Chapter 14

I.As to the Evils which require Remedies.

§ 237. That the emanations from human remains are of a nature to produce fatal disease, and to depress the general health of whosoever is exposed to them; and that interments in the vaults of churches, or in grave-yards surrounded by inhabited houses, contribute to the mass of atmospheric and other impurities by which the general health and average duration of life of the inhabitants is diminished. (§ 1 to 23.)

§ 238. That the places of burial in towns or crowded districts are usually destitute of proper seclusion or means for impressive religious service, and are exposed to desecrations revolting to the popular feelings; and that feelings of aversion are manifest in the increasing removals or abandonment of family vaults and places of burial, and the preference, often at increased expense, of interments in suburban cemeteries, which are better fitted to raise mental associations of greater quiet, respect, and security as places of repose. (§ 109.)

§ 239. That the greatest injury done by emanations from decomposing remains of the dead to the health of the living of the labouring classes, in many populous districts, arises from the long retention of the body before interment in the single rooms in which families of those classes live and have their meals, and sleep, and where the deaths, in the greater number of instances, take place; and that closely successive deaths of members of the same family, from the same disease, are very frequent amongst the labouring classes; and that, where the disease has not been occasioned by the emanations from the first dead body, as sometimes appears to have been the case, or where the disease has either arisen from a common cause, or may have been communicated before death from the living person, the diseases are apparently rendered much more fatal by this practice of the retention of the dead body in the one living room previous to interment. (§ 24 to 39.)

§ 240. That this practice of the prolonged retention of the dead in such crowded rooms, besides being physically injurious, is morally degrading and brutalizing. (§ 40 to 42.)

§ 241. That this practice is frequently the most powerfully influenced by the difficulty of raising the expenses of funerals, which in this country press grievously on the labouring and middle classes of the community, and are extravagant and wasteful to all classes, and occasion severe suffering and moral evil. (§ 43 to 71.)

§ 242. That, on the best proximate estimates which have been made, the total amount of the whole of the yearly expenses of funerals in the metropolis cannot be less than between six and seven hundred thousand pounds, and for the whole of Great Britain between four and five millions sterling per annum. (§ 72 to 74.)

§ 243. That it appears, upon examination in the metropolis, that notwithstanding the great expense of funerals, the existingarrangements for conducting them are on an unsatisfactory footing, and that great difficulties stand in the way of any efficient amendment, whilst the practice of interment in the crowded districts is retained. (§ 84 to 89.)

§ 244. That on the occurrence of a death amongst the poorest classes or amongst strangers, the survivors are commonly destitute of means of precaution against oppressive charges and of trustworthy advice or counsel, as to the modes of burial such as are afforded by the civic arrangements of other civilized countries. (§§ 121, 122, and vide Appendix, No. 1.)

§ 245. That on the occurrence of deaths from preventible causes of disease, there are no appointed means for the detection and removal of those causes, and that strangers and new-comers, having no warning, are successively exposed, and frequently fall victims to them. (§ 196.)

§ 246. That common causes of diseases which ravage the community, of the extent of operation of which causes it has a deep interest in knowing, pass unexamined and undetected; moreover, that in many districts there are wide opportunities for the escape of crimes, by which life is also rendered insecure, chiefly by the omission of efficient arrangements for the due verification of the fact and causes of death. (§§ 205 to 215.)

§ 247. That the numbers of funerals, and intensity of the misery attendant upon them, vary amongst the different classes of society in proportion to the internal and external circumstances of their habitations: that the deaths and funerals vary in the metropolis from 1 in every 30 of the population annually (and even more in ill-conditioned districts), to 1 in 56 in better-conditioned districts; from 1 death and funeral in every 28 inhabitants in an ill-conditioned provincial town district, to 1 in 64 in a better-conditioned rural district: such differences of the condition of the population being accompanied by still closer coincidences in the variation of the span of life, the average age of all who die in some ill-conditioned districts of the metropolis being 26 years only, whilst in better-conditioned districts it is 36 years: the variations of the age of deaths being in some provincial towns, such as Leicester, from 15 years in the ill-conditioned to 24 years in the better-conditioned districts: and as between town and rural districts 17 or 18 years for the whole population of Liverpool, and 39 years for the whole population of Hereford; and that the total excess of deaths and funerals in England and Wales alone, above the commonly attained standards of health, being at the least between thirty and forty thousand annually. (§ 75 to § 80, and district returns: Appendix.)

