Governments should not allow bodies to be introduced into their respective countries from an infected land, unless such bodies have been previously reduced to ashes.
Thousands of cases of malignant sickness, I have no doubt, could be prevented by the prompt introduction of cremation. Why not, then, introduce it? Simply because there is an unreasonable prejudice against the custom? It is ridiculous! Should any mere prejudice stand in the way of a sanitary reform? I leave it to any sound mind to decide the question. I am not advocating obligatory incineration in times of peace except in cases of infectious and contagious disease. I would rejoice to see it generally introduced, but not by force. Cremation, moreover, needs not the aid of the sword or law; it will find its way unassisted.
Besides human and animal remains, I think all garbage should be destroyed by fire.
The idea of cremation which, carried by the wings of enthusiasm, traversed the whole civilized world in the spring of 1874, is really naught but a demand of hygiene in favor of our own health. Not only physicians, but also laymen, should enter the arena where the great fight between earth-burial and cremation is going on, and combat for glorious incineration.
The International Medical Congress which convened at Florence, Italy, in 1869 examined into the various methods of burial, and concluded by expressing its belief that cremation was necessary, and should be adopted in the interest of civilization and public health.
Dr. C. W. Purdy, of Chicago, Ill., says: “Burial-grounds are unquestionably ruinous to health, as both theory and facts amply demonstrate; many sections of population suffer annually disease and death which are exposed to their influences; all engaged in this unwholesome system suffer—the grave-diggers, the gardeners, the men who repair the vaults and tombstones, the friends who visit the graves, and the whole funeral procession are exposed directly. There is no redeeming feature about this burial system, degrading to the dead and dangerous to the living.”
The celebrated medical author, Moleschott, even more vehemently condemns cemeteries. He claims that they emit a vapor which causes malignant fevers, and concludes his remarks by calling them “workshops and factories of the devil.”
Beyond a doubt, cremation soonest places the bodies of the dead in a condition where they can do the least harm to the living. Incineration destroys all disease germs and at once removes all possibility of the contamination of air and water by the dead.
Then why not introduce cremation and do away with all the evils described in this chapter? It is of no consequence to the dead, whether they rot in the earth and originate miasma, or are transformed by fire into pure white ashes. They feel as little of the process of decay as they do of the flame; their eye is surrounded by the same darkness, whether they are down in the deep grave or in the glowing light of the crematory furnace. But it is of the greatest consequence to us, the living; and the only way to protect ourselves from poisonous infection by our dead is to burn them.