Is Thiel's embalming method widely known? A world survey about its use.

Introduction: Thiel's embalming technique, first described by Thiel in 1992, conserves texture and colour in cadavers close to that observed in the living. It would appear that few anatomy laboratories use this method, and literature describing its use worldwide is sparse. The aim of our study was to conduct a worldwide survey on the use of this method.

Flexibility of Thiel's embalmed cadavers: the explanation is probably in the muscles.

Introduction: The flexibility of cadavers conserved using Thiel's embalming method remains unexplained. We aimed to perform microscopic comparison of muscle and tendon fibres from fresh cadavers (FC), formaldehyde-preserved cadavers (FPC) and cadavers conserved by Thiel's method (TC).

Methods: Muscle and tendon biopsies performed on FC, FPC and TC were conditioned and stained by Masson's trichrome, Sirius red and Ramon y Cajal, then studied under optical microscope.

[Joseph-Guichard Duverney (1648-1730). Doctor, teacher and researcher in the 17th and 18th centuries].

Duverney was a leader in the field of research and education, because he worked as a physician, as a surgeon and he led many scientific works. To Peltier, he was the first academic professor of surgery. His wonderful career was explained by his heavy interest in knowledge.