§ 248. That the most effectual and principal means for theabatement of the evils of interments are those sanitary measures which diminish the proportionate numbers of deaths and funerals, and increase the duration of life. § 75 to § 82, and General Report, p. 370. But—

§ 249. That on the several special grounds, moral, religious, and physical, and in conformity to the best usages and authorities of primitive Christianity, § 177, and the general practice of the most civilized modern nations, the practice of interments in towns in burial places amidst the habitations of the living, and the practice of interment, in churches, ought for the future, and without any exception of places, or acceptation of persons, to be entirely prohibited. (§ 1 to § 23.)

§ 250. That the necessities of no class of the population in respect to burial ought to be abandoned as sources of private emolument to commercial associations, but that national cemeteries of a suitable description ought to be provided and maintained (as to the material arrangements), under the direction of officers duly qualified for the care of the public health. (§ 126.)

§ 251. That for the avoidance of the pain, and moral and physical evil arising from the prolonged retention of the body in the rooms occupied by the living, and at the same time to carry out such arrangements as may remove the painful apprehensions of premature interments, institutions of houses for the immediate reception, and respectful and appropriate care of the dead, under superior and responsible officers, should be provided in every town for the use of all classes of the community. (§ 90 to § 101.)

§ 252. That for the abatement of oppressive charges for funereal materials, decorations, and services, provision should be made (in conformity to successful examples abroad) by the officers having charge of the national cemeteries, for the supply of the requisite materials and services, securing to all classes, but especially to the poor, the means of respectable interment, at reduced and moderate prices, suitable to the station of the deceased, and the condition of the survivors. (§ 186, § 115 to § 120.)

§ 253. That for these purposes, and for carrying out the physical arrangements necessary for the protection of the public health in respect to the practice of interment, officers of health qualified by medical education and special knowledge should be appointed. (§ 223.)

§ 254. That in order to abate the apprehensions of premature interment, § 92 to § 96, to bring responsible aid and counsel, and protection within the reach of the most destitute survivors, §§ 121 and 122 and § 198, to protect the people against continued exposure to ascertained and preventible causes of disease and death, the principle of the early appointment of searchers be revived, and no interment be allowed to take place without the verificationof the fact and cause of death by the officer of health. (§ 123, 124, 125, 126, to § 216.)

§ 255. That in all clear and well ascertained cases of deaths from immediately removable causes of disease and death, the officers of health be invested with summary powers, and be responsible for exercising them, for the removal of those causes, and for the protection of strangers from continued exposure and suffering from them.

§ 256. That the expenses of national cemeteries should be raised by loans bearing interest.

§ 257. That the repayment of the principal and interest should be spread over a period of [thirty years?]—and be charged as part of the reduced expenses for future interments.

§ 258. That all burial fees and existing dues be collected on interment, and form a fund from whence be paid the compensations which Parliament may award to such existing interests as it may be necessary to disturb, including the payment of the establishment charges, and the principal and interest of the money expended for the erection of new cemeteries; and that any surplus which may thereafter accrue may be applied to the means of improving the health of the living.

§ 259. That, on consulting the experience of those cities abroad where the greatest attention has been given to the arrangements for the protection of health connected with interments, it appears that by the appointment of medical officers, unencumbered by private practice, as officers of health, and qualified by the possession of appropriate science for the verification of the fact and causes of death, and by committing to them the regulation of the service of interments in national cemeteries, the several defects above specified may be remedied, and that new and comparatively salubrious places of burial may be procured, together with appropriate religious establishments, wherein the funeral service may be better solemnized, and that the expense of funerals may be reduced, in the metropolis, at the least, to one-half of the existing amount, and full compensation be given to all who may have legitimate claims for compensation for losses on the alterations of the existing practice. (§ 219 to § 225.)

§ 260. That the agency of properly qualified officers of health necessary for abating the evils of the practice of interments would also serve powerfully to promote the application of those sanitary measures which in some districts would, there is reason to believe, save more than their own pecuniary expense, merely in the diminished numbers combined with reduced expenses of funerals, consequent on the practical operation of comprehensive measures of sanitary improvement. (§ 201.)

