But stacking the rotting corpses in train cars and shipping them home wasn’t an option (the exasperated train conductors weren’t having it). And most families couldn’t afford the expensive iron coffins that the train companies would allow. So enterprising men, called embalmers, started following the armies around, setting up tents, and chemically preserving the soldiers killed in battle so that they wouldn’t decompose on the journey back home. The embalmers, who were still experimenting with their craft, used everything from sawdust to arsenic. The problem with arsenic is that it’s toxic to
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