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.
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![ry o tinued tlie standard health of their living inhabitant? would be raised—to say nothing of the more respectful treatment of the bodies of the dead ? During centuries the inhabitants of London and other cities and towns in the em- pire have been guilty of the folly of interring their dead in the midst of the living. The slightest reflection will convince us, that results injurious in the highest degree must have followed. The rich interred, at the price of gold, in the vaults, aisles, and galleries of the House of God, have corrupted the atmosphere of our churches and chapels ; the poor, unable to purchase a distinguished or even a secure resting place, are packed in masses in common graves, varying as to locality and other cir- cumstances, from 20 to 30 feet deep. If exhalation of gases, unfriendly to, and even destructive of, animal life, is constantly, but more especially in the warm season, taking place from the surface of our grave-yards, from vaults and other receptacles for the dead, what responsibility must rest upon those who, in defiance of energetic remonstrance, continue to place bodies, and even attempt to justify the practice, in masses and side by side in our already overgorged burying-places 1 If indiscriminate mutilation and disturbance of previous deposits, and consequent desecration of the last resting-places of those who have preceded us, are still to bo permitted; if the ashes of our deceased countrymen are entitled to, or obtain too frequently under the present order of things, no respect; if the ties of relationship and affection and the best feelings of the heart are to be outraged by a trading sex- ton or a brutal grave-digger; if a system has too long been, and continues to this hour, in operation, which most unequivocally tends to brutalise, to unchristianise, the officials who execute the disgusting work, and the crowds of people exposed con- stantly to such scenes ; if our very beautiful burial-service has been too frequently disgraced by the acts perpetrated previous or subsequent to its performance, it is more than time that such an evil were crushed, and for ever! It degrades re- ligion, brings its ministers into contempt, tends to lower the standard of morality, and is a foul blot upon our boasted civilisation. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your most obedient servant, GEORGE ALFRED WALKER. London, November 3, 1842. Letter II. [From the Mornhuj Herald, November 11.] Sir,—London, whose “ enormous body is composed of nearly 10,000 streets, squares, places, terraces, lanes, alleys, &c., with a population of nearly 2,000,000 souls,” has upwards of 150 places for the burial of its dead, whose numbers amount to about 50,000 annually. It will occur to your readers that the disposal of the bodies of 50,000 beings who once possessed the same living attributes as them- selves, involves, as I have hinted in my first letter, some highly-important questions—• medical, moral, and political. I believe, Sir, I shall be able to show that, to make out a case against the existing system, neither speculative theories nor flimsy so- phistries are required, but that a strict attention to facts founded upon actual ob- servation, backed by experiment, will lead to the conclusion at which the writer has long since arrived, viz., that either gross ignorance or moral cowardice, or a com- bination of both, has heretofore prevented the general denunciation and complete extermination of the practices which it is my task to expose. This reflection leads me to a principal division of my subject. How, for in- stance, can a burial-place well known to have been years ago pre-occupied by tenants, receive fresh additions ? Have the number of burial-places opened from time to time been commensurate with the rapidly-increasing population, and con- sequent increased mortality in all our large towns, within the last 50 years ? In what localities have such places been principally opened? Has any sanatory surveillance been exercised over them ? Has the proximity of the majority of these burial-places to the abodes of the living been productive of good or of evil consequences ? Have the moral and physical results to the popu-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21915441_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