§ 261. The advantages which the measures proposed offer to theclasses who now stand most in need of a beneficent intervention, may be thus recapitulated. To take the poorest class: the labouring man would (in common with the middle and higher classes) gain, on the occasion of his demise, protection for his widow and surviving children, that is to say;

Protection from the physical evil occasioned by the necessity of the prolonged retention of his remains in the living and sleeping room:

Protection against extortionate charges for interment, and against the impositions of unnecessary, expensive, and unseemly funereal customs, maintained against the wishes of private individuals and families:

Protection and redress to his survivors or the living against any unfair or illegal practices, should any such have led to the death:

Protection against any discoverable causes of ill health, should any have attached to his abode or to his place of work:

Protection from the painful idea (by arrangements preventive of the possibility) of a premature interment:

Protection of the remains from profanation, either before or after interment:

Protection such as may be afforded by the information and advice of a responsible officer, of knowledge, and station, in the various unforeseen contingencies that occur to perplex and mislead the prostrate and desolate survivors on such occasions. (§ 191 to § 207.)

Added to these will be the relief from the prospect of interment, in a common grave-yard or charnel, by the substitution of a public national cemetery, on which the mind may dwell with complacency, as a place in which sepulture may be made an honour and a privilege.

§ 262. The advantages derivable to the public at large have already been specified, in the removal of causes of pain to the feelings of the living connected with the common burial places; they would also gain in the several measures for protection against the causes of disease specified as within the province of an officer of the public health to remove; and they would also gain in the steps towards the creation of a science of the prevention of disease, and in a better registration of the fact and the causes of death.

To use the words of a great Christian writer,—that all this, which constitutes the last office of the living, “to compose the body to burial,” should be done, and that it should be done well and “gravely, decently, and charitably, we have the example of all civilized nations to engage us, and of all ages of the world to warrant:—so that it is against common honesty, and public fame and reputation not to do this office.”

I would, in conclusion, beg leave to repeat and represent urgently that Her Majesty’s Government, should only set hands to thisgreat work, when invested with full powers to effect it completely: for at present there appears to be no alternative between doing it well or ill; between simply shifting the evil from the centre of the populous districts to the suburbs, and deteriorating them; fixing the sites of interments at inconvenient distances, forming numerous, separate, and weak, and yet enormously expensive, establishments; aggravating the expense, and physical and moral evils of the delay of interment; diminishing the solemnities of sepulture; scattering away the elements of moral and religious improvement, and increasing the duration and sum of the existing evils:—there appears to be no distinct or practicable alternative between these results and effecting such a change as, if zealously carried out, will soothe and elevate the feelings of the great bulk of the population, abate the apprehensions of the dying, influence the voluntary adoption of beneficial changes in the practice of obsequies, occasion an earlier removal of the dead from amidst the living to await interment and ensure the impressiveness of the funeral service, give additional securities against attempts on life, and trustworthy evidence of the fact of death, with the means of advancing the protection of the living against the attacks of disease; and at a reduced expense provide in well arranged national cemeteries places for public monuments, becoming the position of the empire amongst civilized nations.

I have the honour to be, Sir,Your obedient servant,Edwin Chadwick.

I have the honour to be, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

Edwin Chadwick.

1.According to a memoir on this subject, read at the Royal Academy of Sciences, by M. Cadet de Vaux, in the year 1781, “Le méphetisme qui s’etoit dégagé d’une des fosses voisines du cimetière, avoit infecté toutes les caves: on comparait aux poisons les plus subtils, à ceux dont les sauvages imprégnant leur flèches meurtrières, la terrible activité de cette émanation. Les murs baignés de l’humidité dont elles les pénétroit, pouvoit communiquer, disoit on par le seul attouchement les accidens les plus redoutable.” SeeMémoires de la Société Royale de Médecine, tom. viii. p. 242; also Annales de Chimie, tom. v. p. 158. As an instance of the state of the cellars around the grave-yard, it is stated, that a workman being engaged in one of them put his hand on the wet wall. He was warned that the moisture on the walls was poisonous, and was requested to wash the hand in vinegar. He merely dried his hand on his apron: at the end of three days the whole arm became numb, then the hand and lower arm swelled with great pain, blisters came out on the skin, and the epidermis came off.

2.Videalso,Traité des Maladies des Artisans par Patissier, d’après Ramazzini, 8vo. Paris, 1822, p. 151, sur les Fossoyeurs: “Le sort des fossoyeurs est très déplorable, leur face est livide, leur aspect triste: je n’en ai vu aucun devenir vieux.” Also pp. 108–9, 137, 144.

3.Manuel du Tanneur et Corroyeur.Paris, 1833, p. 325.

