This, one of the most discreetly urged weapons against cremation, was that promulgated by Professor Mohr, who asserted that if incineration were practiced to its full extent, an interruption to the order of nature would ensue, since the supply of ammonia would be arrested or greatly curtailed.
Dr. Mohr’s objections to the cremation of the dead principally rest upon the following bases:—
1. That ammonia is the most important form in which nitrogen is taken up by the plants.
2. That free nitrogen does not, or at any rate in sufficient abundance, return to the organized world.
3. That in cremation the ammonia is entirely destroyed, and the nitrogen entirely liberated.
4. That the nitrogen of buried corpses is entirely converted into ammonia.
Mohr soon had many followers who imagined that if the bulk of all animal remains should be burnt to ashes, the mischief produced by the loss of ammonia would be incalculable. They claimed that it is as necessary to vegetable life as is the air we breathe to us; that there is no counterbalance in nature whereby this ingredient can be supplied from other sources; and that by cutting off a large proportion of the supply of ammonia the loss would be quickly felt throughout all the animal kingdom, and would soon be followed by an appreciable diminution of animal life on the globe.
Dr. Mohr’s objections were met by the eminent Professor Franchimont, of the University of Leyden, Holland, who proved that the views held by his confrère were both erroneous and absurd, and concluded his exposé as follows:—
1. That it is not proved that ammonia is the chief nitrogenous constituent of plants.
2. That it is proved that free nitrogen returns by many and various routes to the organic world.