Medicine: Tattooed Mummy

The greatest embalming job of the 20th Century was the mummification of V. I. Lenin. Until last week, the technique had always remained a dark secret of Soviet science. Finally, Dr. Herwig Hamperl, famed Austrian pathologist who taught in Moscow and was a close friend of the embalmers, let the world in on some of the secret.

When Lenin died in 1924, an autopsy was performed to spike rumors that he had died of syphilis or poison. Because the autopsy cut the blood vessels through which embalming fluid ordinarily is forced, some new technique had to be devised if Lenin was to keep.

The Kremlin hurriedly sent to Kharkov for Professor V. Vorobiov, who had developed some of the world’s finest injection needles to demonstrate to his anatomy students the workings of blood vessels. With his needles Vorobiov and an assistant named Schabadach injected a solution of formalyn sublimate, skin-colored dyes and ordinary embalming fluid directly into Lenin’s skin and tissue, centimeter by centimeter. The painfully minute “tattooing” operation took a month to finish. For years Schabadach made monthly visits to check the body’s condition and add further injections as needed.