The fourth of a series of lectures delivered at the Mechanics' Institution, Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, August 13, 1847, on the actual condition of the metropolitan grave-yards / by Geo. Alfd. Walker.

Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The fourth of a series of lectures delivered at the Mechanics' Institution, Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, August 13, 1847, on the actual condition of the metropolitan grave-yards / by Geo. Alfd. Walker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    The first twenty-six were all attacked in two days ; and by the time that 130, or five divisions, had been called out, the slaves thus employed were all either dead or labouring under the plague, so that the Government officers refused to send out any more.^ I trust that sufficient has now been said to prove in the clearest manner that exhalations from the dead are injurious to health, and capable of generating malignant disease, which may, and often does, terminate rapidly in death. This proof I have endeavoured to deduce from a chain of reasoning—from a series of facts—as strong and as conclusive as any that can be brought foi-ward to support propositions which have received the universal consent of mankind. I have shown you, in the first place, that the inoculation of putrid animal mat- ter, during dissection for example, often gives rise to a putrid disease which terminates in death. I next proved that bodies, before they are interred, may either communicate to the living specific diseases, such as the plague, typhus fever, &c., or cause serious derangement to the health from the ordinary products of decomposition. I then traced the same fatal agency to the dead body after interment, showing that sudden death or grievous maladies have been produced by the poisonous emanations from vaults or open graves ; and arriving at what ought to be a last resting-place for the dead;—the grave-yard, I demonstrated to you that the emanations from such places are injurious in the highest degree, and that more especially where ignorance, cupidity, or insolent immorality have insulted the remains of the dead, the punishment has in some cases been instant and unmistakable. I proved, beyond the possibility of cavil, that with limited spaces of burial in the midst of an ever increasing population, such necessity must not only exist, but become more urgent every day. The abominations con- nected with intra-mural sepulture must continue, they must assume a more dan- gerous and more disgusting character every day, because with a rapidly increasing population we have no means of extending the narrow limits assigned to its de- funct integers. With these broad facts staring us in the face, you will be prepared to believe that the wise and the good in every country have been warm advocates of the only remedy which suggests itself. If it be dangerous, if it give rise to indecent and unchristian abominations to bury the dead in the midst of the living,—if, as has been proved, there are men who have grossly abused the trust reposed in them, abolish the practice at once and for ever; remove your burial-places beyond the walls of your cities and towns, apart from the habitations of man. The nation that has pledged itself, in the late sessions only, to advance about thirty millions for speculating in railways, should neither snarl over the dead bones of its ancestry, nor wink at practices that poison earth, air, and water, nor permit the bodies of those who pre-decease them to be dismembered and treated * Sec History of the Plague of Marseilles and Cyclop, of Pract. hied, Article Plague.
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