The author is indebted to a “Treatise on Public Health,” by Albert Palemberg and A. Newsholme, London, 1893, for the following details:—
BRUSSELS.
“This city possesses two mortuaries to which bodies are conveyed from confined houses. One of these, within the town, only receives the bodies of persons not having died of an infectious disease; all others are conveyed to the mortuary at the Evère Cemetery....
“In times of epidemic the removal of corpses to the mortuary is compulsory, and so also in other cases where the medical health officer decides that it is necessary. No corpse, without special permission, can be kept in the mortuary more than forty-eight hours after death, but this interval can be shortened or lengthened by special order.”
PARIS.
“By a decision of July 21, 1890, the Municipal Council of Paris has decided to establish a mortuary in each of the cemeteries of the east (Père La Chaise) and the north (Montmartre).... The mortuaries are not available for the bodies of persons having died from infectious disease.
“Bodies are only admitted to the mortuary—(1) On the written application of the head of the family or some other persons competent to undertake the funeral. (2) On the production of a certificate of death from the doctor who attended the patient, stating that the death was not caused by infectious disease.
“Up to the present time (1893) these mortuaries do not appear to have been of great service, owing to the unwillingness of families to part with their dead before the time of interment.
“‘La Morgue.’—This establishment only receives bodies on which a post-mortem examination is required, and the bodies of unknown persons, placed there for recognition. In the hall where the bodies are exposed, the temperature is kept several degrees below zero by a system of refrigeration, thus retarding putrefaction. This system would, in consequence of the low temperature, greatly retard or prevent the revival of persons who may only be in a state of torpidity from submergence, or of trance or catalepsy, who could be resuscitated if warmth and other proper means were promptly applied to them.”
BERLIN.