A person who upon his death-bed makes it a condition in his will that he should be buried in a church or chapel, acts like a madman; he ought to set his fellow-creatures a good example, and not do all in his power to destroy their health by exposing them to the effluvia arising from a corpse in a state of putrefaction.
The following extract is from a sermon preached in 1552 by Bishop Latimer, which proves that even at that comparatively early period, when the population of London could scarcely have been one-fifth of what it is now, the nuisance of intramural interments was found to be dangerous to health. “The citizens of Naim,” observed the bishop, “hadd their buryinge-place withoute the citie, which no doubt is a laudable thinge; and I doe marvel that London, being soe great a citie, hath not a burial-place without; for no doubt it is an unwholesome thinge to bury within the citie, especiallie at such a time when there be great sicknesses and manie die together. I think, verilie, that many a man taketh his death in St. Paul’s churchyard, and this I speak of experience, for I myself, when I have been there some mornings to heare the sermons, have felt such an ill-savoured and unwholesome savour, that I was the worse for it a great while after; and I think no lesse but it is the occasion of great sicknesse and disease.”
Well would it have been for the inhabitants of this vast metropolis had Sir Christopher Wren’s plan been carried out at the rebuilding of the city, after the fire of 1666. All churchyards were to have been removed without the town.
In the year 1786, the legislature of Germany passed a law, which was punctually observed in the empire over which Joseph the Second ruled, and which we would do well to imitate, instead of using the under-part of our chapels as store and pest-houses. This law prohibited the burying of dead bodies in any chapel or church whatever; neither rank nor affluence can obtain permission to evade it, as in the enforcement of it no respect is paid to persons.
Of the injurious and fatal effects of exhalations from overcharging burial-places, we have a striking illustration, that scarcely admits of a doubt[7]—at least, as far as predisposition goes. In an old work, entitled ‘Dr. Dover’s Ancient Physician’s Legacy,’ we have the following; Dover, it must be understood, was an extraordinary character, uniting in his own person the profession of physic and buccaneering. He says:—“When I took by storm the two cities of Guyaquil, under the line, in the South Seas, it happened that, not long before, the plague had raged amongst them. For our better security and the keeping of our people together, we lay in the churches, and likewise brought thither the plunder of the cities. We were very much annoyed by the smell of the dead bodies. These could hardly be said to be buried; for the Spaniards abroad use no coffins, but throw several dead bodies, one upon another, with only a draw-board over them; so that it was no wonder we caught the infection. In a few days after we went on board, one of the surgeons came to acquaint me that several of my men were taken after a violent manner, with that languor of spirits that they were not able to move; in less than forty-eight hours, we had in our ships one hundred and eighty men in this miserable condition.”
Dr. Adam Clarke, in his ‘Commentary on St. Luke,’ advises that “No burying-places should be tolerated within CITIES or TOWNS, much less in or about CHURCHES and CHAPELS. This custom is excessively injurious to the inhabitants, and especially to those who frequent public worship in such CHAPELS and CHURCHES. God, decency, and health forbid this shocking abomination. * * * From long observation I can attest that CHURCHES and CHAPELS situated in graveyards, and those especially within whose walls the dead are interred, are perfectly unwholesome; and many, by attending such places, are shortening their passage to the house appointed for the living. What increases the iniquity of this abominable and deadly work is, that the burying-grounds attached to many CHURCHES and CHAPELS are made a source of PRIVATE GAIN. The whole of this preposterous conduct is as indecorous and unhealthy as it is profane. Every man should know that the gas which is disengaged from putrid flesh, and particularly from a human body, is not only unfriendly to, but destructive of, animal life. Superstition first introduced a practice which self-interest and covetousness continue to maintain.”
