Funeral Directors and Coroners

Death. It surrounds us all. It's a thing that no man can simply comprehend as it is one of the greastest mysteries of life itself. Death is a tragedy to everyone around it, however, there's one person who faces this death everyday with no fear, as it's their job to deal with death and corspes. These people are the Funeral Directors, Untertaker's and of course Morticians, who are all one and the same in their profession. The coroners are a different matter as they don't really deal with the body other than using it for an autopsy.
The terms seem to mean all the same thing but if you look closely at their histories, the Undertaker came first, followed by the Mortician and finally the Funeral Director. The Undertaker was first used in Europe in the early 1800s and was given to a person who was helping to trasport the body and dress it for burial. Later, the term Mortician was used and was a specific person who was assigned with transportation and dressing. As the 20th century rolled around and embalming practices were being put to use, the term was then changed to Funeral Director as they began to handle everythign that had to do with the body and planned the funeral according to the family's wishes.
Funeral homes are usually run by a small family who act as the Funeral Director's and use their home as the Funeral home. The job of a Funeral Director is usually not enough to run on so the Funeral Director usually has another job as well. When there's a small family running the Funeral Home it's most likely a place to trust since the family would then be focused on you and you alone if you're their only person then. A larger Funeral Home worked by a company may be a bit more annoying or unattatched as the person working your funeral would have other funerals to work on as well.
As a Funeral Director, whether working for someone or working on their own, there are certain responibilities that must be met. First a family funeral home has to make sure that the finances are all okay to run the business meaning that the Funeral Director must have basic knowledge of management as well as people skills to deal with the customers. The Funeral Director must arrange for the body of the deceased to be transfered to the Funeral home as well as preparing for the body's arrival. The Funeral Director then must make sure that the body is dressed in the appropriate attire as requested by the family of the deceased and must have many options for different religious and ethnic backgrounds. If the deceased left anything specific instruction wise than the Funeral Director must ensure that every single one of the deceased wishes are fulfilled right from the start.
First and formost, the Funeral Director needs directions in taking care of the body from the loved one's. This is commonly called the first call. Once that's out of the way and the Funeral Director has collected the information that's needed from the caller they must prepare room for the new body and be prepared to dress the corpse. When the body arrives, the Funeral Director must make sure that the body is in a cool environment as the body decomposes very quickly after deatha nd must be preserved to be properly prepared for burial. This can be done by keeping the heat off in the winter or having the air conditioning on in the summer. Ice can also be used to keep the body cooled. Once the tempurature is taken care of, the Funeral Director has to make sure that if, the deceased is an organ donor, the organs go to their rightful places as quickly as possible. The Funeral Director must be careful not to directly touch any fluids from the body as it can contain any kind of infection and harm to any of the people around it. Protective clothes must be worn when dealing with the corpse including safety goggles, gloves and an apron to prevent bodily fluids from getting on your clothes. Once everything of that is taken care of, it is time to embalm the body.
The embalming process is a long and messy process that involves the handling of bodily fluids. The definition of embalming is to preserve a corpse from decay, originally with spices and now usually with arterial injection of a preservative. The first step in pre-embalming. If the Funeral Director is given the okay, they fill out the ebalming paperwork. This includes details of what the body looks like and logging of all personal items and clothing as well as giving a detail report on what chemicals are being used in the process. All this is nessecary in case the family has a problem with the way the Funeral Director does things. After the paperwork is filled out the body is tripped of all clothes, jewlery and any other items that might have been on it (IV needles, cathaters, bandages, ect.). A strong disinfectant is used on all the orifices of the body including the eyes, mouth, ears, nostrils and skin. After the spray the body is removed of body hair by being shaved. This includes the women as well. The reason for this is so that the make-up isn't noticable when it is applied. If rigor mortis has set in then it must be taken care of by moving the limbs and massaging the muscles.
The next step is feature setting. This step is making sure that the body is in the position needed for the viewing of the body. This is done before the initial emblaming because, once embalmed, the corpse would be impossible to move as it would be firmly set. The process of closing the eyes is quite interesting. Little known by most, the eyes sink into the sockets upon death and thus in order to keep the eyelids closed, the Funeral Director must place a small plastic piece under the eyelid called an eye cap. The eye cap is soaked in a special kind of cream to hold the eyes shut and to avoid dehydration. There's a popular myth where it is said that the eyes are sewn shut when that is not the case at all. Next is the sealing of the mouth. This can be sealed by sewing the jaw closed or using a special kind of injection gun. A suture string is used to sew the jaw shut with a curved needle. The needle is placed inside the mouth and through the jaw, then through the bottom of the nostril, back into the jaw, back through the top of the mouth and so on until the mouth is completely sealed. The string is pulled slowly tighter at the end to give the mouth a natural closed look. After the mouth is sealed it is finished off with a small amount of the cream used to seal the eyes in order to avoid dehydration. The Funeral Director also may use a small amount of a caulk like material that gives the lips a more natural looking appearance.
The next step is Arterial Emblaming. The usual amount of emblaming fluid is at least two gallons and is usually a mix of water and formaldehyde or some other chemical. The emblaming fluid is injected into an artery while blood is pumped out of the other arteries. If the person had suffered cancer or diabetes or was on certain drugs than the water and formaldehyde mix is replaced by a waterless solution. Once the embalming fluid is placed in the blood stream, the pressure pushes the other fluids out of the arteries. This helps to place all the fluid throughout the body. The jugular vein is opened in order to allow the blood to be let out of the body so not too much pressure is built up in the system. The blood draining from the body is desposed of in the sewer. Once the artial emblaming is done, the insitions are closed as sealed with a special chemical.
After artial embalming is cavity embalming. This step applies only to those bodies that have not been autopsied as the internal organs would have already been removed. This process is to get rid of the extra fluids inside the organs of the body that will cause horrible decompisition and may even be used in a lawsuit against the Funeral home. The Fineral Director punctures a hole in the abdomen of the body and begins to drain the excess fluids from the organs. In order to prevent any leakage through extra orfices, the anus and vagina are blocked by either cotton or tight fitting plastic undergarments. Sometimes the Funeral Director will remove the organs entirely and replace the organs with a viscera sack to replace them which is soaked in embalming fluid or they will take all the organs and put them in a bag to place at the foot of the casket for burial.
The final step to embalming is the post embalming. The hair and body of the corpse is washed of any chemicals or fluids that might have gotten into it and then thoughroughly dried. Make up is applied to the face, neck and hands to lose any kind of look of abrasions or bruising as well as using make up to give the skin a more natural color. The hair is then styled, either by the Funeral Director or a professional stylist or barber. Once that's over, the body is dressed fully. It is near impossible to properly dress a body so most of the time the Funeral Director will lay out the outfit picked, cut out the back and drape the outfit on the body, tucking the cuts underneath. After that the family begins the viewing of the body and if there's anything they want to change, the Funeral Director must do as requested. During the viewing the Funeral Director checks on the body daily and if there are any problems, they take care of it.
A coroner is not like a Funeral Director in the sense of duties. The coroner is the one that the family goes to if the person who died was murdered, commited suicide or seemed to die out of no where despite good health. The coroner is the one who preforms the autopsy that's required after the death of such a person. The autopsy is much the same as embalming only the coroner inspects each and every single organ to determine what the cause of death of the victim was.