The constant prevalence of dysentery at Secunderabad, in the Deccan (India), seems to have been partly due to the water which filtered through an extensive burial-ground. One of the sources of water contained, by analysis, according to Dr. Parkes, 119 grains of solids per gallon; and in some instances there were 8, 11, and even 30 grains per gallon, of organic matter.
Sir J. McGrigor partly attributed the fatality of dysentery in the Peninsula, at Ciudad Roderigo, to the use of water percolating through a graveyard in which nearly 20,000 bodies had been hastily inhumed.
Medical Councilor, Dr. Kuechenmeister, who examined the wells of Dresden, Germany, discovered the water to be very impure, especially in the new parts of the city, and in the vicinity of the so-called “French” graves. The same results were arrived at in Zuerich, where it was demonstrated that the typhoid fever epidemic of Auszerbuehl was due to water rendered impure by cadaveric effluvia.
In Philadelphia, three cemeteries, containing 80,000 graves, are so situated as to be liable to drain into the Schuylkill, the drinking-water of 1,000,000 of people. The diarrhœa prevalent during the Centennial Exhibition in the Quaker City is said (by many eminent sanitarians) to have been caused by burial-ground water drunk by strangers unaccustomed to it.
The monumental cemetery at Milan, which is situated upon a hill some 180 yards to the north of the city, was proved to have been the cause of serious illness in its neighborhood, produced by the contamination of the wells in the vicinity. The water of the well of the Place Garibaldi was analyzed by Professors Parvesi and Rotundi, who found it tainted by organic matter.
The Atlanta Medical Journal states that two young ladies who drank water from a spring situated on a hillside, near an old graveyard, became severely ill. One was seized with pyæmia and diarrhœa, the other with typhoid fever; both died. Cattle that drank of the water were also made sick.
Professor Pumpilly has made certain by recent experiments that sandy soil does not prevent bacterial infection from entering a well situated at a considerable distance from cesspools and cemeteries. Indeed, he claims further that “dry gravel and coarse sand do not prevent the entrance into houses built upon them of those microorganisms which swarm in the ground-air, around leaky cesspools, near graveyards, and in the filthy made land of cities.”
Anent the idea that the gases and organic matters which arise from the graves rapidly undergo changes by entering into new combinations when brought into contact with the earth, Dr. John O. Marble, of Worcester, Mass., says:—
“The monstrous delusion that the mere contact of the corpse with fresh earth renders it innocuous, and suffices for safe disinfection, is dissipated by overwhelming evidence. I distinctly remember my boyish scruples concerning the water of a well situated not fifty yards from graves in the churchyard adjoining my father’s garden. This old ‘God’s acre’ I have a hundred times passed, in my timid boyhood, in the shades of night, with palpitating heart, and a pace rivalled only by that of Tam O’ Shanter’s steed from witch-haunted Kirk Alloway to the ‘Keystone’ of the ‘Brig o’ Doon.’ My father overcame my scruples concerning the water by stating the belief then held, that the earth was a purifier and a safe depurator, and that no harm could come to that well, 30 feet deep, the pride and unfailing source of supply of the neighborhood. Yet I, that same autumn, suffered a severe and nearly fatal attack of typhoid fever, and another member of the family was similarly affected a year later. The fever occurred when the well was low, and I have no doubt, in the light of present knowledge of such dangers, that, repulsive as is the thought, I drank water filtered through the bones of my revered ancestors buried there, and that the polluted water caused that illness. To those who criticise the advocates of cremation for quoting ancient examples only, of harm from graves, this instance will appear sufficiently recent and intimate.”
Opponents of incineration, who lay great stress upon the disinfecting powers of the earth, forget that the soil is easily saturated by the emanations from the dead. Professor Presscott, of the University of Michigan, says in regard to this matter:—