Inside the Patent Office's Cabinet of Ghoulish Inventions

Fun history fact: John H. Eckels, inventor of the 1940s “embalming apparatus,” would have made millions off his device had he not gotten drunk at a party and used it on himself. His last words: “But I wanna see what the dead people feel.”

Actually, that didn’t happen. But Eckels did invent such a contraption, and it’s on display, along with many other grim gizmos, in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s gallery of “Creepy IP.” The agency digs deep into its files each Halloween to unearth silly, macabre, and sometimes seriously demented inventions—witness Philip Clover’s 1878 “Coffin Torpedo,” which would blast grave robbers in the face with a flurry of lead balls. (Cadavers were a valuable “underground” commodity at the time; even the son of President William Henry Harrison wasn’t safe, winding up on a slab in an Ohio medical school.)