has proposed that the custom, if adopted, should be carried out in the following manner: “When death occurs, and the necessary certificate has been given, the body is placed in a light wood shell, then in a suitable outside receptacle preparatory to removal for religious rites or otherwise. After a proper time has elapsed it is conveyed to the spot where cremation is to be performed. There nothing need be seen by the last attendant or attendants than the placing of a shell within a small compartment, and the closing of the door upon it. It slides down into the heated chamber, and is left there an hour until the necessary changes have taken place. The ashes are then placed at the disposal of the attendants.” Sir Henry suggests that, previous to the burning of any corpse, proper officers appointed for the purpose should examine into and certify as to the cause of death, and if satisfied that it has resulted from natural events, that they should give the certificate he alludes to.
Sir Henry Thompson proposes that the functions of the officers appointed for this purpose should be the same as those of the medicins verificateurs, who are medical inspectors appointed by the municipality of Paris and the other large cities, whose duty consists in visiting each house where a death occurs, in assuring themselves that the person is really dead, and that there are no suspicious circumstances attending the demise.
In Paris alone there are more than eighty of such medical functionaries.
Burial by casting the corpse into the depths of the sea possesses the great advantage over ordinary interment of removing it from near the habitation of man, whilst the sea water, by its antiseptic properties, would be as little favorable to the dissemination of noxious putrescent compounds as cremation is. On the contrary, if the dead are disposed of by the ordinary method of burial, the objectionable effects arising from their decomposition in the earth are, under the most favorable conditions, only partially overcome; and the reason is obvious, since whilst deep-sea burial prevents animal decay altogether, and burning destroys the body, which, if not got rid of, would become putrid; burial in the earth permits its slow and lengthened decomposition to go on unchecked, and to thus very frequently become a source of contamination and danger to health.[251]
[251] “After death the buried body returns to its elements and gradually, and often by the means of other forms of life which prey on it, a large amount of it forms carbonic acid, ammonia, sulphuretted and carburetted hydrogen, nitrous and nitric acids, and various more complex gaseous products, many of which are very fetid, but which, however, are eventually all oxidised into the simpler combination. The non-volatile substances, the salts, become constituents of the soil, pass into plants, or are carried away into the water percolating through the ground. The hardest parts, the bones, remain in some soils for many centuries, and even for long periods retain a portion of their animal constituents.”—Parkes.
The atmosphere in the vicinity of graveyards and cemeteries is notoriously unhealthy, whilst water taken from wells situated near them is often so impure as to be wholly unfit for drinking. Several instances are on record in which the disturbance of an old graveyard has frequently been the means of disseminating disease. But although the disposal of the dead by means either of cremation or by consignment of the body to the deep caverns of the ocean are methods, in a hygienic point of view, immeasurably superior to earth-burial, there are, we think, certain obstacles to their adoption, even to a limited extent, by civilised communities, at any rate, for many years to come.
“Both cremation and deep-sea burial are open to the objection, that should the proposed officers appointed to inquire into the circumstances attending death have been mistaken in their verdict, as for instance in overlooking, or not suspecting a case of secret poisoning, not only would the murderer escape detection, but a sense of possible immunity from punishment might act as an encouragement to others who were equally guilty minded. The proposal that the stomach should be preserved, and kept for a certain time, and, in case of suspicion justifying it, examination, would in many instances fail to lead to detection, since, if certain alkaloids had been employed, they would have to be searched for, not in the stomach, but in the tissues of the dead body. Again, an obstacle to the universal adoption of deep-sea burial would be, in the case of vast continents, the difficulty of transmission from their interior, of the corpse, to the shore. But even if these objections against cremation and sea-burial could be overcome (and possibly they may be eventually), there would still remain the invincible repugnance of the survivors to what sentiment and feeling will persist in regarding as cruel indignity and irreverence toward the dead.
“Yet the eventual disposal of our frames is the same in all cases; and it is probably a matter merely of custom which makes us think that there is a want of affection, or of care, if the bodies of the dead are not suffered to repose in the earth that bore them.
“In reality, neither affection nor religion can be outraged by any manner of disposal of the dead which is done with proper solemnity and respect to the earthly dwelling-place of our friends. The question should be placed entirely on sanitary grounds, and we shall then judge it rightly.
“What is the use of preserving for a few more years the remains which will be an object of indifference to future generations? The next logical step would be to enshrine these remains in some way so as to ensure their preservation, and we should return to the vast burial mounds in Egypt.