FURNACE OF THE CINCINNATI CREMATORIUM.(Designed by M R. Conway.)
FURNACE OF THE CINCINNATI CREMATORIUM.(Designed by M R. Conway.)
FURNACE OF THE CINCINNATI CREMATORIUM.(Designed by M R. Conway.)
The scientific world was lately startled by the gladsome news that Dr. Domingo Freire, a physician of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, had discovered the peculiar microbe of yellow fever. The blood of yellow fever patients swarms with these microbes (cryptococci), which, by inoculation, produce the disease in animals. Dr. Freire named the microbecryptococcus xanthogenicus. He was aided in his labors, to detect the specific germof yellow fever, which included microscopic and spectroscopic examinations as well as experiments on animals, by his able assistant, Señor Menezes Doria.
Dr. Freire also examined some soil from the cemetery of Jurujuba, where victims of the yellow jack (as we call this fever sometimes) lie interred. Some of this earth was dried and then placed in a cage which contained a guinea pig. Previously to the introduction of the earth, the blood of the animal was examined microscopically, and found to contain no bacteria of any kind. The animal became ill, and died within five days. When its tissues were examined after death, they were found to present all the characteristic changes which yellow fever brings about. The blood was full ofcryptococci xanthogeniciin various degrees of development. The urine was highly albuminous. The brain and the intestines were stained yellow by the infiltration of the coloring matter of thecryptococci. After this discovery, the doctor recommended that all victims of yellow fever be destroyed by fire, to prevent general infection. The Brazilian government (one of the most enlightened in the world) immediately ordered that a cremation furnace be built at Jurujuba, in which all those that die of yellow fever there must be incinerated.
The St. LouisMedical and Surgical Journalmakes this very sensible suggestion regarding the disposition of the remains of those dying of yellow fever in our own United States. It says:—
“From what we have learned from private sources, the resurrection of the bodies, during the winter months, of those who died of yellow fever, has done much to perpetuate this terrible disease in southern cities, untilthe warm weather has set in. Cremation obviates all possible harm that can come from the dead, and duty to the living demands that everything be done to destroy the possibility of propagating this and all contagious diseases that run so malignant a course.”
Dr. J. F. A. Adams says:—
“Dr. Joseph Akerly expressed the belief that Trinity Churchyard had been an active cause of the yellow fever in New York in 1822, aggravating the malignity of the epidemic in its vicinity. This church was built in 1698, and the ground had been receiving the dead for 124 years. Sometimes bodies were buried only 18 inches below the surface, and it was impossible to dig without disturbing the remains. During the Revolutionary War, this burial-ground had emitted pestilential odors, and in 1781 Hessian soldiers were employed to cover the ground with a layer of earth two or three feet in depth. The ground was unusually offensive in 1782, and annoyed passengers on the surrounding streets previous to the appearance of the yellow fever in July. During the epidemic, the condition of this churchyard, and the virulence of the disease in its vicinity, called for some active measures, and on the night of Sept. 22 Dr. Roosa covered the ground with 52 casks of quicklime, the stench being at the time so excessive as to cause several laborers to vomit. On the 25th and 26th of the same month St. Paul’s Churchyard, and the vaults of the North Dutch Church in William Street, received the same treatment, these being likewise very offensive and foci of epidemics.”
When the yellow fever raged in New Orleans in 1853, the death-rate in the Fourth District (in which therewere three large burial-grounds) was 452 per 1000 of the population.
Dr. Bryant, writing on yellow fever at Norfolk in 1855, regards cemeteries as a constant source of danger in an epidemic, and urges the total forbidding of intramural or even near-by suburban cemeteries.
Sir Spencer Wells related a fact recently at a meeting of the Health Exhibition in London, England, which has a strong bearing on the source of epidemics and their annihilation by cremation. Some persons who had died of scarlet fever were interred in a country graveyard. Thirty years afterward the cemetery was included in a neighboring garden, and the old graves dug up. Scarlet fever forthwith broke out in the rectory and parish, and no other probable source having been discovered, it is impossible to avoid the inference that the germs of scarlatinal infection can retain their vitality a third of a century.
In epidemics individuals should be forced to allow their dead (unless they succumb to some disease other than the prevailing scourge) to be cremated. To stamp out a contagious or infectious malady, or to arrest its progress, incineration must be made general; its benefits arenilwhen confined to isolated cases. The individual must stand back when the public health is in jeopardy.
Governments should not allow bodies to be introduced into their respective countries from an infected land, unless such bodies have been previously reduced to ashes.
Thousands of cases of malignant sickness, I have no doubt, could be prevented by the prompt introduction of cremation. Why not, then, introduce it? Simplybecause there is an unreasonable prejudice against the custom? It is ridiculous! Should any mere prejudice stand in the way of a sanitary reform? I leave it to any sound mind to decide the question. I am not advocating obligatory incineration in times of peace except in cases of infectious and contagious disease. I would rejoice to see it generally introduced, but not by force. Cremation, moreover, needs not the aid of the sword or law; it will find its way unassisted.
Besides human and animal remains, I think all garbage should be destroyed by fire.
The idea of cremation which, carried by the wings of enthusiasm, traversed the whole civilized world in the spring of 1874, is really naught but a demand of hygiene in favor of our own health. Not only physicians, but also laymen, should enter the arena where the great fight between earth-burial and cremation is going on, and combat for glorious incineration.
The International Medical Congress which convened at Florence, Italy, in 1869 examined into the various methods of burial, and concluded by expressing its belief that cremation was necessary, and should be adopted in the interest of civilization and public health.
Dr. C. W. Purdy, of Chicago, Ill., says: “Burial-grounds are unquestionably ruinous to health, as both theory and facts amply demonstrate; many sections of population suffer annually disease and death which are exposed to their influences; all engaged in this unwholesome system suffer—the grave-diggers, the gardeners, the men who repair the vaults and tombstones, the friends who visit the graves, and the whole funeral procession are exposed directly. There is no redeemingfeature about this burial system, degrading to the dead and dangerous to the living.”
The celebrated medical author, Moleschott, even more vehemently condemns cemeteries. He claims that they emit a vapor which causes malignant fevers, and concludes his remarks by calling them “workshops and factories of the devil.”
Beyond a doubt, cremation soonest places the bodies of the dead in a condition where they can do the least harm to the living. Incineration destroys all disease germs and at once removes all possibility of the contamination of air and water by the dead.
Then why not introduce cremation and do away with all the evils described in this chapter? It is of no consequence to the dead, whether they rot in the earth and originate miasma, or are transformed by fire into pure white ashes. They feel as little of the process of decay as they do of the flame; their eye is surrounded by the same darkness, whether they are down in the deep grave or in the glowing light of the crematory furnace. But it is of the greatest consequence to us, the living; and the only way to protect ourselves from poisonous infection by our dead is to burn them.