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Alfredo Salafia

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Name
  
Alfredo Salafia


Alfredo Salafia modernnotioncomwpcontentuploadsAlfredoSalafi


Similar
  
Rosalia Lombardo, Yde Girl, Xin Zhui

Born
  
November 7, 1869 (age 63)

Died
  
January 31, 1933 (aged 63)

Dario pimbino mascali alfredo salafia e rosalia lombardo


Alfredo Salafia (November 7, 1869 – January 31, 1933) was a Sicilian embalmer and taxidermist of the 1900s.

Contents

In December 1920, he embalmed a little girl, Rosalia Lombardo, in Palermo, Sicily 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.

ResearchonRosaliaLombardo


Technique

The mummification techniques used by Salafia were discovered in 2013 in his handwritten memoir. He injected the cadaver with a fluid made of formalin to kill bacteria, alcohol to dry the body, glycerin to keep her from overdrying, salicylic acid to kill fungi, and zinc 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

Alfredo Salafia Wikipedia


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