Dr. F. Bidlot, of Liege, Belgium, states that, in 1867, he was called to a robust cholera patient who, when asked about the cause of his illness, said that until noon he had worked at the grave of a person, dead of cholera, who had been buried very superficially, since an exhumation was to take place: when the body was disinterred, he was seized by an illness which soon proved to be cholera.
The following case was also reported by Dr. Bidlot. A nun who had nursed cholera patients in a hospital died of the dread disease in the summer of 1860. At 10 A.M. in the latter part of October she was exhumed. At four o’clock in the forenoon of the same day Dr. Bidlot was called to Dr. Romiée, who had attended the disinterment. He was found to be suffering from cholera, and declared that his illness was owing to his exposure to the emanations of the body dug up.
Trinity Church graveyard, at New York, was the center of very fatal prevalence of cholera at every visit of that pest from 1832 to 1854.
Dr. Rauch relates (Intra-Mural Interments in Populous Cities, Chicago, 1868) how the cholera was spread in Burlington, Ia., in 1850. Not a single death took place in the vicinity of the cemetery of the city, until 20 persons, deceased of cholera, had been interred therein; then one case after another occurred, till the epidemic became truly alarming.
In 1865, when a cholera epidemic invaded Paris, France, it raged with great virulence in the old quarter of Montmartre; in that part of the metropolis there was a vast burial-ground, from which toxic vapors were continually escaping. Of 5000 victims of the epidemic, 1800 belonged to this ancient community. The great mortality in this quarter of the city was no doubt due to the presence of the overcrowded cemetery.
Dr. John Murray, inspector-general of hospitals in Bengal, India, wrote a book, in which he endeavored to determine whether or not cholera can be propagated by human remains. He declares emphatically (Propagation of Cholera, 1873, p. 216), that the body of a cholera patient, dead or alive, must be regarded as an agent of transmission of the disease; and adduces the sequent facts to prove his assertion. Several women, whose business it was to lay out corpses, had contracted cholera. In 1818 a man died of the dread disease; five fellow-men, who carried his body to the last resting-place, were taken down with cholera, and died in the night after the burial. Dr. Townsend reported that, in 1869, three men were commissioned by the police to carry a corpse to Dumwahi. The day following their arrival the cholera appeared in this city, and the first to die of the scourge were the three who had borne the corpse.
Cholera from time to time threatens to invade our peaceful land. When it comes, shall we, in view of what has just been shown, bury its victims, saturate the earth with its specific germs, which, if the grave should ever be disturbed, may breed a terrible pestilence, if not during our lifetime, yet surely during that of our descendants? There can be but one answer: To secure ourselves against a repetition of epidemics, we must burn our dead; it is a duty that cannot be evaded, that we owe to all mankind, that, when sinned against, as it has been in the past, is revenged by the resulting visitation.
When the cases above related are taken into consideration, even the most vehement anti-cremationist cannot deny that the specific germs of infectious and contagious diseases are propagated by earth-burial, and that the only sure medium for their destruction is fire, for no disease germ can pass through the rosy heat of the crematory and survive to propagate its species.
FURNACE OF THE CINCINNATI CREMATORIUM.
(Designed by M R. Conway.)