4.In the course of some inquiries which I made with Professor Owen, when examining a slaughterman as to the effects of the effluvia of animal remains on himself and family, some other facts were elicited illustrative of the effects of such effluvia on still more delicate life. The man had lived in Bear-yard, near Clare-market, which was exposed to the combined effluvia from a slaughter-house and a tripe factory. He was a bird-fancier, but he found that he could not rear his birds in this place. He had known a bird fresh caught in summer-time die there in a week. He particularly noted as having a fatal influence on the birds, the stench raised by boiling down the fat from the tripe offal. He said, “You may hang the cage out of the garret window in any house round Bear-yard, and if it be a fresh bird, it will be dead in a week.” He had previously lived for a time in the same neighbourhood in a room over a crowded burial-ground in Portugal-street; at times in the morning he had seen a mist rise from the ground, and the smell was offensive. That place was equally fatal to his birds. He had removed to another dwelling in Vere-street, Clare-market, which is beyond the smells from those particular places, and he was now enabled to keep his birds. In town, however, the ordinary singing-birds did not, usually, live more than about 18 months; in cages in the country, such birds were known to live as long as nine years or more on the same food. When he particularly wished to preserve a pet bird, he sent it for a time into the country; and by repeating this removal he preserved them much longer. The fact of the pernicious effect of offensive smells on the small graminivorous birds, and the short duration of their life in close rooms and districts, was attested by a bird-dealer. In respect to cattle, the slaughterman gave decided reasons for the conclusion, that whilst in the slaughter-house they lost their appetites and refused food from the effect of the effluvium of the place, and not, as was popularly supposed, from any presentiment of their impending fate.VideGeneral Sanitary Report, p. 103, note, and p. 106.

5.On the evidence of individual cases the innocuousness of many poisons and diseases might be proved. Individuals are sometimes found to resist inoculation. It is a singular, and as yet unexplained fact, that centenarians are often found in the greatest proportion in times and places where the average duration of life of the whole population is very low. It has been shown from an accurate registration of centuries in Geneva, that as the average duration of life amongst the whole community advanced, the proportion of extreme cases of centenarians diminished. According to the bills of mortality there were nearly three times as many centenarians in London a century ago than at present. Out of 141,720 deaths within the bills of mortality during the five years ended 1742, the deaths of 58 persons alone of 100 years and upwards of age are recorded; whilst out of 139,876 deaths which occurred in the metropolis as returned by the registrar-general, during the three years which ended 30th June, 1841, only 22 deaths of 100 years of age and upwards are recorded. The average age of death of all who died was then 24 years; it is now, judging from an enumeration made from the returns of 1839, about 27 years; and there appears to have been a considerable improvement in all periods of life up to 90 years.

6.VideAppendix of the district returns of the Mortuary Registration.

7.In the medical profession examples are not rare of the attainment of extreme old age; yet as a class they bear the visible marks of health below the average. The registration of one year may be an imperfect index; but the mortuary registration for the year 1839 having been examined, to ascertain what was the average age of death of persons of the three professions, it appears that the average age of the clergymen who died in London during that year was 59, of the legal profession 50, and of the medical profession 45. Only one medical student was included in the registration: had the deaths of those who died in their noviciate been included, the average age of death of the medical profession would have been much lower.

8.An instance in exception of a barber having caught fever is subsequently stated.

9.Two days in the week the London Fever Hospital is open to the friends of the patients, who often spend a considerable time in the wards, sometimes sitting on the beds of the sick; yet these visitors never take fever themselves, nor are they ever known to convey it by their clothes to persons out of the hospital. In like manner the persons employed to convey the clothes of the fever-patients from the wards of the hospital do not take fever, nor is there any evidence whatever that typhus fever is, or can be, propagated merely by the clothes; yet it is remarkable that the laundresses who wash the clothes, which often contain excrementitious matters from the patients, or from the dead, of an amount perceptible to the senses, rarely if ever escape fever. It is inferred, that in this case the poison is by the heat put in a state of vapour, which is inhaled, and being sufficient in quantity, produces the disease.

10.In the Appendix will be found further particulars and exemplifications of the facts, deducible from the mortuary registers, together with the returns from the several registration districts in the metropolis, of which the above is a summary.

11.Vide Appendix.—Paper on the Mortuary Returns.

12.Recently, April the 4th, at the Liverpool assizes, a woman named Eccles was convicted of the murder of one child, and was under the charge of poisoning two others, with arsenic. Immediately the murders were committed, it appeared she went to demand a stated allowance of burial money from the employers of the children.

13.Clarkev.Johnson, 11 Moore, 319.

14.Bligh’s 4th Parl. Reports, N. S. 194.

