The Sun.
London, England, 1847-01-06 00:00:00

HEALTH OF TOWNS.

CHURCHYARD FEVER AT MINCHINHAMPTON.
At a meeting of the Health of Towns Association, on
Wednesday, 23d December, Dr. Southwood Smith laid
before the committee some correspondence, developing
the cause of an epidemic fever which had broken out and
mead the small town of Minchinhampton. He con-
oeived it most important that this correspondence should
be laid before the proper authorities and the public, as
it could scarcely fail to establish the conclusion, that
those provisions which it was at present contemplated to
eonfine to 'the larger towns, should be extended to the
smaller town, and that to new churches, whether erected
in towns, or in rural districts, common graveyards should
no longer be attached. The facts contained in the cor-
respondence to which he wished attention to be given
were most important in relation to the physical question
as to the grave-yard emanations. In his report on the
practice of interments, Mr. Chadwick had adduced evi-
dence demonstrative of the conclusion that the emana-
tions from human remains, in a 'state of decomposition,
were noxious in their effects on human life. He regarded
this correspondence as a striking illustration of this fact.
and he thought it important to give it publicity, because
the public are often more impressed by a single case than
by a volume of evidence. The first letter he had received
was as follows—from Mr. Daniel Smith, dated Minchin-
hampton, November Bth.
" Sir,—l beg to apologise for the great liberty lam
taking in addressing you; but knowing the interest you
take in the sanatory improvement of oar towns, I am
anxious to obtain your valuable opinion, for which I
shall feel much honoured and obliged. Our town is
situated on a considerable elevation; each shower of
rain produces its little torrent, which passes through the
streets with considerable power; our streets are wide,
and the inhabitaats tolerably cleanly ; no offensive
business being carried on, and the place has been pro-
verbial for health. I have practised as a surgeon here
for 16 years, and until the last two years I have no recol-
lection of having had a single case of typhus fever. In
aim latter end of year 1844 I had many cases, uni-
form in their symptoms, with a disposition to assume
the typhoid type. Last year very few occurred.
Within the last two months we have had upwards of
150, so as to induce a general meeting of the respectable
portion of the inhabitants. The fever is identical with
that of the former year, but more severe. Cold
rigours, congestion of the brain, great prostration of the
vital powers, blood dark, with delirium on the second or
third day, are the early symptoms. In the year 1843
our church was rebuilt; a great portion of the church-
yard was sunk and removed; many bodies reinterred; an
immense quantity of this earth was used on pasture land
close to the town. A large bank, more than one hun-
dred loads, now remains within fifty yards of the town.
Our church was five hundred years old; population of
the parish is six or seven thousand; graves densely
crowded; some of the earth very dark on being removed.
Pray are the above circumstances, which took place
three years since, likely to afford malaria, so as to ac-
count for so much disease at this time? lam compelled
to add that the street and the rectory, both adjoining,
were the first and most severely visited (that is, this
year). In pur rector's family of four, the wife and
daughter dtd, also the gardener. I regret to say that
many cart loads of the dark earth was put in trenches
by the side of the walks on the premises, the gardener
frequently digging up bones. As the heap of earth
now remaining is the important subject of inquiry,
would you recommend its removal?"
Dr. iiOUTIEWOOD SMITE! replied as follows :—" Sir, it
is very surprising how such a plan could have been con-
ceived, much less actually adopted, as that which you
describe; namery, covering pasture land and bordering
gardens with decayed and decaying human bodies, in the
shape of earth very dark,' conveyed directly from a
churchyard five hundred years old, and taken from
graves densely crowded.' This dark earth' must be
highly charged siith animal matter, for such matter has
been constantly infiltrating into it for ages. The wea-
ther during the latter part of the summer, and the begin-
ning of the autumnal quarters, has been peculiarly fa-
vourable to its decomposition. In accounting for the
general spread of epidemics during the last two quarters
of the present year, the Registrar-General, in his report
for the summer quarter, ending the 30th of September,
says:—' The rapidity of decomposition, the facility with
which all kinds of animal matter ran into putrefaction,
enable us to understand how, in a summer like the past,
in which the temperature was unusually high, the dis-
eases referable to an impure atmosphere should have been
se prevalent and fatal.' No one can doubt that a large
mass of earth, highly impregnated with animal matter,
is capable of contaminating the atmosphere, and there-
fore that the bank of this earth, consisting of more
than 100 loads, which now remain within fifty yards of
the town,' ought to be instantly removed."
(The letter goes on to advise the authorities of the
town to look to their drains, gutters, and cesspools, and
the supply of water).
