![]() ![]() It was causing health problems for medical students who were operating on embalmed cadavers. The good news is that arsenic was banned from embalming fluid in the early 1900s. Drinking arsenic-contaminated water has also been linked to cardiovascular disease, lung disease and cognitive deficits in children. Arsenic is a carcinogen that’s associated with skin, lung, bladder and liver cancers, says Joseph Graziano, an environmental health scientist at Columbia University. If humans ingest the contaminated water, it can cause significant health problems over time. Medford Historical Society Collection/CORBIS Soldiers bury Union dead who fell near Fredericksburg, Virginia, during the 1863 Chancellorsville Campaign. “When you have this big mass of arsenic, there’s enough to affect literally millions of liters of water at least a little bit,” Bostick says. But in 2002, a USGS-sponsored survey in Iowa City found arsenic levels at three times the federal limit near an old cemetery. The federal government says it's only safe for us to drink water with 10 parts per billion of arsenic or less. That means old cemeteries full of deceased soldiers and civilians present a real problem for today’s homeowners. "As the body is becoming soil, the arsenic is being added to the soil.” From there, rainwater and flooding can wash arsenic into the water table. “A Civil War-era cemetery filled with plenty of graves-things seldom stay where you want them to,” says Benjamin Bostick, a geochemist at Columbia University. ![]() But the poisonous element doesn't degrade, so when embalmed bodies rot in the ground, arsenic gets deposited into the soil. One popular formula “contained about four ounces of arsenious acid per gallon of water, and up to 12 pounds of non-degradable arsenic was sometimes used per body,” according to the 5th Street Cemetery Necrogeological Study.Īrsenic kills the bacteria that make corpses stinky-if you’ve ever smelled bad meat, you can imagine how important it is for embalming fluid to do its thing and do it well. Many early recipes for embalming fluid were jealously guarded by morticians because some worked so much better than others, but most commonly contained arsenic, Mathews adds. “Embalmers flocked to battlefields to embalm whoever could afford it and send them home,” said Mike Mathews, a mortuary scientist at the University of Minnesota.Īn embalming surgeon is seen at work on a Civil War soldier's body sometime in the early 1860s.Įmbalming fluid is effective, but it’s also nasty stuff. People willing to try their hand at embalming spent their time following the military from combat zone to combat zone. became a booming industry during the Civil War era. “We're talking about the 1800s, so how do you freeze and keep them frozen if they take weeks to transport?” says Jana Olivier, an environmental scientist and professor-emeritus at the University of South Africa. Also, the people who fought and died in the Civil War came from all over the United States, and families who wanted to bury their kin would pay to have them shipped home.Īt the time, ice was the only option to preserve a body, but that didn’t work very well-and no one wants to see a deceased relative partially decomposed. When someone died at the turn of the century, it was common practice to bring a photographer in to take death photos. While there's no need to fear the walking dead, homeowners should watch out for toxins leaking out of old graves that could be contaminating drinking water and causing serious health problems. If you live near a Civil War-era cemetery, rotting corpses may be on the attack.
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