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Summary Of Behind The Formaldehyde Curtain By Jessica Mitford

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Summary Of Behind The Formaldehyde Curtain By Jessica Mitford
The embalming business is a multi-million-dollar industry in the United States; however, “not one in ten thousand [Americans] has any idea of what actually takes place” during the embalming of a body (Mitford 270). In the past, embalming was strictly done upon request of the deceased’s family. Now it is done without any of the kin giving their permission for the procedure to be performed. In her essay “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain” Jessica Mitford describes in detail the process by which deceased bodies are embalmed and uses it to express her revolt towards the unnatural way the American mortuary business treats them.
Jessica Mitford exposes the embalming as an unnecessary post-mortem process since the natural process of decomposition of
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