15.VideAppendix No. 12 for examples of undertakers’ ordinary bills for funerals of different classes.

16.VideReturn in the Appendix.

17.VideAppendix.

18.VideGeneral Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Population, p. 443 and p. 395, for proximate estimates of the chief structural expenses,i. e.main drains, house drains, annual supply of water, water tank, and water-closet, and means of cleansing, and also an exemplification of the practical rule for the distribution of the expense, so as to render it coincident to the benefit.

19.In all cases the mortuary registries of 1839 are referred to; but the data are varying, and are submitted, as they will be understood, only as proximate estimates. I have every reason to believe them to be on the whole below the truth.

20.A severe epidemic, by sweeping off the most susceptible cases, usually diminishes the proportionate mortality from that cause during the following year.

21.VideDistrict Returns, Appendix.

22.On a question of fact as to the effect of the common funeral arrangements on the imagination, the testimony of a poet, whose accuracy of description is universally admitted, may be cited. The Rev. Mr. Crabbe thus describes the effect of the funeral array:—Lo! now what dismal sons of darkness comeTo bear this daughter of indulgence home!Tragedians all, and well arranged in black!Who nature, feeling, force, expression lack;Who cause no tear, but gloomily pass by,And shake their sables in the wearied eye,That turns disgusted from the pompous scene,Proud without grandeur, with profusion mean!The tear for kindness past affection owes;For worth deceased the sigh from reason flows;E’en well-feigned passions for our sorrows call,And real tears for mimic miseries fall:But this poor farce has neither truth nor art,To please the fancy or to touch the heart.* * * * *Dark but not awful, dismal but yet mean,With anxious bustle moves the cumb’rous scene;—Presents no objects tender or profound,But spreads its cold unmeaning gloom around.* * * * *When woes are feigned, how ill such forms appear;And oh! how needless when the woe’s sincere.The Parish Register.

Lo! now what dismal sons of darkness comeTo bear this daughter of indulgence home!Tragedians all, and well arranged in black!Who nature, feeling, force, expression lack;Who cause no tear, but gloomily pass by,And shake their sables in the wearied eye,That turns disgusted from the pompous scene,Proud without grandeur, with profusion mean!The tear for kindness past affection owes;For worth deceased the sigh from reason flows;E’en well-feigned passions for our sorrows call,And real tears for mimic miseries fall:But this poor farce has neither truth nor art,To please the fancy or to touch the heart.* * * * *Dark but not awful, dismal but yet mean,With anxious bustle moves the cumb’rous scene;—Presents no objects tender or profound,But spreads its cold unmeaning gloom around.* * * * *When woes are feigned, how ill such forms appear;And oh! how needless when the woe’s sincere.The Parish Register.

Lo! now what dismal sons of darkness come

To bear this daughter of indulgence home!

Tragedians all, and well arranged in black!

Who nature, feeling, force, expression lack;

Who cause no tear, but gloomily pass by,

And shake their sables in the wearied eye,

That turns disgusted from the pompous scene,

Proud without grandeur, with profusion mean!

The tear for kindness past affection owes;

For worth deceased the sigh from reason flows;

E’en well-feigned passions for our sorrows call,

And real tears for mimic miseries fall:

But this poor farce has neither truth nor art,

To please the fancy or to touch the heart.

* * * * *

Dark but not awful, dismal but yet mean,With anxious bustle moves the cumb’rous scene;—Presents no objects tender or profound,But spreads its cold unmeaning gloom around.

Dark but not awful, dismal but yet mean,

With anxious bustle moves the cumb’rous scene;—

Presents no objects tender or profound,

But spreads its cold unmeaning gloom around.

* * * * *

When woes are feigned, how ill such forms appear;And oh! how needless when the woe’s sincere.

When woes are feigned, how ill such forms appear;

And oh! how needless when the woe’s sincere.

The Parish Register.

