“The purifying power of ground, like that of the air above it, is limited and easily overcharged. If ground-air be loaded with more putrescent vapor than it can oxidize, then poison is carried through the porous earth.”
Dr. William Porter, of St. Louis, Mo., has recorded the following case:—
“A young man died suddenly from diphtheria, and was buried in the village churchyard. At some little distance was a well, from which the good church-goers drank freely each Sunday. Finally the water of the well became fœtid, for the supply was infiltrated by the horrible decomposition from this, the nearest grave. Was it not suggestive that 20 from that congregation died from diphtheria while this impure well was in use? These people lived in mountain homes, in a pure atmosphere, and though many of these cases were isolated,—far removed from others,—yet in all the disease was alike virulent and deadly.”
Churchyard emanations can penetrate almost anything; they have a remarkable force. The chairman and superintendent of sewers of Holborn and Finsbury division, London, claimed that putrid matter from cemeteries over 30 feet distant had penetrated the cement and brick of his drain.
Several years ago, when Mr. Holland, the English government inspector of burial-grounds, investigated the state of Tooting Cemetery, it transpired that the drainage provided for the burial-ground was insufficient; there was merely a system of surface drainage. In one case (admitted by the cemetery board) a coffin was placed in a grave that contained enough water to cover the head of it. The entire drainage of the burial-ground was conducted into a ditch near by, which ended in the river Wandle, from which the inhabitants obtained their drinking-water.
Lefort (in a monograph to the Paris Academy of Sciences) points to the possibility of well-contamination by neighboring cemeteries. In one instance he detected, by chemical analysis, that a well was polluted by a burial-ground 50 metres distant.
Retort
Lancaster Crematorium
The Parisian scientist M. Duchamp detected a spring that percolated entirely through graveyards, picking up organic matter on the way, and that tasted very strongly.
Not a few analyses of water tainted by graveyard emanations testify to the fact that it is harmful, nay, that it is extremely dangerous, to those who consume it. Nor is the danger always apparent. In 1874 the Broad Street pump at London, England, carried cholera to those who drank its water; yet the latter looked clean, had no perceptible taste, and was odorless.