In standard modern embalming, no organs are removed. This is one of the most common misconceptions about the process, likely fueled by cultural memories of ancient Egyptian mummification, where organ removal was central to the practice. What actually happens at a funeral home is quite different: the organs stay in the body and are preserved in place using chemical solutions injected through the circulatory system and directly into the body’s cavities.
How Modern Embalming Preserves Organs Without Removing Them
Modern embalming has two main phases, and neither involves taking organs out of the body. The first phase, arterial embalming, uses the body’s own blood vessels as a delivery system. The embalmer makes a small incision, typically near the collarbone or in the inner thigh, to access a major artery. Preservative fluid, usually a formaldehyde-based solution mixed with water, dyes, and conditioning agents, is pumped in through that artery under gentle pressure. As the fluid travels through the arterial system, it reaches the tissues of every organ in the body. Blood is simultaneously drained from a nearby vein to make room for the incoming preservative. The organs receive the chemical treatment from the inside out, through their own blood supply.
The second phase is cavity embalming, and this is where the confusion about organ removal sometimes arises. The embalmer uses a long, pointed instrument called a trocar, which is inserted through a small puncture just above the navel. The trocar is connected to a suction device, and the embalmer uses it to aspirate gases and fluids that have accumulated in the chest and abdominal cavities. The trocar punctures the hollow organs, including the stomach, intestines, bladder, and lungs, to draw out their liquid contents. But the organs themselves remain exactly where they are. After aspiration, a concentrated preservative solution called cavity fluid is injected through the same puncture point, flooding the chest and abdominal cavities to chemically treat all the internal organs from the outside while the arterial fluid works from within.
The puncture site is then sealed with a small plastic button or sutured closed. The entire process leaves the body anatomically intact. When you view someone at an open-casket funeral, every organ they had at the time of death is still inside them.
Why Chemical Preservation Works Without Removal
The reason organs can stay in the body comes down to how formaldehyde works at a molecular level. Formaldehyde preserves tissue by creating chemical bridges between proteins, essentially locking the tissue’s structure in place and making it inhospitable to the bacteria that cause decomposition.1PubMed Central. Human body preservation – old and new techniques – Section: Formaldehyde This cross-linking effect is what gives embalmed tissue its firmer texture compared to living tissue. It works on every type of tissue it contacts, whether that’s skin, muscle, or the walls of internal organs.
The dual approach of arterial and cavity embalming ensures comprehensive coverage. Arterial fluid reaches organ tissues through their capillary beds, preserving them from the cellular level outward. Cavity fluid bathes the exterior surfaces of those same organs and fills the spaces between them. Together, the two methods create enough chemical saturation to slow decomposition for the period between death and burial or cremation, which typically ranges from a few days to a couple of weeks.
This is a fundamentally different philosophy from ancient preservation methods, which had to physically remove organs because they lacked effective chemical preservatives. Modern chemistry solved the problem that ancient embalmers could only address with a knife.
What Happens When an Autopsy Has Been Performed
The one common scenario where organs are removed before embalming is when an autopsy has taken place. Autopsies are performed by medical examiners or pathologists to determine cause of death, and the process involves removing and examining most of the major organs, including the brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, spleen, and intestines. Each organ is weighed, inspected, and often sampled for microscopic analysis.
After the autopsy is complete, the organs are typically returned to the body cavity. They are placed in a plastic bag, often with an absorbent powder or hardening compound, and the bag is placed back inside the chest and abdomen before the autopsy incision is sutured closed. The embalmer then proceeds with arterial embalming as usual, though cavity treatment requires some adaptation since the organs are no longer in their anatomical positions and their blood supply has been severed. Embalmers often use additional cavity fluid and absorbent chemicals to compensate.
In some autopsy cases, organs or tissue samples may be retained by the pathologist for further testing, particularly in forensic investigations or when the cause of death is unclear. When this happens, the organs are eventually returned to the family or the funeral home after testing is complete, though this can take weeks or months. Families usually have the right to request the return of retained organs, and funeral homes can perform a supplemental procedure to place them back in the body even after the initial embalming.
Organ Donors and Other Special Circumstances
If the deceased was an organ donor, some organs will obviously be absent at the time of embalming. Donated organs might include the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, and pancreas, depending on what was viable for transplantation. Tissue donors may have also had corneas, skin, bone, and tendons recovered. The surgical teams that recover donated organs typically fill the resulting spaces with absorbent packing material, and the body is sutured closed before being transferred to the funeral home.
Embalmers are accustomed to working with donor cases. The arterial embalming process works the same way regardless of which organs are present, since the preservative still travels through the vascular system to reach remaining tissues. Cavity embalming focuses on treating whatever tissue and space remains. The cosmetic result at an open-casket viewing is generally indistinguishable from a non-donor case, which is a point the organ-procurement community emphasizes to families who worry that donation will affect funeral arrangements.
There are other special circumstances worth mentioning. In cases of severe trauma or advanced decomposition, embalmers may need to take more aggressive approaches. Bodies recovered long after death may have organs that have already liquefied, and the embalmer’s job shifts from preservation to restoration. In extreme cases, individual organs or body regions may need direct injection of preservative rather than relying on the arterial system, which may no longer be intact. Even in these situations, though, the goal is never to remove organs but to preserve whatever remains in place.
