The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1895-06-13

cremation must soon be enforced by
law as a sanitary measure.
Sir Henry Thompson says: mo dead
body can be put in fne ground without
poisoning the earth, the air and the
water about and above it," Hardly a
breeze can blow upon a modern city
from any direction that is not burdened
with deadly miasms, and besides the
gases from graves may and do pass
laterally under the earth's surface,
where, prevented from rising by denser
strata of earth, these gases rise into
dwellings from the cellars
Foul liquids from graves enter and
pollute wells and streams near burial
grounds, and reach sources of drinking
water that, in case of cities, is used
miles away One of Baltimore's prin-
eipal cemeteries was noted once for the
Splendid" springs of pure" cold water
within 1T and in its vicinity. A family
which lived in one part Of the grounds
had no other water for domestic use
than that from one of these springs
at the foot Of a hill containing an ever
increasing number of graves. The head
Of this family appealed to the directors
to introduce hydrant water at his house,
Tut ne was lOlu NlioL bAAN VII A4Ato AtHN
been in use long before he became an
employee, and that no harm could pos
sibly result from the use of the water
that had become purified by passing
through the ground. This whole fam
lily was kept in wretched health for
two years, even to its domestic pets,
Later, the health department Of the
city found that the crystal waters
Of all the springs in the vicinity were
rank poison, and ordered discontinue
ance Of their use.
Yes, modern people are educated up
to the point of demanding the quick
removal of offal, the perfect ventilation
of rooms and the construction of plumb
ing work on correct scientific princi-
Piles for the purpose of guarding health,
but they still continue to dispose of
their own remains in a way that vio-
late more than any other thing the
health Of communities.
But if we owe debt to the living on |
general grounds of sanitation, by Gre
mating the dead. how much more nee
essary is it in case Of those dead who
die of diseases that are communicable |
by their germs such for instance as
cholera, dysentery, smallpox and yell
low fever. In no other way than by |
cremation can we surely and radically
exterminate the millions of bacilli in |
such bodies.
But can these bacilli arise from the |
grave to attack the living. Let us
see.
Baron Seebach, the Saxon minister |
to Paris in 1865. noted that some luxur- |
ious clover had been cut and stolen |
from a spot ON his farm, where had |
been buried sheep that had died from |
splenic or anthrax fever. A peasant |
woman, a few days afterward, in great |
distress, acknowledged that she had |
stolen the clover and that her goat |
had died and her COW had become very |
sick with splenic fever after eating the |
clover, The baron called the attention |
of Pasteur to the incident. That scien-
list found the earth at the surface andtl
beneath it, where the sheep had been |
buried, to be swarming with procreat-
ing germs of the disease. He found /
also the same conditions in pits where |
animals that had died of the same |
disease had been buried ten years be- |
fore. With germs taken thence he in |
occulated healthy animals, all of which |
died with the splenic fever. Similar ex-
periments with yellow fever germs in |
1883 by DR.. Freire of Brazil had the |
same results.