On Entering the Small World of Molecules and Micromorphology

Abstract

The closer I get to the next and more ancient phase of my life, the more I get interested in mummification. But my experience of various kinds of mummies over the years instills in me considerable pessimism about my achieving a good state of preservation for the next world. I confess that I don’t fancy being soaked in natron and rubbed with resins or camel fat as preservative procedures – or being disembowelled for that matter. Plastination? I prefer not. Freeze drying should be the ideal for us all now, if costing is ignored – but colleagues in conservation laboratories still seem uncertain about the stability of internal organs in the freeze drying of whole bodies. Clearly there is experimental work to be done here. [...]