A professional who prepares bodies for interment in conformity with legal requirements. Respnsibilities include:

• Washes and dries body, using germicidal soap and towels or hot air drier.
• Inserts convex celluloid or cotton between eyeball and eyelid to prevent slipping and sinking of eyelid.
• Presses diaphragm to evacuate air from lungs.
• May join lips, using needle and thread or wire.
• Packs body orifices with cotton saturated with embalming fluid to prevent escape of gases or waste matter.
• Makes incision in arm or thigh, using scalpel, inserts pump tubes into artery, and starts pump that drains blood from circulatory system and replaces blood with embalming fluid.
• Incises stomach and abdominal walls and probes internal organs, such as bladder and liver, using trocar to withdraw blood and waste matter from organs.
• Attaches trocar to pump-tube, starts pump, and repeats probing to force embalming fluid into organs.
• Closes incisions, using needle and suture.
• Reshapes or reconstructs disfigured or maimed bodies, using materials, such as clay, cotton, plaster of paris, and wax.
• Applies cosmetics to impart lifelike appearance.
• Dresses body and places body in casket.
• May arrange funeral details, such as type of casket or burial dress and place of interment.
• May maintain records, such as itemized list of clothing or valuables delivered with body and names of persons embalmed.