23.Amongst the higher classes the tendency is to reduce the number of cases in which mourning is worn, and to diminish the time of wearing it. It would be a great boon to persons in inferior condition and of limited means, who are governed by the examples of those above them, and who are put to ruinous expense for putting a whole family into mourning, at a time when the expense can be the least spared, if the custom could be further altered to the wearing of a piece of crape only on the hat or on the arm, as in the army and navy; or by limiting the wearing of full mourning to the head of the family, and using only crape bands for the rest. Some conception may be formed of the inconvenience incurred by the extent to which mourning is carried, even amongst the poorest classes, if we suppose that on such occasions it were necessary to clothe the whole of the men of the army and navy in black. The very excess of deaths above a healthy standard in Great Britain necessitates mourning to nearly forty thousand families per annum. The extent to which custom has carried mourning appears to have no Scriptural authority. Bingham, speaking of the primitive Christians, states, “that they did not condemn the notion of going into a mourning habit for the dead, nor yet much approve of it, but left it to all men’s liberty as an indifferent thing, rather commending those that either omitted it wholly, or in short time laid it aside again, as acting more according to the bravery and philosophy of a Christian. Thus St. Jerome commends one Julian (Hieron. Ep. 34 ad Julian), a rich man in his time, because having lost his wife and two daughters, that is his whole family, in a few days, one after another, he wore the mourning habit but forty days after their death, and then resumed his usual habit again, and because he accompanied his wife to the grave, not as one that was dead, but as going to her rest. Cyprian, indeed, seems to carry the matter a little farther; he says he was ordered by divine revelation to preach to the people publicly and constantly, that they should not lament their brethren that were delivered from the world by divine vocation, as being assured that they were not lost, but only sent before them: that their death was only a receding from the world, and a speedier call to heaven; that we ought to long after them and not lament them, nor wear any mourning habit, seeing they were gone to put on their white garments in heaven (2 Cypr. de Mortal., p. 164). No occasion should be given to the Gentiles justly to accuse us, and reprehend us for lamenting those as lost and extinct, whom we affirm still to live with God; and that we do not prove that faith which we profess in words, by the outward testimony of our hearts and souls. Cyprian thought no sorrow at all was to be expressed for the death of a Christian, nor consequently any signs of sorrow, such as the mourning habits, because the death of a Christian was only a translation of him to heaven. But others did not carry the thing so high, but thought a moderate sorrow might be allowed to nature, and therefore did not so peremptorily condemn the mourning habit, as being only a decent expression of such a moderate sorrow, though they liked it better if men could have the bravery to refuse it.” (Bing., book xxii. chap. 3, sec. 22).

24.Dr. Bently states, that “allowing for much of fiction, with which such a subject must ever be mixed, there is still sufficient evidence to warrant a diligent examination of the means of discriminating between real and apparent death.” (Ency. Prac. Medicine, vol. iii. 316.) “As respiration is a function most essential to health, and at the same time the most apparent, the cessation of it may be considered as an indication of death. But as in certain diseases and states of exhaustion it becomes very slow and feeble, and so to the casual observer to appear quite extinct, various methods have been adopted for ascertaining its existence. Thus, placing down or other light substances near the mouth or nose; laying a vessel of water on the chest, as an index of motion in that cavity; holding a mirror before the mouth, in order to condense the watery vapour of the breath; have all been proposed and employed, but they are all liable to fallacy. Down, or whatever substance is employed, may be moved by some agitation of the surrounding air; and the surface of the mirror may be apparently covered by the condensed vapour of the breath, when it is only the fluid of some exhalation from the surface of the body. We therefore agree fully with the judicious observations of Dr. Paris on this subject:—‘We feel no hesitation in asserting, that it is physiologically impossible for a human being to remain more than a few minutes in such a state of asphyxia as not to betray some sign by which a medical observer can at once recognize the existence of vitality; for if the respiration be only suspended for a short interval we may conclude that life has fled for ever. Of all the acts of animal life, this is by far the most essential and indisputable. Breath and life are very properly considered in the scriptures as convertible terms, and the same synonym, as far as we know, prevails in every language. However slow and feeble respiration may become by disease, yet it must always be perceptible, provided the naked breast and belly be exposed; for when the intercostal muscles act, the ribs are elevated, and the sternum is pushed forwards; when the diaphragm acts the abdomen swells. Now this can never escape the attentive eye; and by looking at the chest and belly we shall form a safer conclusion than by the popular methods which have been usually adopted.’”The looking-glass and the feather have been the standing test for time immemorial. When Lear enters with Cordelia dead in his arms, he says:—“I know when one is dead, and when one lives;She’s dead as earth.—Lend me a looking-glass;If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,Why, then she lives.Kent.—Is this the promis’d end?Edgar.—Or image of that horror?Lear.—This feather stirs; she lives! if it be soIt is a chance which does redeem all sorrowsThat ever I have felt.”Shakespeare, King Lear, Act V. Sc. 3.

