The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-05-09
ASHES TO ASHES.
Cremation in its Sanitary Aspects.
 By John o. Marble, M. D.
CContinued.)

I1OAuon III lo54 was DeNeVeQ to nave had its origin in the upturning of the earth in which the plague-stricken vic- tims of the year 1865 had been buried; and the report of the London board of health for 1849 states that the cholera was specially prevalent and fatal in the vicinity of graveyards. Again, it is an established fact that the plague broke out afresh in Modena, Italy, in 1928, in consequence Of excavations of the earth, where three hundred years before the victims of that disease had been buried. Do we wonder that the sanitarians of Italy are enthusiastic ad- Vocates of cremation?
 But it has been claimed that instances of disease caused by water and air vit1- ated by graves are mostly of ancient origin, that they occurred before intra- mural interments were generally pro- htbited. They do still occur, however, though less frequently, thanks to the ef- forts of sanitarians, as can readily be shown Dr. Santa vouches for the fact that a severe epidemic of fever was caused years ago by drinking water poisoned by graveyard soakings In the villages of Bellita and Rotondella, Ita- ly. More recently even the Monument tai cemetery at Milan was proved to have been the cause of severe Illness in its vicinity, the wells being the channels of infection. The so-called Roman fe- yer has usually been attributed to ma laria from the Pontine marshes. No doubt they are dangerous enough and produce their share of miasma, but now comes Sir Lyon Playfair and other sani- tarians contending, and reasonably, that a more probable, or at least an ad- ditional cause of the peculiar fever of the Eternal City exists in it's soil and that of its environs, saturated as it has been for centuries with the decaying re- mains of it's millions of buried dead,
 In our own country the Atlanta Med- ical Journal recently reported the case of two young ladies who drank water from a spring situated on a hillside near an old graveyard, one of whom died soon after of diarrhoea and pyae- mia, and the other of typhoid fever. Cattle also drank the water and were made sick The fact is vouched for, that whenever cholera or yellow fever has visited New York city it has pre-
 
 ity churchyard. Washington Square, New York city, was for a long time used as a Potter's Field Tn 1906 1t was converted into a. public square, and for years after, as the oldest physicians testify, 1t was almost impossible to rear children on the ground floors of houses in that vicinity.
 When the old. disused cemetery in nt,f1 1Nr moved, hundreds of loads of the super fluous gravel were spread broadcast upon our streets. I feared that disease might result and was on the watch for it. I had many cases of severe sore throat, diarrhoea and fever in that To- cality, which I believe was caused by poisonous emanations from that satura- ted soil. That the city escaped an epi- denic of some presidential disease was mo doubt due to the fact that probably no one there inferred had died of chol- era, yellow fever or smallpox. My fears were considered unnecessary by my professional brethren at that time, but I could not reply with proof, for I waa not then aware, as I now am, that a severe epidemic of fever in 1843 nearly l decimated town in England from pre- c1Sely Sucn a cause,
 The monstrous delusion that the mere contact of the corpse with fresh earth 1 renders itinnocuous and sufficesfor safe | disinfection is dissipated by overwhel- | ming evidence. I distinctly remember l my boyish scruples concerning the wa | ter of a well situated not fifty yards l from graves in the churchyard adjoin- l ing my fathers garden. This old | Gods acre" have hundred times l passed, in my timid boyhood, in the l shades of night, with palpitating heart, i and at a pace rivalled only by that of | Tam O'Shanter's steed from witch | haunted Kirk Alloway to the key | stane'' of the Brig O Doon." My fath- | CT overcame my scruples concerning the l water by stating the belief then held, | that the earth was purifier and safe ! depurator, and that no harm could | come to that we'll thirty feet deep, the pride and unfailing source of supply of | the neighborhood, Yet that same au- tumn suffered severe and nearly fa- tai attack of typhoid fever, and another member of the family was similarly af- fected a year later. The fever occurred when the we'll was low, and I have no doubt, in the light of present knowl- edge of such dangers, that, repulsive as Is the thought, I drank water filtered through the bones of my revered an- cestors buried there, and that the pol luted water caused that illness. To those who criticise the advocates of for quoting ancient exam p1es only of harm from graves, this in- stance will appear sufficiently recent and intimate, Permit me here to quote the opinions of a few men who have expressed them- selves emphatically upon the evils of and whose deliberate judg- ment carries conviction with 1t.
 Dr. Parkes, one of the highest au- .horities in the world on hygienic sub ects, declares that 1t Is a. matter of mo- .oriety that the vicinity of graveyards s unhealthy.
 Sir Henry Thompson writes "No lead body can be left in the ground without poisoning the earth, the air md the water above and about it. ( Within few weeks the decomposing ( corpse is pervaded with bacteria or rnf- robian organisms, which, together z with the gases generated in the putre- o active process, are struggling with z