In his reply, dated Nov. 16th, Mr. Daniel Smith says,
after thanking the learned doctor, " I find, however, that
this heap is not exclusively composed of churchyard
earth, but contains some rubbish ; and instead of being
100 loads, as 'I stated in my former letter, it amounts to
400 or 500 loads. It was carefully hand picked, that is,
the large banes were collected and buried. Small bones
aro now and then seen, which point out the nature of the
stuff. Near this heap, and somewhat parallel to it, is a
long path or• ridge of exclusively churchyard earth,
which was intended to fill up some inequality of the
ground. This extends nearly 70 yards, and amounts to
400,0 r 500 loads also, and is about a yard in thickness ;
there is, of course, much surface exposed to the atmos •
phere ; 103 loads were spread about as manure, as before
stated. The newly-ereeted part of our church was sunk
to be in unison with the architectural proportion of the
older, or remaining portion, and consequently, to make
a suitable and new approach, much lowering of the
ground was requisite ; thus a considerable part of
the churchyard was sliced down, to within a foot
or two of the remains. In fact, some were ex-
posed and re-interred, and others occasionally re-
quired to be covered to keep them from view, and this
part is densely crowded with graves. The churchyard
was enlarged, and the new ground coated with the
churchyard earth from its fertilising effects, so as to
hasten the rapid growth of grass. These additions I con-
sider so serious that I am induced to submit them
to your consideration. Our parish consists of hamlets
principally. The town itself contains only about 800
inhabitants, and is formed by four streets crossing at
right angles, and has a considerable descent, which pro-
duces, after a shower, a current of water of much power,
passing into the under drains with a velocity which tho-
roughly and effectually cleanses them. Much, also, is
carried off by surface draining, the lower part of the
town terminating with an ascent. We have no ditches,
our soil is shallow, and rock exists everywhere. Our
church was completed in the autumn of 1843; previous
to which I have no recollection of having had a single
case of idiopathic fever in the town during the fourteen
years I had resided in it, although I see nearly 1,000
patients annually in my private and public capacity as
tiergeon to the dispensary, and during the last two
months I have attended 100 cases of the epidemic, or
more, in the town, which, from their uniform symptoms,
must, I conclude, arise from some specific cause."
Dr. Southwood Smith answers, in a letter of consider-
able length, dated Nov. 27, in which, after recapitulating
the statements made by his correspondent, he says—
"From the account, it is obvious that, independently
of what has been used on pasture land, in the garden
of the rectory, and in the new ground of the church-
yard, one thousand loads of earth, highly charged with
animal matter, being, in fact, the progresssve accumu-
lation of the bodies of the dead for five centiries, have
been actually exposed to the atmosphere ; and the ques-
tion is whether it is probable that this earth can now
give off emanations capable of producing in those who
inhale them disease and death. In the evidence given
by Mr. J. Dean before the Health of Towns Commis-
sion, some facts are stated which will help us to answer
this question. This witness enters into a detailed con-
sideration of the difference in a sanitary point of view,
ae well as in the productive value of manure, diluted
with water, and used as a liquid, and of the same
manure applied in the scat form as top dressing.
The thought is revolting, but it is not the less
the fact, that practically the whole of the churchyard
earth which has been exposed to the atmosphere,
whether that applied on the pasture land, in the trenches,
of the rectory garden, on the new ground added to the
churchyard, or that which still remains in heaps close to
the town, must be regarded as top-dressing. According
to the evidence of Mr. Dean, the proper dilution of
manure with water, and the application of it to land in a
liquid form, while it increases the productive value of
the manure five or six fold, absolutely prevents the es-
owe of emanations, or at all events renders the produc-
tion a miasmata only occasional, and of very short
dqsitren, but this same manure, when applied in a solid
foam, as top-dressing, decomposes slowly, and gives of
for ap indefinite period emanations injurious to whoever
is exposed to.them."
After describing a disease caused on the Kent coast by
file poisonous gases given out by the vast quantities of
the animal called " five fingers," or " Asterias," which is
found abundantly in the oyster beds, and which is used
for manure, he says—
"But in churchyard earth five centuries old, still
densely crowded with graves, poisonous matter may be
contained in a high degree of concentration. We know
from experience that the air may become so charged with
animal and vegetable poison, as to cause death by the in-
spiration of it for a few moments. This is the case in hot
?Inflates where there is much moisture, and where
large aaantities of dead and decayed vegetable and
animal substances are exposed for a considerable time,
perhaps in stagnant pools and marshes, to this moist
heat. It is the
enclosed In leaden ff
samecotlitiis vaults in which bodies are
is
vapour t ? opening
of which has
sometimes proved suddenly fatal
from
breathed the stench and va
them. Cases are on record in
met with
which thieves who have
broken into tombs and forced opene suchiewe loifins, with a
have view of plunder, instead of finding
death, and have been found deade in thse, vaults
facts show the highly concentrated state iiintsw. These
h
animal poison Islay exist. Your five centuries olddtsarka
churchyard earth must, I repeat, contain this •
poison in a
state of concentration. The stale of the atmosphere, for
a considerable time past, has been favourable to decom-
position, from the nature of your soil, which you state to
foe sandy, with rock abounding every where, the poisonous
products cannot percolate through the earth, but must be
exhaled into the atmosphere. If the weather should be
calm, and the wind move sluggishly in the direction of
your town, your present epidemic will continue ; with
the change of the atmospheric conditions, the intensity of
the emanations given off from your decomposing heaps,
may diminish, and, consequently, your fever may
decline, and even subside, but it will again recur as
long as those heaps are allowed to remain, and, in-
deed, as long as this extraordinary amount of poisonous
matter is allowed to contaminate a soil naturally salu-
brious. The arrangement by which dead organic matter
is capable of receiving the principle of life, of assuming
new tital forms, and of developing into new bodies, is
IseauNful and beneficent, but when such matter is taken j