Thomas Greenhill

author

Thomas Greenhill

b. 1681

Best known for an early and unusual book on burial and preservation, this English surgeon wrote one of the most curious medical works of the early 1700s. His writing blends practical anatomy, funeral customs, and a fascination with how different cultures treated the dead.

1 Audiobook

ΝΕΚΡΟΚΗΔΕΙΑ; Or, the Art of Embalming; Wherein Is Shewn the Right of Burial, and Funeral Ceremonies, Especially That of Preserving Bodies After the Egyptian Method. Together With an Account of the Egyptian Mummies, Pyramids, Subterranean Vaults and Lamps, and Their Opinion of the Metempsychosis, the Cause of Their Embalming. As Also a Geographical Description of Egypt, the Rise and Course of the Nile, the Temper, Constitution and Physic of the Inhabitants, Their Inventions, Arts, Sciences, Stupendous Works and Sepulchres, and Other Curious Observations Any Ways Relating to the Physiology and Knowledge of This Art.

ΝΕΚΡΟΚΗΔΕΙΑ; Or, the Art of Embalming; Wherein Is Shewn the Right of Burial, and Funeral Ceremonies, Especially That of Preserving Bodies After the Egyptian Method. Together With an Account of the Egyptian Mummies, Pyramids, Subterranean Vaults and Lamps, and Their Opinion of the Metempsychosis, the Cause of Their Embalming. As Also a Geographical Description of Egypt, the Rise and Course of the Nile, the Temper, Constitution and Physic of the Inhabitants, Their Inventions, Arts, Sciences, Stupendous Works and Sepulchres, and Other Curious Observations Any Ways Relating to the Physiology and Knowledge of This Art.

by Thomas Greenhill

About the author

Thomas Greenhill was an English surgeon and medical writer, born in 1681 and active in London. He is remembered chiefly for Nekrokedeia; or, The Art of Embalming, published in 1705, a work that explored embalming methods, burial practices, and funeral customs in many parts of the world.

Greenhill also served as surgeon to Henry Howard, 7th Duke of Norfolk. His book stands out because it mixed medical observation with historical and cultural curiosity, making it more than a technical manual and helping it endure as a strange, memorable work from the period.

Some sources differ on details of his life, but they agree that he died around 1740. Today he is mainly known through this single distinctive book, which offers a rare glimpse into early modern ideas about death, preservation, and the duties of medicine after life has ended.