The looking-glass and the feather have been the standing test for time immemorial. When Lear enters with Cordelia dead in his arms, he says:—

“I know when one is dead, and when one lives;She’s dead as earth.—Lend me a looking-glass;If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,Why, then she lives.Kent.—Is this the promis’d end?Edgar.—Or image of that horror?Lear.—This feather stirs; she lives! if it be soIt is a chance which does redeem all sorrowsThat ever I have felt.”Shakespeare, King Lear, Act V. Sc. 3.

“I know when one is dead, and when one lives;She’s dead as earth.—Lend me a looking-glass;If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,Why, then she lives.

“I know when one is dead, and when one lives;

She’s dead as earth.—Lend me a looking-glass;

If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,

Why, then she lives.

Kent.—Is this the promis’d end?

Edgar.—Or image of that horror?

Lear.—This feather stirs; she lives! if it be soIt is a chance which does redeem all sorrowsThat ever I have felt.”

Lear.—This feather stirs; she lives! if it be so

It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows

That ever I have felt.”

Shakespeare, King Lear, Act V. Sc. 3.

25.Vide Appendix.—Regulations and Plans of the Building, forming part of the Institution.

26.In a paper read on the 2nd January last before the Academy of Sciences at Paris, by M. le Baron Charles Dupin, on the increase of savings’ banks and their influence on the Parisian population, some most startling facts are mentioned in the conclusion, showing the deplorable moral condition of a large portion of that population. “Le nombre proportionnel des indigents, au lieu d’augmenter, diminue, ainsi que celui des bâtards, mais avec lenteur déplorable; au commencement de l’époque dont nous résumons les progrès, le peuple de Paris abandonnait chaque année 205 enfants sur 1,000 nouveau nés; il n’en abandonne plus que 120: c’est beaucoup moins, et pourtant c’estcent vingtfois trop. Encore aujourd’hui, letiersdu peuple vit dans le concubinage ou dans le libertinage; untiersde ses enfants sont bâtards; untiersde ses morts expirent à l’hôpital ou sur le grabat du pauvre; et ni père, ni mère, ni fils, ni filles, n’ont le cœur, pour dernier tribut humain, de donner un cercueil, un linceul, au cadavre de leurs proches:—du côté des mœurs, voilà Paris, et Paris amélioré!”—It may on this point of comparison be a relief to state, the numbers who die in the workhouses in the British metropolis, do not exceed 4000 for nearly double the population, and that of these, on the average of the last ten years, not more than 293 have been so given up or abandoned as to be applicable to the public service in the schools of anatomy. The total number who are abandoned in all the hospitals of London, for that service, has not, on the average, exceeded 168 out of upwards of 2000 deaths per annum. The total number of subjects requisite for teaching in the schools of anatomy would be about 600. Notwithstanding that the prejudice against dissection has much abated, the full number deemed requisite has never been obtained of late years from all sources. In some instances, persons of education set an example by giving up their own bodies for dissection; in some other instances, the use of the remains is obtained by persuasions, and the promises of more respectful interment afterwards, than could otherwise be obtained. There are actually very few real “abandonments” by relations, the greater proportion of cases being of persons who have outlived near relations, of whom none, after due enquiry, which is always made, can be found. In respect to illegitimate births, it appears from the last parliamentary return of the number of illegitimate children born in the several counties of England (that of Mr. Rickman,) for 1833, that the proportion of illegitimate to legitimate births, was in Middlesex, 1 in 38; and in Surrey 1 in 40. This was most probably an understatement, but, whatever may be the real proportions they are below any comparison with the proportions in Paris. The highest proportion of illegitimate to legitimate births given in the returns, were those of the county of Pembroke, 1 in 8; and Radnor, where it is 1 in 7. It may be important to state for the sake of the example, and in illustration of the principle, as to the comparative economy of sanitary arrangements that this excess of 7,000 miserable deaths and burials per annum in Paris, at the least, might be saved by structural sanitary arrangements, which would prevent the accumulation of human beings in winding streets, (some of which are not more than eight or nine feet wide,) under circumstances which render decency, morality, health, or contentment impossible. The whole excess of deaths, as well as the demoralization that arises from overcrowding, might in all probability be saved even by the last vote of expenditure, five millions sterling, (which, at English prices, of 100l.for a tenement for a family, would have provided improved tenements, at improved rents, for fifty thousand labourers’ families) for maintaining the war on the Arabs, or by the interest of the money expended in building the immense wall and fortifications round the dangerous population (kept “desperate,” as Jeremy Taylor expresses it, “by a too quick sense