Newington,
Nov. 18th, 1815.
THE
DANGER
OF
Premature Interment,
&c. &c.
Aristotle asserted, that it was more just to assist the dead than the living. Plato, in his Republic, does not forget, amongst other parts of justice, that which concerns the dead. Cicero establishes three kinds of justice; the first respects the Gods, the second the manes, or dead, and the third men. These principles seem to be drawn from nature, and they appear at least, to be necessary for the support of society, since at all times civilized nations have taken care to bury their dead, and to pay their last respects to them.
We find in history, several traces of the respect which the Indians, the Egyptians, and the Syrians entertained for the dead. The Syrians embalmed their bodies with myrrh, aloes, honey, salt, wax, bitumen, and resinous gums; they dried them also with the smoke of the fir and the pine tree. The Egyptians preserved theirs with the resin of the cedar, with aromatic spices, and with salt. These people often kept such mummies, or at least their effigies, in their houses, and at grand entertainments they were introduced, that by reciting the great actions of their ancestors, they might be better excited to virtue.—How different is this respect for the dead, from that practised at present?
The Greeks, at first, had probably not the same veneration for the dead as the Egyptians. Empedocles, therefore, in the eighty fourth Olympiad, restored to life Ponthia, a woman of Agrigentum, who was about to be interred. But this people, in proportion as they grew civilized, becoming more enlightened, perceived the necessity of establishing laws for the protection of the dead.
At Athens, the law required that no person should be interred before the third day; and in the greater part of the cities of Greece, a funeral did not take place till the sixth or seventh. When a man appeared to have breathed his last, his body was generally washed by his nearest relations with warm water mixed with wine. They afterwards anointed it with oil, and covered it with a dress, commonly made of fine linen, according to the custom of the Egyptians. This dress was white at Messina, Athens, and in the greater part of the cities of Greece, where the dead body was crowned with flowers. At Sparta it was of a purple colour, and the body was surrounded with olive leaves. The body was afterwards laid upon a couch in the entry of the house, where it remained till the time of the funeral. At the magnificent obsequies which Alexander honoured Ephestion, the body was not burned till the tenth day.
The Romans in the infancy of their empire, paid as little attention to their dead as the Greeks had done. Acilius Aviola having fallen into a lethargic fit, was supposed to be dead; he was therefore carried to the funeral pile; the fire was lighted up; and though he cried out that he was still alive, he perished for want of speedy assistance. The Praetor Lamiæ met with the same fate. Tubero, who had been Praetor was also saved from the funeral pile. Asclepiades a physician, who lived in the time of Pompey the Great, about one hundred and twenty years before the Christian æra, returning from his country house, observed near the walls of Rome, a grand convoy and a crowd of people, who were in mourning assisting at a funeral, and shewing every exterior sign of the deepest grief. Having asked what was the occasion of this concourse, no one made any reply. He therefore approached the pretended dead body, and imagining that he perceived signs of life in it, he ordered the by-standers to take away the flambeaux, to extinguish the fire, and to pull down the funeral pile. A kind of murmur on this arose throughout the whole company. Some said that they ought to believe the physician, while others turned both him and his profession into ridicule. The relations however yielded at length to the remonstrances of Asclepiades; they consented to defer the obsequies for a little, and the consequence was the restoration of the pretended dead person to life. It appears that these examples, and several others of the like nature, induced the Romans to delay funerals longer, and to enact laws to prevent precipitate interments.
At Rome, after allowing a sufficient time for mourning, the nearest relation generally closed the eyes of the deceased, and the body was bathed with warm water, either to render it fitter for being anointed with oil, or to reanimate the principle of life, which might remain suspended, without manifesting itself. Proofs were afterwards made, to discover whether the person was really dead, which were often repeated during the time that the body remained exposed; for there were persons appointed to visit the dead, and to prove their situation. On the second day, after the body had been washed a second time, it was anointed with oil and balm. Luxury encreased to such a pitch in the choice of foreign perfumes for this purpose, that under the consulship of Licinius Crassus, and Julius Cæsar, the senate forbad any perfumes to be used, except such as were the production of Italy. On the third day the body was clothed according to its dignity and condition. The robe called the prætexta was put upon magistrates, and a purple robe upon consuls; for conquerors who had merited triumphal honours, this robe was of gold tissue. For other Romans it was white, and black for the lower classes of the people. These dresses were often prepared at a distance, by the mothers and wives of persons still in life. On the fourth day the body was placed on a couch, and exposed in the vestibule of the house, with the visage turned towards the entrance, and the feet near the door; in this situation it remained till the end of the week. Near the couch were lighted wax tapers, a small box in which perfumes were burnt, and a vessel full of water, for purification, with which those who approached the body besprinkled themselves. An old man, belonging to those who furnished every thing necessary for funerals, sat near the deceased, with some domestics clothed in black. On the eighth day the funeral rites were performed; but to prevent the body from corrupting before that time, salt, wax, the resinous gum of the cedar, myrrh, honey, balm, gypsum, lime, asphaltes, or bitumen of Judea, and several other substances, were employed. The body was carried to the pile with the face uncovered, unless wounds, or the nature of the disease had rendered it loathsome and disgusting. In such a case, a mask was used made of a kind of plaister, which has given rise to the expression of funera lavasta, used in some of the ancient authors. This was the last method of concealment which Nero made use of, after having caused Germanicus to be poisoned: for the effect of the poison had become very sensible by livid spots and the blackness of the body, but a shower of rain happening to fall, it washed the plaister entirely away, and thus the horrid crime of fratricide was discovered.
The Turks have, at all times, been accustomed to wash the bodies of their dead before interment: and as their ablutions are complete, and as no part of the body escapes the attention of those who assist at such melancholy ceremonies, they can easily perceive whether one be really dead or alive, by examining, among other methods of proof, whether the sphincter anis has lost its power of contraction. If this muscle remains still contracted, they warm the body, and endeavour to recal it to life; otherwise, after having washed it with water and soap, they wipe it with linen cloths, wash it again with rose water, and aromatic substances, cover it with a rich dress, put upon its head a cap ornamented with flowers, and extend it upon a carpet, placed in the vestibule, or hall, at the entrance of the house.