The Rev. Dr. Render, in his ‘Tour through Germany’ published in London, in the year 1801, mentions the following case:—“In the month of July, 17—, a very corpulent lady died at——. Before her death, she begged, as a particular favour, to be buried in the parochial church: she died on the Wednesday, and on the following Saturday was buried according to her desire. The day following, the clergyman preached her funeral sermon: the weather was uncommonly hot; and it ought to be observed that, for several months preceding her death, a great drought had prevailed; not a drop of rain had fallen, consequently it was an uncommonly sultry season. The succeeding Sunday, the Protestant clergyman had a very full congregation, upwards of 900 persons attending, that being the day for administering the Holy Sacrament. The weather still continuing very hot, many were obliged during the service to walk out for a time, to avoid fainting; whilst some actually fainted away. It is the custom, in Germany, that when people wish to receive the sacrament, they neither eat nor drink that day, until the ceremony is entirely over. The sermon occupied about one hour and a quarter; after which the bread was consecrated, and, according to custom, remained uncovered during the ceremony.
“There were about one hundred and eighty communicants. A quarter of an hour after the ceremony, before they had quitted the church, more than sixty of them were taken ill; several died in the most severe agonies; others, of a more vigorous constitution, survived by the help of medical assistance; a most violent consternation prevailed throughout the whole congregation and town. It was concluded that the wine had been poisoned, and so it was generally believed; the sacristan, and several others belonging to the vestry, were immediately arrested, and cast into prison. The clergyman, on the succeeding Sunday, preached very excitingly, and pointed out to his congregation several others concerned in the plot. This enthusiastic sermon was printed. The persons accused underwent very great hardships; during the space of a week they were confined in a dungeon, and some of them were put to the torture; but they persisted in asserting their innocence. On the Sunday following, the magistrate ordered that a chalice of wine, uncovered, should be placed for the space of an hour upon the altar, which time had scarcely elapsed when they beheld the wine filled with myriads of insects; and by tracing them to their source it was at length perceived, by the rays of the sun, that they issued from the grave of the lady who had been buried the preceding fortnight. The people not belonging to the vestry were dismissed, and four men employed to open the grave and the coffin; in doing which two of them dropped down, and expired upon the spot; and the other two were only saved by the utmost exertion of medical talent. It is beyond the power of words to describe the horrid sight of the corpse when the coffin was opened. The whole was a mass of entire putrefaction; and it was now clearly demonstrated that the numerous insects, both large and small, together with the effluvia which had issued from the body, had caused the pestilential infection, which was a week before attributed to poison. On this discovery, those who had been accused of poisoning the wine, &c., were liberated, and atonement made by the clergyman and magistrate for their unfounded charge.”
It was said by St. Cyril, when offering an excuse for the mode of burial of the Gentiles, “that their temples were only beautiful monuments of dead men.” How differently would he have expressed himself with regard to our Christian metropolitan churches or temples of this, the nineteenth century, which are loathsome receptacles of corruption!
But a few years ago, in the autumn of 1843, the poisonous effects of disturbing a graveyard were but too fatally evident. The church and churchyard of Minchinhampton are very old,—the latter having served for a burying-ground for the previous five hundred years; it was consequently densely crowded with dead bodies. In rebuilding the church, it became necessary, or was thought expedient, to lower the surface of the graveyard to within a foot or two of the remains of those buried. Many bodies were disturbed during this process, and re-interred. The earth so removed of a dark colour—saturated, in fact, with the product of human putrefaction—was, in a fatal hour, devoted to the purposes of agriculture! About one thousand cart-loads were thus employed—some on a new piece of burial-ground, to make the grass grow quickly, some as manure on the neighbouring fields, some in the rector’s garden! and some in that of the patron. The seeds of disease were thus widely sown, and the result was such as any person of common sense might have expected. The diffusion of a morbid poison which soon followed, was evinced by an outbreak of fever in this previously healthy locality. The family of the rector, and the inhabitants of the streets adjoining the churchyard, were the first attacked, and were also the greatest sufferers. The rector lost his wife, his daughter, and his gardener. The patron’s gardener, who had been employed in the unseemly act of dressing flower-beds with human manure, also died. In short, wherever the earth had been taken, disease followed. The children who attended the school took fever as they passed the upturned surface of the graveyard, went home, and died; but they did not communicate the disease to those who came near them, nor did it occur in any person who had not been exposed to the cause of its development. Seventeen deaths occurred, and upwards of two hundred children were attacked with measles, scarlet fever, and peculiar eruptions.