CHAPTER V.
THE MEDICO-LEGAL ASPECT OF INCINERATION.—THE OBJECTIONS TO CREMATION.
The battle between torch and spade is not new; it has been going on since early times. Tertullian, a writer of the second century, declares that many of the Gentiles were opposed to cremation on the score of the cruelty which it did to the body, which did not deserve such penal treatment. This is exactly what some are asserting now. The work of an ancient Greek poet even contains a passage requesting Prometheus to take back the fire which he had procured them. There was a time when the Pagans were disputing the propriety of burning the dead upon any consideration whatever. Heraclitus advocated cremation; Thales and Hippon, earth burial. In the war which a few Christians are now waging against incineration, we therefore only have another illustration of how history repeats itself. Peoples are still contesting the point in lands which are painted in Pagan black upon the maps of the missionaries, and where Christians as yet have no footing. Some sects in Japan bury and some burn their dead; some of the Hindoos practice interment, others incineration.
THE BUFFALO CREMATORIUM.
(Exterior View.)
The injudicious promoters of cremation are among the greatest enemies of the reform. The utterance that incineration should be obligatory was extremely unfortunate, as was the idea of producing illuminating gas for general use from the combustion of corpses, something after the fashion of the twelfth century’s lanternes des morts. The fancy of Sir Henry Thompson to use the ashes resulting from cremation as a fertilizer was also a mischievous idea, and did much to delay the progress of incineration in Great Britain.
The abhorrence entertained by many of cremation depends, to a very great extent, on the universal tendency of individuals and peoples to resent any interference with established customs; to reject any innovation, simply because it is an innovation. For instance, if cremation should be the customary practice at the present time, a proposition to re-establish inhumation would meet, I am certain, with the most violent opposition.
The cremationists are now charged with enthusiasm and fanaticism by individuals who would be content that science should “stand at gaze like Joshua’s moon in Ajalon.” Most of the progress in all departments of learning has been made by enthusiasts, and a man must be an enthusiast indeed to withstand the prejudice “dry as dust” which yields the ground slowly and grudgingly, but which is certain to be defeated in the end.
The first question that comes before us for consideration is, Would not cremation destroy the evidence of crime? This refers not only to cases of poisoning, but also to those instances where persons meet with a violent death by being shot, stabbed, or otherwise severely injured. This is the only tangible objection that has ever been made by the anti-cremationists. It is of great importance, and unless we are able to show that it can be obviated, we must admit that it constitutes a serious drawback to cremation. This, as Dr. J. O. Marble appropriately remarks, is, in fact, the one and only real lion in the way of the progress of incineration as a substitute for inhumation, and unless we can muzzle this lion, he may frighten away the pilgrims.
If the charges made by the anti-cremation party were true, incineration, if established, would offer facilities for the commission and concealment of hideous crimes. A victim could be destroyed by poison, the dead body carried to a furnace and reduced to a small heap of ashes in a short space of time, and the crime thus forever placed beyond the reach of detection. The cremator, then, would become the instrument and accomplice of the murderer. It is urged that the agents employed in the commonest form of secret murder—poisoning—are often of a novel, subtle, and various character. We are apprised that it is extremely improbable that the physician called in, if he be called in, has ever seen their effects, either on man or animals; that care will be taken that he shall not see them; that the poisoner has the advantage of preparation on his side; and finally, that discovery, when made, is generally made at some variable period after death, and then rather in consequence of an aggregation of suspicious collateral circumstances pointing to the commission of other crimes of a like nature than of any possible observations at the bedside of the murdered person. Indeed, a formidable array of arguments, which can be, nevertheless, overcome in several ways. The question now before us for solution is not of recent date, but has already agitated the minds of the ancients, who, most probably, investigated the cause of death before they consigned their dead to the funeral pyre. Tacitus, the Roman historian, relates that the corpse of Germanicus lay in state in the forum of Antioch, a place fixed for sepulchral rites, but that “whether it bore the marks of poisoning yet remains undecided,” for the people were divided in their opinions, some pitying Germanicus and suspecting Piso’s guilt, others prejudiced in favor of the latter.
Pliny also relates in chapter 71 of his Natural History, lib. xi: “It is claimed that the heart of those who die of morbus cardiacus (organic heart disease) cannot be destroyed by fire, and the same is said to be true of the heart of poisoned persons.” An oration of Vitellus is extant in which he accuses Piso, the physician, of having poisoned Germanicus, since the heart of the latter would not burn. Piso defended himself by describing the disease of which the emperor had died.