The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-02-02
Continued from page -

Continued from page II
for the following reasons: First, the
| trench is kept open on one side for
| months, allowing gases to escape from
| hundreds of bodies in the state of de-
/ composition. the influence of which will
extend for miles through the atmos-
/ phere, and the trench is filed with
body after body regardless of the cause
/ of death, regardless of the danger to
| the living in the surrounding vicinity,
mindless of the still greater and more
/ important danger to US, the citizens of
! our town, of polluting the water in the
| immediate neighborhood by the fluids
! of this decomposing mass entering the
soil. Your committee is simply sur
prised' that such inhuman methods of
disposing of the dead are practiced
within the limits of a civilized COM
munity, and in such close proximity to
two of the largest cities in the Union"
Sir Henry Thompson, of London,
says:
! mo dead body is ever placed in the
soil without polluting the earth, the
air, and the water about it,
The Secretary of the Michigan State
Medical Society, says:
been directly traced to cemeteries sit
uate more than half a mile distant
There are undisputed reports of va
rious epidenics of contagious diseases
started from a single case of Infection
of water and even of snow and what
a danger exists in all places where
there is an opportunity for drainage
from a cemetery to contaminate the
supply of district, whether it be the
large and expensive water works of
modern city, or the wells of a sparsely
settled neighborhood. The supply of
the city of Brooklyn is said to be in
great danger from this source of in
lection. Philadelphia is reported to
have a greater mortality from typhoid
fever than any other city in the States
and it's supply is from rivers polluted
by sewage, and its Fairmount reservoir
is said to take the drainage from seven
large cemeteries. The report of an
expert upon this matter states that:
THE Schuykill river flowing through
the beautiful Fairmount park is posi-
lively polluted by the soakage and
drainage from the cemeteries along the
bank We know that about IS per
cent of the human body is water. /
These little drops of water squeezed by
with sure death for the living who !
drink of it, In fact I have heard pro- !
fessionaI men in Philadelphia say that
when you drink Scsuylkill water you i
are sampling your grandfather" stat |
ing further that in analyses made ;
of this water traces of oil of cedar ,
have been found which must have
come from the collins and burial cases
used.
Many cemeteries with their well kept
lawns. beautiful trees and shrubbery,
and costly and artistic monuments,
present an inviting and very pleasing
appearance. but we are apt to forget
what corruption they contain or cover,
and what gases are arising from them.
to exert an evil or deadly effect upon
visitors or neighboring residents. Seeds
of disease are known to exist almost
and the opening of a grave
has been known to have been the
cause of many an outbreak. Burial
has been common of bodies dead from
all manner of malignant diseases, and
who knows when. a grave is opened
what will come forth, or even if not
opened what germs may be about it
even to the surface, as cases are re-
corded of Investigations of soil from
the tops of graves which have clearly
shown infection which must have come
rom the body buried there. In Paris
so much disease, particularly malig-
nant throat trouble, was continually
,bout the leeward side of two of the
Did cemeteries that it was decided TO
'emove them. In doing so several or {
he grave diggers were overcome and
lied on the spot from gases inhaled
n the excavations. Instances without :
number could be quoted showing the {
LANCER which exists in connection with {
arth burial, but those mentioned give {
IN idea>of them.
An article published in Philadelphia I
n 1886 says:
1.-The dead are everywhere in the way
# the living AS they lie in their
raves they are powerless for good, 8
tut they are strong for evil. The de- {
aging of hundreds of thousands OF
ictims of disease pollutes the air we I
reathe and poisons the water we !
rink The germs of disease, such as /
Uphold. smallpox, diphtheria, scarlet k
ever. yellow fever, and other maiadies o
which often become epidemic, are re- t
reduced in the corpses of their buried f