at inquests or in court, if employed by a coroner.
  • Clean and disinfect areas in which bodies are prepared and embalmed.
  • Dress bodies and place them in caskets.
  • Maintain records, such as itemized lists of clothing or valuables delivered with body and names of persons embalmed.
  • Pack body orifices with cotton saturated with embalming fluid to prevent escape of gases or waste matter.
  • Reshape or reconstruct disfigured or maimed bodies when necessary, using dermasurgery techniques and materials such as clay, cotton, plaster of Paris, and wax.
  • Wash and dry bodies, using germicidal soap and towels or hot air dryers.