Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1895-10-20
CREMATION ON THE BATTLE FIELD.
A Hygienic and Human Method of Disposing of
the Dead.

When the great surgeon, Bi1lroth, erect
ed to the Austrian upper chamber, made
his memorable speech for the reha bilita-
ton of the Medico- Military academy of
Vienna, he pointed out some of the in
evitable incidents of modern as compared
with past warfare, which would make the
edueative function of such an academy
more than ever indispensable. says the
Lancet The advance of military science
he showed. with its arms of precision and
its smokeless powder, would so cucumber
the battlefield with wounded that the
transport services, hitherto available for
the removal of those to the rear, would
have to be greatly improved in prompt
tude and efficiency If the cembatant arm
itself was not itself to be paralyzed by It's
own fallen encumbering the ground.
To this admonition the international
Red Cross society responded nobly, ana
the exposition of the various MODES OF
picking up and carrying off the wounded
which were on view at Rome during the
last great medical congress SATISFIED the
medico-mlitary world that, II not .abso-
lutely solved, the problem of carrying
the wounded to the rear was on the hlgh
road to solution. But the dead on the
battlefield offer as difficult a crux for the
army medical or the Red Cross organi-
cation to deal with as the dying How
are they to be disposed of after those OF
the fallen who may yet be saved are
happily put under treatment. IN the neio
ambulance?
Not for the first time has the question
been propounded to the war departments
of the European powers. the other DAY
the Emperor William, in view or the car
mage inseparable from latter day war
fare, took counsel with the medical staff
of the German war office as to whether
or to what extent cremation might not be
utilized for the disencumbering of battle
field after such sanguinary combats as
those for example, around Metz in the
campaign of 1870 The subject is full of
difficulty and even if cremation be
eventually put in practice for such an
end it must, without question, call into
operation much larger, more va
rously disciplined medico-military per-
sonnet than hitherto. The electric light,
after darkness has set in, may be trusted
to aid in distinguishing the dying from
the dead; but expert examination will be
needed before such an irrevocable process
as that of the crematorium is applied
to bodies in which the vital spark, not
wholly extinguished, may yet have
chance of being famed into flame.
This examination will not be called for
in the case of those who are either killed
outright or whose conditions is such that
only few minutes can intervene before
rgor mortis begins to declare itself 1t
may ne SpdTtu dlSO Ill lIlOSe CdScS WHcif,
after opera ton the resources of the field
ambulance have failed to REINFORCE the
powers of life. But from the two sides of
the battle field-from the front and from
the rear-the crematorium will never be
without food, all too abundant if the pro-
visions of the Emperor William as to the
butchers bill' of the next great Euro
pean war are to be realized.
The subject as we have said, is not
now for the first time propounded. In
the great International congress for the
relief of the wounded in war, held in
Paris twenty-eight years ago, DR.. Ber-
tani the distinguished Genoese surgeon,
who sacrificed brilliant academic career
and rapidly extending private clientele
to organize the medico military depart
ment of Garibaldis campaigns, proposed
cremation as the humanest, and from
the hygienc point of view, the soundest
modus operandi to be employed in the
disposal of the dead on the battlefield.
His proposal was ably seconded by an
other sagacious italian sanitarian, DR..
astiglioni-Seconded, moreover, by argu-
ments so powerful that nothing but the
short interval between its recommended
ton and the outbreak of the Franco
German war explains it's not having been
put in practice during that most SAN
culinary of nineteenth century cam
paignS
The testimony of the great soldier
surgeons of Italy's struggles for indie
pendence will, however. bear revival and
recapitulation, especially under the aus
pieces of the predominant partner" in
the triple alliance, the Emperor William,
whose capabilities in the art of war are
not more conspicuous than his wise pro-
visions for the abatement of it's horrors,
and whose steady patronage of all that
pertains to the sanitary protection of his
people will one day reflect asl much honor
on his reign as the most brilliant achieve
ments of his ancestors in the military
council chamber or on the stricken field.
800 pairs Charles Heiser's