Why Ancient Egyptian Practices Create Confusion
The popular association between embalming and organ removal traces directly to ancient Egypt, where mummification genuinely did involve pulling organs out of the body. Egyptian embalmers removed the brain through the nasal passages using a technique called excerebration, which involved piercing the base of the skull through the nose and extracting brain tissue through the resulting hole.2PubMed Central. The importance of the nasopharynx and anterior skull base in excerebration techniques from KV40, a New Kingdom Egyptian site The abdominal organs, including the liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines, were removed through an incision in the left side of the abdomen. These organs were preserved separately, often in canopic jars, or later wrapped and returned to the body cavity.
The heart was typically left in place. Egyptians believed it was the seat of intelligence and identity, and it needed to remain with the body for the afterlife. The brain, by contrast, was considered unimportant and was usually discarded after removal.
This organ-removal approach made practical sense given the available technology. Without formaldehyde or similar chemical preservatives, the Egyptians relied on natron, a naturally occurring salt compound, to desiccate the body. Solid organs full of moisture and bacteria would have rotted from the inside before the natron could dry the body sufficiently. Removing them and treating them separately, or simply discarding the most perishable ones, was the only viable path to long-term preservation. The Egyptian approach worked remarkably well for its intended purpose of preserving bodies for centuries or millennia, but it bears almost no resemblance to what happens in a modern funeral home.
Embalming Is Not Always Required
It’s worth knowing that embalming itself is not legally required in most situations, despite what some funeral homes may imply. In the United States, no federal law mandates embalming, and most states only require it under specific circumstances, such as when the body will be transported across state lines by common carrier or when there is a lengthy delay between death and disposition. Many states allow refrigeration as an alternative to embalming for preserving the body until burial or cremation.
Religious traditions vary considerably on this point. Jewish and Islamic burial practices generally prohibit embalming, favoring prompt burial with the body in its natural state. Some Christian denominations have no objection to embalming but do not require it. The growing “green burial” movement actively avoids embalming, instead allowing the body to decompose naturally in a biodegradable container. In green burial, no organs are removed and no chemical preservatives are introduced. The body is buried as-is, with the understanding that natural decomposition is the intended outcome rather than something to be prevented.
When families choose cremation, embalming is almost never necessary unless there will be a viewing beforehand. The cremation process itself destroys all organic tissue, so preservation serves no purpose if the body is going directly to the crematory. Some facilities require the body to be refrigerated if it will not be cremated within a certain window, but that is a far simpler and less invasive process than embalming.
Experimental and Historical Preservation Methods
Between ancient mummification and modern formaldehyde embalming, there have been various experimental approaches to preserving human remains, some of which handled internal organs in creative ways. In nineteenth-century Italy, the anatomist Paolo Gorini developed a “petrification” process that preserved bodies so thoroughly that soft tissues, including skin, muscle, and internal organs, remained identifiable and structurally intact more than a century later.3PubMed Central. Petrified child mummies by Paolo Gorini (19th century CE, Lodi, Lombardy, Italy): anthropological, pathological, and conservation perspectives Like modern embalming, Gorini’s technique left the organs in place rather than removing them, relying on chemical treatment to achieve preservation.
More recently, a process called plastination, developed in the late 1970s, replaces water and fat in body tissues with durable polymers. Plastinated specimens, most famously displayed in the Body Worlds exhibitions, retain all their organs in anatomical position. The organs are preserved not by formaldehyde but by being infused with silicone or epoxy, turning them into something closer to a plastic replica of themselves while maintaining their exact original shape and spatial relationships. No organ removal is involved; the entire body is treated as a unit.
Cryopreservation, offered by a handful of organizations for people who hope future technology might revive them, also keeps all organs in place. The body is perfused with cryoprotectant solutions, essentially biological antifreeze, and cooled to extremely low temperatures. The premise depends on preserving every organ, especially the brain, in as close to its original condition as possible. Removing organs would defeat the purpose entirely.
The pattern across all these methods is consistent: once chemistry advanced beyond what the ancient Egyptians had available, removing organs became unnecessary and even counterproductive for preservation. The modern answer to decay is not to take things out but to chemically transform what’s already there into something bacteria can no longer consume.
What Funeral Directors Wish Families Understood
Funeral directors report that families frequently ask whether organs are removed, and many are visibly relieved to learn the answer is no. The concern often comes from a place of wanting to know that their loved one’s body will be treated with respect and left “whole.” Understanding that embalming preserves the body as-is, without removing anything, can ease some of the anxiety around the process.
A related question families ask is whether they can see the embalming process or be present during it. Policies vary by funeral home, but most discourage it for practical reasons: the process involves surgical instruments, strong chemicals, and sights that can be distressing for someone grieving. Some progressive funeral homes, particularly those aligned with the death-positive movement, do allow family participation in washing and dressing the body after embalming is complete, which gives families a sense of involvement without exposing them to the more clinical aspects of the procedure.
Another common concern involves pacemakers and other implanted medical devices. Pacemakers must be removed before cremation because their batteries can explode, but they are typically left in place for burial after embalming. Joint replacements, surgical pins, and similar hardware stay in the body through both embalming and burial. These are not organs, of course, but the question comes from the same place: families want reassurance that nothing is being taken from someone they love. In the case of modern embalming, that reassurance is straightforward. Everything stays.