Alfredo Salafia (November 7, 1869 – January 31, 1933) was a Sicilian embalmer and

taxidermist Taxidermy is the art of preserving an animal's body via mounting (over an armature) or stuffing, for the purpose of display or study. Animals are often, but not always, portrayed in a lifelike state. The word ''taxidermy'' describes the proc ...

of the 1900s. In December 1920, he embalmed a little girl, Rosalia Lombardo, in

Palermo, Sicily Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The city is noted for its hi ...

at her father's request. She currently lies in a glass topped, sealed coffin in Palermo's Capuchin friary catacombs ( Catacombe dei Cappuccini), and is available for public viewing as one of the best preserved bodies there. The formula Salafia used to embalm her, found in his handwritten memoirs, involved injecting the body with a solution of formalin, zinc salts, alcohol, salicylic acid, and glycerin.

Technique

The

mummification A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay furt ...

techniques used by Salafia were discovered in 2007 in his handwritten memoir. He injected the cadaver with a fluid made of

formalin Formaldehyde ( , ) ( systematic name methanal) is a naturally occurring organic compound with the formula and structure . The pure compound is a pungent, colourless gas that polymerises spontaneously into paraformaldehyde (refer to section F ...

to kill bacteria, alcohol to dry the body,

glycerin Glycerol (), also called glycerine in British English and glycerin in American English, is a simple triol compound. It is a colorless, odorless, viscous liquid that is sweet-tasting and non-toxic. The glycerol backbone is found in lipids known ...

to keep her from overdrying, salicylic acid to kill fungi, and

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

salts to give her body rigidity. Accordingly, the formula's composition is "one part glycerin, one part formalin saturated with both zinc sulfate and chloride, and one part of an alcohol solution saturated with salicylic acid."

References

1869 births 1933 deaths Embalmers Taxidermists 20th-century Italian scientists {{Italy-scientist-stub