The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-09-17
CHOLERA IN JAPAN.
Observations by DR.. Ashmead in Re.
gard to It's Treatment There.

Observations by DR.. Ashmead In Re-
gard to It's Treatment There.
In Science, published last week, Albert s
Ashmead, M. D., until recently medical
director Of Toxic hospital, Toxic, Japan,
writes as follows regarding the treatment Of
cholera In Japan:
Japan has almost everything, or believes
that 1t has almost everything, to learn
from u.s. but there are a few things which
it would be wise for us to consent to learn
from Japan. The Japanese, prey from
time to time, like all oriental countries, to
cholera epidemics, and having the cholera
always with them endemically, have early
found out that the cholera corpses should
be burned.
"There are In the city Of Toxic six cre-
matories. They are not only destined to
the moderation Of cholera corpses, for Gre
nation is imposed as religious duty by a
| number of Buddhist sects In the oldest
cemetery in Japan, that of Koya-san, near
the great waterfalls in Wakayama- Ken,
700 English miles south Of Toxic, crema-
ton has been practiced, as is generally be-
| lieved as q religious rite these 1900 years.
Naturally the rite of inciueratlon had
no difficulty in that country in passing
from the religious conception co a sanI-
tary application. The first sanitary Gre
government in 17l8 during an epidemic
which seems TO have been very destruct-
| i've. japanese documents speak of that
period with trembling awe; 80 900 a month
died in the city of Yeddo; undertakers
could not make collins fast enough; grave
yards were all filed up. The Japanese are
singularly struck by the idea that the men
who worked at the cremation furnaces after
sunset were themselves changed into smoke
before sunrise, and that the tombstone cut
| ters of day found horrible visu , their
own names carved on the morrow's tomb
| stones.
FINALLY the priests of all the sects united
in asking for a general application OF the
cremation rite; ashes alone, they said,
should be buried at every burial ground
mountains Of casks discouraged the dill
gence of the grave-dlgger; multitude of
| corpses (the Japanese documents have the
simplicity TO add that they were mostly
| poor persons) remained unburied for weeks.
The Japanese have long believed that this
was a cholera epidemic, the first that
ravaged the fertile sweet flag plain, but
that is delusion. Cholera paid them its
| first visit more than hundred years later.
II was then that the religious character de-
parted once for all from the cremation rite,
for the government, seeing that the fire was
| too slow, ordered the bodies, wrapped In
mats Of quickIime. TO be sunk into the tea.
Cremation ever after was only a sanitary
operation.
"In the past thirteen years there have
been 456, 080 reported cholera patients in
the empire; Of these 303, 466 died-that is
6615 per cent. Every one of these corpses
has been burned. Under police regula-
tions, in the city Of Toxic, there may be
eight public orematories (of course this has
nothing to do with the private establish
ment Of each Buddhist burial place. placed
al
that they shall be constructed OF brick, and
large enough to burn at least twenty-five
corpses at a time. Each furnace must have
chimney over thirty feet high. Each cre~
matory is expected TO have a separate fur
mace for burning discharges and a separate
disinfeoting room. This furnace is
to be Of brick and capable of
(bushels) at time its chin
ney must be thirty feet high. The law
requires further that the disinfecting COM
partment shall be divided into two spaces,
one a bath room, not for the corpses, OF
course, but for persons suspected of harbor-
ing the disease; the other fumigatlnR
place. Cremation can only be performed
from sunset TO sunrise; the corpses are not
stripped of their clothing and are one and
all accompanied by their burial certificates.
I'm the Buddhist cemeteries cremation is
thus performed. The corpse is brought in
a square wooden box or barrel the regular
japanese coffin In a sitting position, &C
| cording to the national custom. A hole in
the ground with sloping sides awaits 1t, at
the bottom Of which are two stones,
upright and parallel; across the
top of these stones firewood and charcoal
| are piled. Around the corpse, placed upon
the pile, a circular wall is built up, formed
OF rice straw and chaff, perhaps 20 the
hight Of five or six feet, and the wall itself
Is wrapped In wet mating, which, during
the whole operation is continually moist