Cremation / The Cremation Society of England, London.

  • Cremation Society of England
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Cremation / The Cremation Society of England, London. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    CREMATION It ia now nearly thirty years since Lord Beaconsfield proposed Sanitas sanitatum et omnia sanitas as a battle cry for an impending election. It did not excite much enthusiasm, as drains and water supplies do not appeal strongly to the popular imagination. Nevertheless, the great movement of sanitary reform, which may be said to have begun with the Victorian era, is still gaining fresh force as it goes, and is steadily extending in direc- tions undreamt of by its initiators. It is true that our lawgivers are still apt to regard sanitary reform as almost a negligible quantity in the struggle for votes, and so matters that vitally concern the public health are passed over as of little importance, or, worse still, are treated as mere playthings in the game of political battledore and shuttlecock. But on the whole, thanks mainly to the self-sacrificing efforts of the medical profession, the advance of sanitary reform has been steady nearly all along the line. There is, however, one direction in which progress is disappointingly slow. Although from the sanitary point of view cremation is undoubtedly the best method of disposing of the bodies of the dead, it must be con- fessed that it does not make much headway among us. The progress of any reform which touches a traditional sentiment must always be slow, and it was not there- fore to be expected that cremation should yet have entirely taken the place of earth burial. But it is now thirty-three years since cremation was brought before the people of this country by the late Sir Henry Thomp- son, and although the storm of opposition with which the proposal was then received has subsided, it is to be feared that it has been followed by an attitude of indifference which is yet more inimical to progress. v-Whereas the [77/08]