How Lincoln’s Embrace Of Embalming Birthed The American Funeral Industry

By Brian Walsh/The Conversation

If you died 200 years ago in America, your family would wash and dress your body and place it in a bed surrounded by candles to dampen the smell of decomposition.
Your immediate family and friends would visit your house over the course of the next week, few needing to travel very far, paying their respects at your bedside. Before the body’s putrefaction advanced too far, the local carpenter would make a simple pine casket, and everyone would gather at the cemetery (or your own backyard, if you were a landowner) for a few words before returning you to the earth.
You would be interred without any preservative chemicals, without being cosmetized with touch-ups like skin dyes, mouth formers or eye caps. No headstone, flowers or any of the other items we relate to a modern funeral. In essence, your demise would be respectful but without pomp.
Things have changed pretty substantially since America’s early days as funeral rites have moved out of the house and into the funeral home. How did we get here and how do American traditions compare with typical practices in other countries?

Posted on November 3, 2017

Hurricane Maria Exacerbates Medical Supply Shortages

By Scott Gordon/WisContext

When Hurricane Maria struck the United States territory of Puerto Rico in late September, it killed a still-undetermined number of people, knocked out power for most of the population, caused widespread flooding and created a humanitarian crisis that’s still far from resolution. The effects reverberated far beyond the island, especially in the healthcare universe. Hospitals large and small across the continental U.S. are dealing with shortages in the medical supplies and pharmaceuticals manufactured in Puerto Rico – the most troubled supply is that of IV bags.
Over the past 40 years, Puerto Rico has lured manufacturers, especially pharmaceutical companies, with tax incentives to set up shop on the island. It’s created a geographic concentration of companies that produce drugs, medical devices and additional supplies that hospitals and other health care providers rely on every day.

Posted on November 2, 2017