Introductory report, suggesting the outline of a scheme for extramural interment : submitted to the Improvement-Committee of the Hon. the Commissioners of Sewers of the City of London / by the Medical Officer of Health.

  • Simon, Sir John, 1816-1904.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory report, suggesting the outline of a scheme for extramural interment : submitted to the Improvement-Committee of the Hon. the Commissioners of Sewers of the City of London / by the Medical Officer of Health. 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.

    8/38 page 10
    person buried there, however humble his previous station in life, may in death claim a grave to him- self. It has been the opprobium of our previous system that, in the poorer classes of interments, many bodies have been huddled together into a single pit. Probably you will think, as regards your future burial-place, that no consideration of cheap- ness can justify this indecency: probably you will be unwilling fliat, in a presence which confounds all social comparisons, there should be drawn, with your sanction, between rich and poor any so disrespectful distinction. But at all events, on sanitary grounds, I feel bound to assure you that these multiple burials are quite inadmissible. With such concen- tration of organic remains in very narrow compass, the soil grows utterly fetid ; and it becomes impos- sible to guard against nuisance arising to the public, or against danger to those who are occupied in dig- ging and tending the ground. These evils, indeed, are so glaring, and the indecorum of ciwded inter- ment has long been so notorious, that nothing could have given them continuance except the necessities of our narrow accommodation under the system of intramural burial: and it would of course be with- out excuse to perpetuate them under the changed circumstances of extramural Cemeteries, where space can so readily be obtained for all legitimate requirements of the public. So far as the expe- rience of other countries may help to determine your judgment in this matter, I may inform you
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3