The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1895-02-16
CREMATION WARMLY URGED
DR.. Kate Blacks Lecture on
Disposal of Dead
CROWN OF THE VALLEY NEWS
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CROWN OF THE VALLEY NEWS

Pasadena, Feb 15.-Dr. Kate s. Black
addressed large audience at the Univer-
salst church last evening upon Crema-
tion. The lecturer made a strong plea for
the adoption of this means of dsposng
of the dead.
''The general method of the ancient
world" said the speaker, with the ex-
ception of India, Egypt and China, was
cremation. In Egypt they embalmed, in
India they buried in sepulchers and in
China in the earth. In ancient Greece
only suicides and unteethed children and
persons struck by lightning were denied
the right of cremation. At Rome from
the close of the republic to the close of
the fourth Christian century burning on
the pyre was the rule. Even the Jews
used cremation in the Vale of Tophet
when plague came throughout many
parts of Asia, and among many of the
native Americans cremation has ever been
and is still the practice"
The method of cremation at present
was described infinitely. The extreme
heat is from 1000 to $500 degrees and the
gases are so treated as to remove all
danger of disease germs to escaping. The
time consumed is from one-half to three
hours and the ashes remaining weigh
from few ounces to seven pounds. The
question of disposing of the dead is not
in any sense religious question but one
that should be decided wholly on sani-
tary' economic and ethical grounds. The
results of cremation and earth burial are
the same. One accomplishes it's result
through slow, repulsive, disgusting pro-
cess of corruption and decay, doing much
to poison and offend the living and re-
quiring from five to eighty years to ac-
complish what the other does in from
one to three hours by q clean purifying
process.
strong array of facts and statistics
were, brought out against the. cemeteries
numbers of cases of pestilences and
plaques which could be directly traced to
burial grounds were cited both in Europe
and our own country
I'm Canadian town with which, was
familiar said the Doctor, ''diphtheria
was prevalent every yeaA and the most
in two blocks of an old cemetery. The
cholera plague of London in 1854 was
traced from excavations made for sewers
in said city where those dying of the
cholera plague 200 years ago had been
buried. ~
Dr. Friere of Rio Janeiro says: Ell
gathered from foot below the surface
some of the earth everything the remains
o' person who died of fever about year
before; on examining Q small quantity
with a microscope found myriads of
microbes exactly identical with those
found in the excreta of persons stricken
with the disease. Numerous instances
are on record where the gravediggers have
died from entering graves in exhuming
bodies.
SIN 1855, when the excavation of the old
hurying grounds of Paris was commenced,
although conducted in the winter, num-
Der of gravediggers were stricken with
death on the spot. A committee of ply
s'eans appointed by the American Medi-
cal Society to consider the question of
cremation said: I'VE believe the horrid
practice of earth burying does more to
propagate the germs of disease and death,
and to spread desolation and pestilence
over the human race than all mans in
genuity or ignorance in every other Gus
tom or habit. The fatal delusion that the
earth renders harmless and innocuous the
corpse must be dispelled. -
In closing, statistics were given show
ing the rapid strides which cremation has
made in the past twenty-five years. and
the idea advanced that the state should
take hold of the matter and make crema-
ton compulsory.