The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-05-02

| earth burial has received the condem- nation of science the world over, and
 in it's stead cremation has been every
 where recommended as a safe, rational and unobjectionable custom, one which would annihilate powerful sources of
 disease, and greatly promote the pub | lie health.
 The final disposition of the dead con-
 cerns only survivors, and Its impor-
 tance to posterity cannot be overesti-
 mated. When the population was
 scarce perhaps 1t mattered less, but
 with the increasing tendency of people
 to congregate, the question before us
 now increases in importance parsi pas-
 su with increase of population. | The question is, what ought to be
 done with the dead by reasoning and
 intelligent men in the nineteenth cen-
 tury, with their present knowledge of
 sanitary science? Shall we continue to
 bury the corpse in the earth. blindly be- lieving that catering to sentiment will protect us from being perhaps fatally poisoned by gases rising through the soil to pollute the air we breathe, or
 disseminate through 1t to contaminate the water we drink or shall we, like | reasonable beings, after proper funeral | ceremonies over the body of our dear est friend, allow it to be reduced to | ashes in an hour, and thus to leave the
 earth no worse for having died, if pos
 sibly for having lived, upon it?
 From the moment that the heart | ceases to beat, and the vital spark leaves an organized living body, as well
 of man as of the lowest animal, putre- faction begins it's slow and loathsome process. It gradually passes through
 the successive phases of decomposition
 too horrible to witness or even to de-
 scribe, except when necessary, until all the constituent clements are set free by tedious and dangerous process of com
 bustion. This process may last accord
 ing to the nature of the soil for ten, twenty or hundred years. While this
 change is going on every particle of
 matter around the fostering body is be-
 ing saturated and infected with germs
 of disease and death, In case death
 was caused by such disease as yellow fever smallpox or cholera, these germs are not destroyed by inhumation, as
 they certainly are by dncineration but are planted as 1t were to sprout again with renewed virulence whenever the soil is afterward disturbed.
 So long as we live the vital forces of nature are in operation, Immediately after death, however, the retrograde metamomphosis begins, which will surely render the body, perhaps now beautiful in death, thing of horrible aversion and unwilling disgust.
 The process of decomposition, decay and putrescence goes on with varying .degnees of rapidity, according to season, temperature and moisture. till it be- comes a menace to the living. however reluctantly we may admit the painful fact; and the disagreeableness of a fact is no evidence that it is not true or that we can afford to ignore it.
 In a paper read by Mir. Darwin before the London Geological society, on the Formation of mold" that eminent sci enlist proved that in many fields every particle of the superficial layer of earth has passed through the intestines of worms. By observations in different fields he proved that in one case a depth of more than three inches of this worm mold had been accumulated in fifteen years, and in another. that earth worms had covered a bed of mari with their mold in eighty years to an average depth of thirteen inches. This is curi- ously eonfirmatory, says Sir Spencer Wells, of the recent conclusions of Pas teur, who, in his researches into the eti- ology of charbon, shows that this earth mold, brought up by worms, positively contains the specific germs which pro- pagate the disease, and that these same organisms are found in the intestines of the worms. These parasitic organ isms will resist the putrefactive process many years, and lie in a state of latent life like any flower seed or grain of corn, ready to germinate and propa- gate the disease.
 The practical inference in favor of cremation is so evident that the most sentimental objector, however blinded by prejudice, cannot fail to see it.
 It now appears well established that zymotic diseases are propagated by germs; and after the much-abused Koch has succeeded in proving the "comma bacillus" to be the fons ct eri- go of cholera, there would seem to be hope of bringing that dreaded scourge to period.
 By burning in the ground body dead of amy zymotic disease, we are plant ing for our descendants seed, sure, soon- CT or later to bring forth a horrible crop of pestilence anld death! This can no longer be doubted or the fact ig- nored, for it is incontrovertibly estab- lished on the concurrent testimony of 1 the highest scientific authority.
 Dr. Freire, of Rio de Janeiro, while | the cause of yellow fever, found that the soil of cemeteries where | in the victims of that disease were bur- led, was alive with microbean organ ! isms identical with those found in the | yomit and blood of patients who had | died of it in the hospital. He took sam ples of the earth, one foot below the | surface over the remains of victim of | yellow fever, and found them swarm Ing with the characteristic germs He $ therefore justified in chaTacterizing the cemeteries as the nurseries of yell ow fever, the perennial foci of that dreaded disease.
 Cholera has already threatened us. Tn case 1t comes, and victims, few or many, die, shall we, in view of what has ust been shown, plant their fostering bodies in the earth, to come forth again n myriad forms, to breed additional