ARE CEMETERIES UNHEALTHY f 661 



Regarding the extent to which the soil is affected in consequence 

 of burials, we are in possession of exact and well-established facts. 

 The time required for the earth fully to transform organic matter that 

 may be buried in it varies according to the physical and chemical nat- 

 ure of the soil : in some grounds bodies are, we might say, devoured 

 in a few days ; more commonly the time required to transform a corpse 

 is estimated at from five years, as in Paris, to twenty years, as at Geneva, 

 and even more in some places. Authors also differ respecting the time 

 needed for the operation : Gmelin and Wildberg believed that it takes 

 thirty years, while Maret thought that three years are enough. 



Legislation based on this point has designated a variety of periods 

 after which burial-grounds may be used over again. At Frankfort, thirty 

 years is the standard ; at Leipsic, fifteen years ; at Milan and Stuttgart, 

 ten years ; at Munich, nine years. Generally, the time necessary for a 

 complete destruction of the body is estimated in France at five years, 

 but this limitation is not at all absolute, and in many cases burial- 

 grounds may be used anew before that time. In the majority of the 

 experiments made by them, Orfila and Lesueur found that bodies were 

 reduced to skeletons at the end of fourteen, fifteen, or eighteen months. 

 After that time, the soil under the vivifying influence of oxygen re- 

 sumed its original qualities. 



On this point, we may assert, contrary to certain affirmations, but 

 in accordance with experiments the importance and value of which are 

 guaranteed by the name of the author, M. Schiitzenberger, that, so far 

 as the cemeteries of Paris are concerned, no saturation of the soil, 

 either with gases or with solids, exists. The recent experiments of 

 this chemist have resulted, in effect, in showing that the soil in the 

 Parisian cemeteries is still in a sufficiently favorable condition as to its 

 composition to effect the absorption of the gases and the complete 

 transformation of the solid and liquid matters resulting from the pu- 

 trefaction of the bodies that may be buried in them. The analysis, so 

 far as it refers to gases at least, has given identical results with the 

 analyses of good arable lands. Moreover, there is nothing to prevent 

 the modification of the soil of cemeteries by means of suitable appli- 

 cations for augmenting the intensity and rapidity of its combustible 

 force. Such applications are certainly not beyond the means of modern 

 agricultural chemistry. 



No important instance of the contamination of waters has been es- 

 tablished against the cemeteries. Cases of an exceptionally unfavor- 

 able influence of a mass of decomposing matter on certain waters may 

 occasionally occur, but none such have been established in the soils of 

 Paris, and those which have been described in other places are not 

 conclusive. What, on the contrary, most evidently comes out after a 

 study of the facts is the remarkable purifying power that the earth 

 possesses. It would take too long to give here the proof that water 

 is not infected by cemeteries ; we mention only the case of the well in 



