Interment and disinterment : a further exposition of the practices pursued in the metropolitan places of sepulture, and the results as affecting the health of the living : in a series of letters to the editor of the Morning Herald / by G.A. Walker.
- Date:
- 1843
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Interment and disinterment : a further exposition of the practices pursued in the metropolitan places of sepulture, and the results as affecting the health of the living : in a series of letters to the editor of the Morning Herald / by G.A. 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.
18/36 (page 14)
![Ground1'”— f°ll0wing items’ under the head of “ Repairs to Drury.lane Burial By cash paid, new vaults for depositing bones £U 14 G Labourers, digging new vaults, and levelling the ground 34 3 i Incidental expenses connected with the above alterations 18 10 3 Total , £77 7 10 Thus an expense was incurred which would have purchased a piece of ground much better adapted for the purposes of burial, of nearly four times the extent of ihe above grave-yard. So much for the pecuniary policy of parish management! • *• Ch,atele,t, plates the particulars of the removal of 43 bodies, vie ims of the three days, m a state of advanced putrefaction, from the vaults of e church of St. Eustache, Paris. The 43 bodies were removed in 2} hours, bv 23 men and 12 carts, without any accident. The task was superintended by M La- barraque. Every precaution uas taken; solutions of chlorine were used in consi- derable quantities ; and the bodies had, it appears, been originally covered with quick lime. Parent Du Chatelet declared that the success of the measure did Labarraque great honour, and that it would be registered, “ dans les fastes de l hygiene publique.”—{Lancet, December 7, 1839.) In London, Sir, no such fuss would have been made ; a scientific means of disinfection most probably would not have been employed; no well-deserved compliment would have been given to the preserver of the “ Hygiene Publique.” Our grave-diggers would have had on such an occasion an extra quantity of drink ; a slight increase of the mortality might have occurred; a sudden death or two have happened, and the hackneyed and much-abused verdict, “ Died by the visitation of God,” would have been returned. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your most obedient servant, GEORGE ALFRED WALKER, London, Nov. 25, 1842. Letter VI. [From the Morning Herald, December 20.] Sir,1—In my previous letters I have exposed some of the more glaring of the abominations practised in many of the so-called sanctuaries of the dead. I have demonstrated, by reference to numerical and statistical facts, that the existing places of interment are totally inadequate to the decent disposal of the annual mortality ; that the sanctity of the tomb, the kindliest sympathies of our nature, are constantly violated and insulted ; that the natural, almost the instinctive, reverence and respect with which all, even the most profligate and hardened, must ever feel for the remains of departed kindred and friends, must be, and frequently are sacrificed, with the most ruthless and savage barbarism, at the shrine and altar of the god Mammon. I now pass from a necessarily brief examination of the system itself, to its effects on the health of the population of the surrounding districts. The influence of de- composing animal matter, as a cause and generator of disease, is now so universally recognised by the better-informed members of the medical profession, that they will scarcely need further proofs of its deleterious nature and properties. But inasmuch as the majority of non-professional readers are perhaps quite unaware of the serious injury which the health of our population suffers from this cause, I shall now adduce such testimony, mainly the result of my own personal observation, inquiry, and ex- perience, as cannot fail to convince the most sceptical of the pernicious effects of the present system of intra-mutal interment. The atmosphere which we breathe is composed of 79 parts, by volume, of nitro- gen, and 21 parts of oxygen, with a proportion of carbonic acid varying from 4 to 7 parts by volume in 10,000. Experience has incontrovertibly proved, that any considerable deviation from this its normal or proper constitution, is incompatible with the due and healthy performance of the functions of animal life. Any sensible addition of other gases, although they may be quite inert and harmless in the;r na- ture, has invariably been found to disturb the integrity of the respiratory and the digestive processes. If such gases, also, possess pernicious and poisonous qualities,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21915441_0020.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
