Morticians

A case study of the effectiveness of upgraded ventilation engineering controls in a military mortuary facility was performed. Worst-case mortician formaldehyde exposures generated during the use of highly concentrated embalming fluid (required to meet a 2-week preservation standard for overseas case processing and return of the deceased to the continental United States) were documented. A detailed exposure evaluation via consecutive short-term exposure limit (STEL) samples facilitated characterization of the hazard potential for each distinct phase of the embalming process...

A group of 60 middle-aged morticians at a professional seminar in the midwestern USA who completed a multidimensional sense of humor scale scored significantly lower than another group of 136 men from other occupations. The difference between the two groups appeared almost entirely on scale items having to do with humor generation or creativity.

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No abstract text is available yet for this article.

One hundred sixty licensed morticians were surveyed to examine differences among business owners, managers, and employees on the relations proposed by G. F. Koeske and R. D. Koeske's (1993) stressor-strain-outcome model. Forty-eight percent of the morticians were owners, 16% were managers, and 36% were employees. Owners had less social support from work-related sources and perceived lower levels of role ambiguity and role conflict, less emotional exhaustion, and higher levels of job satisfaction and professional satisfaction than did nonowners...

The morbidity and mortality from vaccine-preventable diseases are high among adults with underlying medical conditions. Influenza vaccination is recommended annually, optimally between October and mid-November, for all persons 50 years of age and older and those with cardiac disease with potential for altered hemodynamics, diabetes mellitus, immunocompromising conditions, pulmonary disease, or renal disease. This season, because of production delays, influenza vaccination campaigns are planned for November...

From 1899 to 1912 there was a European monopoly controlling the sale of radium for cancer therapy. This trust was finally broken, albeit only temporarily, in 1912/13 by American entrepreneurs J. Flannery, H. Kelly, and J. Douglas. Joe Flannery was a former mortician turned mining magnate. Dr. Howard Kelly was the renowned gynecological surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Medical School who defied tradition by maintaining his own private hospital. Professor James Douglas was the Arizona copper king who helped support Memorial Hospital in New York City as America's first cancer hospital...

A sample of 60 morticians completed the Revised Death Anxiety Scale. Their responses were compared with scores on that scale from 136 men from other occupations. The funeral directors' death anxiety scores were surprisingly high. Perhaps they are less able successfully to repress death fears because of constant occupational exposure to issues related to mortality.

The effect of low-level exposure to formaldehyde on oral, nasal, and lymphoycte biological markers was studied prospectively in a group of 29 mortician students who were about to take a course in embalming. During the 85-day study period, the subjects performed an average of 6.9 embalmings and had average cumulative formaldehyde exposures of 14.8 ppm-h, with an average air concentration of 1.4 ppm during embalming. Since the average time spent embalming was 125 min, formaldehyde exposures calculated as an 8-h time-weighted average were 0...

We reviewed the neonatal outcome of 3,369 infants who weighed less than or equal to 1500 grams and who were born in Georgia during the years 1974--76. We matched 1,465 of these infants with a death certificate registered in the State's Vital Records. Upon review of the hospital records of the remaining infants, we identified 453 infants that died during the neonatal period without a death certificate being registered. Subsequently, we compared the hospital death registries for 1977 in Georgia and death certificates registered in Vital Records during 1977...

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Standardized respiratory disease questionnaires and pulmonary function tests were administered to licensed white male morticians attending an educational program in Morgantown, W.Va. Detailed occupational histories were obtained; included were estimates of the numbers of bodies personally embalmed. The pulmonary function of morticians compared favorably with that of residential populations in Oregon and Michigan. Among morticians, relatively high exposure was not associated with chronic bronchitis or pulmonary function deficits...

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No abstract text is available yet for this article.

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In 1982 the Centers for Disease Control published a set of recommendations and measures to protect persons working in health care settings or performing mortician services from possible exposure to the human immunodeficiency virus. This study of a number of funeral homes in the Fort Worth area was designed to determine the level of exposure of funeral home workers to blood and other body fluids and also to assess existing protective measures and practices in the industry. Workers in 22 funeral home franchises were surveyed with a predesigned questionnaire...

The fine needle aspiration (FNA) observations in a case of gynecomastia occurring in a mortician are described. The FNA smear showed cytomorphologic features typical of a gynecomastia. Morticians use an embalming cream that contains estrogens or estrogenlike compounds; these substances may be absorbed percutaneously and cause the development of gynecomastia. The mortician should be made aware of the potential risk of such an occupational exposure and development of the "embalmer's curse. "Recognition by the clinicians and cytopathologists of such an occurrence and its implications can help with the proper management...

Embalming, the most common funeral practice in the United States, may expose the embalmer to infectious diseases and blood. We surveyed the 860 members of the National Selected Morticians in 1988 to estimate the incidence of self-reported occupational contact with blood and infectious disease, assess morticians' knowledge of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), determine their adherence to universal precautions, and identify predictors of practices designed to reduce risk of occupational exposure to infections...

OBJECTIVE: To determine the ability to recover human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) from the plasma and mononuclear cell (MNC) fractions of postmortem blood samples from patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. DESIGN: Blood was randomly cultured post mortem from 41 patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Plasma and MNC cultures were performed as well as serum antigen assays. Evaluation parameters included MNC recovery, MNC viability, time of sample collection after death, time of inoculation of coculture following sample acquisition, and storage conditions of the body (ie, refrigeration vs nonrefrigeration)...

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