Report of the Medical Officer of Health of the City of London, upon the New River water, and the church yard of St. Andrew's, Holborn / presented to the Commissioners of Sewers, Tuesday, 11th December, 1855.

  • City of London (England). Commissioners of Sewers
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Medical Officer of Health of the City of London, upon the New River water, and the church yard of St. Andrew's, Holborn / presented to the Commissioners of Sewers, Tuesday, 11th December, 1855. 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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    The answer to those statements may be derived from various sources; as, from the experience of mankind on intramural sepulture in all ages; from the results of inquiries into the actual condition of our own grave-yards; fr'om an experimental examination of the process and products of animal putrefaction; and lastly, from the knowledge ac- quired by the physiologist and physician of the effects of putrid emanations on the living animal economy. From the earliest periods of history we have records of the danger that was apprehended from an intercourse of the living with the dead. Moses, who blended sanitary regulations with religious ceremonials, decreed that he who touched the dead body of man should be unclean for seven days; and the process of embalming with the Egyptians and Peruvians; that of burning by the Greeks, the Romans, the Ethiopians, and other nations, were but the means of preventing the formation of those deadly effluvia, which are the common products of putrefactive decomposition. After a time, when the Romans practised inter- ment, it was performed in allotted spaces of ground without the walls of the city; and at last, when the dangerous practice of burying the illustrious or pious dead within the precincts of churches became general, it produced so much mischief to the health
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