of a constant infelicity,”) which those works encircle in Paris. In a copy of a report of the medical commissioners, appointed to examine the cholera, with which I have been favoured by one distinguished member, M. Villerme, and in which I have found powerful corroborative evidence on the influence of structural arrangements on the health and moral, not to speak of the political, condition of the population; they observe, “Le fléau qui a pesé si cruellement sur la capitale s’est fait sentir d’une manière particulièrement désastreuse dans les quartiers étroits, sales et embarrassés de l’ancien Paris; n’y aurait-il pas lieu de signaler ici quelques améliorations utiles à introduire dans ces localités? Les raisons d’état ont souvent dominé les intérêts matériels des villes; autrefois les voies étroites et tortueuses appliquées même aux rues pouvait faire partie des moyens de défense à l’usage de l’état: aujourd’hui des rues larges et droites deviennent dans l’intérieur des villes un premier élément de sécurité publique autant que d’hygiène; il y a donc double avantage à favoriser dans ces conditions, soit des percements nouveaux, soit l’élargissement des voies actuelles.” They give forcible descriptions of population analogous to that found—happily in less proportions,—in the worst part of our cities, and they also attest, from the examination of the inferior population of that capital: “C’est une vérité de tous les temps, de tous les lieux, une vérité, qu’il faut redire sans cesse parceque sans cesse on l’oublie; il existe entre l’homme et tout ce qui l’entoure, de secrets liens, de mystérieux rapports dont l’influence sur lui est continuelle et profonde. Favorable, cette influence ajoute à ses forces physiques et morales, elle les develope, les conserve; nuisible, alors elle les altère, les anéantit, les tue. Mais son action n’est jamais plus redoutable que lorsqu’elle trouve à s’exercer sur une population entassée, quelle qu’elle soit d’ailleurs, et voilà pourquoi l’on observe dans certains arrondissements une mortalité plus grande; voilà pourquoi le germe des maladies s’y développe plus constamment, pourquoi la vie s’y éteint plus rapidement, enfin pourquoi l’on y compte habituellement un décès sur trente-deux habitants, quand il n’y en a qu’un sur quarante dans les autres.” They also indicate as part of the effects of the noxious physical causes the moral depravity and the predominance of bad passions which impede amendment. “Ces obstacles sont réels, ils ne sauraient être méconnus, mais qui peut douter de les voir s’affaiblir, si d’une part la classe aisée de la population, comprenant mieux les intentions de l’autorité et ses intérêts véritables, se prête plus aisément à l’action des règlements sur la propreté et la salubrité publique, et si d’une autre part l’instruction, pénétrant dans cette portion de la population qui doit une partie de ses vices et de sa misère à l’ignorance, fait naître chez elle, avec des mœurs plus pures, des habitudes plus régulières et plus en harmonie avec l’hygiène publique?” But these representations of the Medical Commissioners of Paris have not been heard by the classes appealed to, and relief is sought by the mode of “giving vent” to the dangerous passions in preference to the superior treatment recommended, of the removal of the physical circumstances by which those passions must continue to be generated. Thus it may be mentioned in illustration of the important principle of the superior economy and efficiency of structural means of prevention, that the expenditure of money on Algiers appears to have been upwards of four millions sterling per annum, during the twelve years of its occupation. The capital sunk on the permanent structural arrangements for supplying London with water being about three millions and a half, it may be safely alleged that one year’s expenditure on Algiers would have sufficed for the structural arrangements for a supply of water for the cleansing of every room, and house, and street in Paris; or on the scale of the expense of the works completed for supplying Toulouse with water, one year’s expenditure on Algiers would have sufficed to supply one hundred and fifty towns of the same size as Toulouse with the like means of healthful, and thence of moral improvement; or such a sum would have sufficed to have effected for ever the “percements et enlargissements des voies actuelles,” and thence to have advanced the health and achieved the comparative security of four or five such cities as Lyons. One year’s cost of any one regiment maintained in the war on the Arabs would suffice to build and endow a school, or to have constructed between one and two miles of permanent railway. The total amount of capital so applied exceeds nearly by one-fourth the amount expended on the existing railroads in Great Britain. It may be confidently averred that the cost of the forts detaches, orenceintes-continues, said to be on a reduced scale upwards of ten millions sterling, would, if properly directed, with the accessaries of moral appliances in addition to such physical means as those indicated by the officers of public health, suffice within the period of the living generation, to renovate the physical and moral condition of the great mass of the population in the interior of that capital.

Back to Index Next