Cremation of the Dead: Its History and Bearings Upon Public Health

by William Eassie

[CHAPTER IV.]

DANGERS OF OUR SYSTEM OF BURIAL.

In order to form a comprehensive idea of the salutary benefits which will accrue from a general observance of cremation, or even from a limited adoption of the scheme—which, by the way, is nowhere forbidden by the statutes of the land—it will be necessary to review cursorily the positive evils for which past inhumation is answerable. I will therefore attempt to point out from carefully collected and other authentic sources, chiefly from the reports of the Parliamentary Commissioners, how the dead have poisoned and still poison the living.

It seems to be generally admitted that the fœtid air exhaled from the dead is fatal if breathed in a concentrated state, and that, even when dissipated by the wind, it lowers the vital powers of the community.[104] Cases of instant death to grave-diggers, notably to three in Paris in September 1852, from accidentally inhaling the concentrated miasma which escapes from coffins, have been recorded. Slower deaths from exposure to the same evil, through what is designated low fever, are very common. Undertakers have given evidence to the effect that they have suffered from faintness and nausea, even when they have not been cognisant of any offensive odour.

Dr. Riecke reported that putrid emanations 'operate in two ways, one set of effects being produced through the lungs by impurity of air from the mixture of irrespirable gases, the other set through the olfactory nerves by powerful, penetrating, and offensive smells.' Dr. Southwood Smith says that, when present in the atmosphere, morbific animal matter is 'conveyed into the system through the thin and delicate walls of the air-vesicles of the lungs in the act of respiration,' and instances how the vapour of turpentine, if only inhaled when walking through a recently painted room, will exhibit 'its effects in some of the fluid excretions of the body even more rapidly than if it had been taken into the stomach.'

So with the vapour which arises from an overcrowded and even from any churchyard. People who are accustomed to reside near badly regulated graveyards are mostly unable to detect the serious nuisance by the sense of smell; but medical men, accustomed to the dissecting-room, can recognise it directly, and can even distinguish it from the foul odours arising from sewers. In a case at Manchester, where a main sewer ran through the graveyard, the graves drained into it, and the smell of the dead came into the houses through the untrapped sinks. Mr. Roe stated on oath that he once traced exudation from a churchyard in St. Pancras parish into the road-sewer thirty feet distant, and that this would have resulted even if the sewer had been cemented or concreted over. These cases will prove that there are more sources of danger than from surface-emanations. The rule seems to be that, where the graveyards and roads are paved, and the stones laid horizontally, the escape of the deleterious matter is either into the wells or sewers. If, as in many instances, the surface of the burial-ground be above that of the street, the loathsome matter may even be seen trickling down the walls of enclosure. Some most sickening cases were published in 1851 in the report issued by the General Board of Health.

If the formation of a deep sewer will suffice to drain dry all the wells near its line of march, then the sinking of a well near a burial-ground must help to drain the latter. There is a complication when drains in the neighbourhood of graveyards are tide-locked at intervals; and an instance of this was given by Dr. Reid, who stated that careful examination of the air in the Houses of Parliament, thirty years ago, resulted in the discovery that it was very much vitiated, both by night and by day, from their proximity to St. Margaret's burial-ground.

The disorders commonly complained of in the neighbourhood of burial-grounds are headaches, diarrhœa, and ulcerated sore throats. According to a report of the French Academy of Medicine, the putrid emanations of Père-la-Chaise, Montmartre, and Montparnasse, have caused frightful diseases of the throat and lungs, to which numbers of both sexes fall victims every year. 'Thus a dreadful throat disease which baffles the skill of our most experienced medical men, and which carries off its victims in a few hours, is traced to the absorption of vitiated air into the windpipe, and has been observed to rage with the greatest violence in those quarters situated nearest to cemeteries.' An officer once stated to Mr. Chadwick, that when a building looking over a certain Liverpool churchyard was used as a barracks, he and his men always suffered from dysentery. It was related by Messrs. Houlier and Fernel that, during the prevalence of the plague in Paris in the beginning of the eighteenth century, 'the disease lingered longest in the neighbourhood of the Cimetière de la Trinité, and that there the greatest number had fallen a sacrifice.' In such desperate plight also were the houses which abutted upon the churchyard of St. Innocent, that the vapour was seen to rise from the soil, and the stench was unbearable. It is on record, too, that, when a large common grave, fifty feet deep, was dug in the same cemetery in the following year, candles would not burn in the cellars of the adjacent houses, and those who only approached their apertures were immediately seized with alarming attacks. The walls of the cellars streamed down also with an offensive moisture. Numerous other instances might here be quoted.

It was proposed by M. Fourcroy to analyse the foul gases evolved from bodies which had been interred in this oversaturated soil; but no grave-digger would venture to assist in its collection, because it resulted in almost sudden death if inhaled in the concentrated form near the body, and even at a distance, 'when diluted and diffused through the atmosphere, produced depression of the nervous system and an entire disorder of its functions.' As a rule, the grave-diggers there had a cadaverous appearance and all the other signs of slow poisoning. M. Patissier also noticed several cases where death resulted from digging the graves. Doubts have been expressed as to the baneful effect of putrid emanations upon grave-diggers; but, as Mr. Chadwick has observed, if a number of these men be compared with a number of men following healthier occupations, it will be found that the mephitic influences entail a loss of at least one-third of the natural duration of life and working ability. As a rule, none but the healthiest and most robust men choose this trade, and they drink very freely, in order to overcome the nervous depression caused by unhealthy emanations, live on stimulating foods, and work but for a few hours per day.

Professor Parkes has described and named the offensive gases and putrid vapours given off by churchyards.[105] Professor Pettenkofer has also proved the presence of carbonic acid gas in the ground-air under houses, and the effects produced by this pulse-lowering gas. Dr. Reid examined at Manchester some graves which had been dug some hours previously, and found that it was necessary to have recourse to mechanical or chemical ventilation before the men could descend into them. The carbonic acid gas simply flowed into these deeply dug graves from the porous surrounding soil, like so much water. In the same way also this poisonous gas finds its way into the churches whose floors are below the level of the churchyards. Professor Selmi, of Mantua, has lately discovered in the strata of air which has remained during a time of calm for a certain period over a cemetery, organisms which considerably vitiate the air and which are dangerous to life. This was proved after several examinations. When the matter in question was injected under the skin of a pigeon, a typhus-like ailment was induced, and death ensued on the third day.[106]