Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-08-01

from graves dIlect Ine lungs through lHl-
purity of the air, and as5ail the blood.
DR.. Copeland, DR.. Koch, DIR. Eward and
DR.. Carpenter all agree to this.
The plague in Modena, in 1923, was
proven by DR.. Bianchi to have been caused
BY excavations in the plague burial yard,
where the victims bodies had been buried
three hundred years before The same
thing happened in 1854 in Derbyshire,
England, at Evan, where plague vic
Tins were buried in 1865; yet disturbance
Of the ground produced fearful epidemic
disease resembling cholera. So in 1928,
the plague in Egypt was traced
directly to the reopening of a disused
graveyard at Kelioub. j D. Beugless, in
his essay, proves that in 1858 the mortality
from yellow fever was 452 in every 1000
in New Orleans districts where yellow fe-
yer cemeteries are located, but only half
that in other districts. Washington
Square, New York, was once the city's
potters' field, yet to this day it is impossi-
BILE to raise children on the ground floor Of
houses around that respectable reservation.
DR.. Whitaker declares it to be all bosh
that the waters of cemeteries are contain
mated, and declares that the researches of
Petenkofer show that all impurities are
destroyed forever by the earth,
and at the distance Of few
rods from the reception of sewage the
water is safe, and that the observations of
Roth and Lex show that the wells in ff-
teen graveyards in Berlin contain nitrates
in less quantity than the average wells OF
the city. The doctor is disingenu-
Gus. Petenkofer's researches related
mainly to sewage. Roth and Lex
found exceptionally deep wells, and their
finding was only comparative. But they
are not quotable against the overwhelming
wave Of sanitary research and proof to the
contrary. The London Lancet sums up the
whole case in these words: at is we'll
ascertained fact that the surest carrier
and most deadly fruitful indus of zymotic
contagion is this brilliant, enticing-look-
ing water, charged with nitrates which re-
suit from decomposition"
A further objection of Whitaker is that
I! cremation costs as much as funerals. Let
Us see: apart from carriage-hire, the cost
of an ordinary cremation is $40; a terra
Gotta urn, from s. to $40; niche in the
columbarium, say $S; an inscribed tablet,
say s.. Total, sos. The cost of an
ordinary funeral is from 800 to $3.50. In
neither case is there taken into account
the cost of 4 lot. for a lot may be used in
which to bury the ashes and upon which
to erect monument, for cremation does
not mean abandonment of cemetery, nor
| invasion of the sentiment that commits
dust to dust and ashes to ashes. 1t does
mean lessening of the area of cemeteries,
however
Cremation, says DR.. Whitaker, hides
crime, and it is the only argument he ad-
vances of any special force. So it would,
where proper precautions were not taken.
! In all cases of doubt the stomach and
lungs may be taken from the body for
chemical examination. But non-volatile
mineral poisons remain in the ashes, and
are to be detected there. Incarceration
only renders care in autopsies greater.
The final argument of DR.. Whitaker is
that cremation is thief for it robs the
earth of the food the body is to il. As
nothing material is destroyed, nor departs
from the globe, cremation does not remove
from the earth and its atmosphere any of
the elements of the body, and but a hand
full of ashes is sequestered in each case.
| But this feeding of the earth, even if ad-
mitted, is more than offset by contamina-
ton of the soil, the water and the air, in
the language of Sir Henry Thompson,
with the germs of disease,
These are all the points" the doctor
makes at all worthy of consideration.
Every one of them confesses a weakness.
On the other hand, the affirmative reasons
for cremation are overwhelming cleanli-
ness, non-pollution of soil, air and water,
prevention of burial alive, economy, en-
abling the remains of families to be
brought together, prevention of disease
dissemination, the check it may be made
to plaques by destroying the germs, nom
sequestration of great areas of ground, nom
theft of bodies and non-desecration of
graves, avoidance of the horrible loathsome-
ness of the process of decay, and avoidance
of possible saponifcation as in case of the
bodies in wet cemeteries that are changed
10 adinncnrn