As a just-turned 16 year old, I was climbing up the well-worn teak wood stairs of the main building in St Xavier’s College in Bombay on the way to Biology class.
Lined up on the ledge on one side of the stairs were large wide-mouthed jars containing foetuses in various stages of formation floating in a liquid solution. One was very small, almost egg-like, another was fully developed and others were sizes in-between. I was told the liquid was Formaldehyde. Some facts about the chemical: It is cheap and easily available. It is used as an embalming agent. The aqueous solution of formaldehyde is called formalin. It is a chemical which is pungent, colourless and has a suffocating odour. It is most commonly used as a preservative in laboratories. It is commonly found in glues, plywood, melamine products, natural gas and petroleum products to improve fuel yields. An ingredient used to make the explosive RDX. During autopsy, formaldehyde solution is used to determine if the person was breathing at the time of death. If the lungs of the deceased float in the solution, it indicates that he/she was able to breathe. Roland Francis Scarborough.
