“After death! The last faint breath had been noted, and another watched for so long, but in vain. The body lies there, pale and motionless, except only that the jaw sinks slowly but perceptibly. The pallor visibly increases, becomes more leaden in hue, and the profound tranquil sleep of death reigns where just now were life and movement. Here then begins the eternal rest.
“Rest! no, not for an instant. Never was there greater activity than at this moment exists in that still corpse. Activity, but of a different kind to that which was before. Already a thousand changes have commenced. Forces innumerable have attacked the dead. The rapidity of the vulture, with its keen scent for animal decay, is nothing to that of nature’s ceaseless agents now at full work before us.”
After explaining the process of animal decomposition, and describing the various modes of disposing of the dead between which it is necessary to choose, the writer went on to insist that our present mode of burial is certainly injurious to health either now or in the future, and constitutes in reality a social sin of no small magnitude. A curious aspect of this question was brought to light by the mention of the large annual importation of bones for manuring the soil, while we bury a vast quantity of human bones annually, too deep in the earth to be useful agriculturally. The evils of burial customs and expenditure were also dwelt upon, and then the new, yet old plan of cremation was advocated, practically following nature’s indication, and hastening the process so as to make it safe, without unpleasantness. It was suggested that funeral rites could be most appropriately associated with cremation. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust” would express a literal and evident fact. The condition of many churchyards, past and present, has given conclusive evidence that the present mode of burial consigns moist remains to water or damp, and generates loathsome effluvia, too often causing severe disease in those living near.
This subject is still one of controversy, though it has emerged into “practical politics” by reason of a decision by Mr. Justice Stephen that cremation is not illegal under the present law. Sir Henry Thompson continues his vigorous efforts in favour of cremation.
Sir Henry has also distinguished himself as an advocate for great moderation and even total abstinence in the use of intoxicating liquors, stating that without them he can do his work better and with more zest, and that his constitution has improved under abstinence. Among his lighter works, “Food and Feeding” is pleasant and popular; while a still later display of varied literary tastes is seen in a medical novel, “Charley Kingston’s Aunt,” published under the pseudonym of Pen Oliver.
The artistic tastes and attainments of Sir Henry Thompson are well known. He studied painting under Elmore and Alma Tadema, and has frequently exhibited at the Royal Academy. He has a very fine collection of blue and white Nankin china, of which a quarto catalogue has been published.
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
GRAVES, HUGHES BENNETT, AND CLINICAL TEACHING.
The subjects of this chapter, both men of great influence, left a decisive mark on the systems of clinical teaching in their respective schools of medicine, besides rendering great services to physiology and to medicine.
In Dublin University a Regius Professorship of Physic dates from the time of the Restoration, and other chairs were subsequently founded. The Irish College of Surgeons was established as late as 1784, but nothing great came of it for many years. A Scotchman, Cheyne, settled in Dublin, published in 1817 the first volume of the Dublin Hospital Reports, and by the excellence of his own clinical reports on cases of fever, gave a good tone to the work of the Irish school. But the elevation of the Dublin Medical School to the high rank which it has ever since maintained was the work emphatically of Robert Graves and of William Stokes.
The Graves family, descended from a colonel in Cromwell’s cavalry, who had acquired considerable estates in Limerick county after Cromwell’s subjugation of the country, was represented at the close of the last century by the Regius Professor of Divinity in Dublin University, and one of the senior Fellows of Trinity College, Richard Graves, D.D. His three sons, Richard, Hercules, and Robert obtained at the degree examinations of three successive years the gold medal in science and in classics.