f 445 ] 



LXVIT. On the Effects of Fumigations of Oxymuriath 



~ Jchl in n'-iitrtd.zwg the pernicious Fapours ivliick exhale 

 from Buryino.piaces*. By M. Gikakd, Engineer, 

 Director of the V/uter-lVmks at Pans\. 



When in \7S4 the bodies were dug up which had been 

 buried in the Cenieterv des Innocens at Fans, those onjy 

 were dis'urbed which lay three or four feel below the sur- 

 face, but there were pits of more ancient foruiation lower 

 do*n, the bodies in which were not yet consumed. Au 

 openintr w^s made to the very bottom of one of these lower 

 pits, in which the Sv--lid mason-work which supports the 

 lower basin of the fountain of the Innocents was built. 

 From this pit a most fetid smell was exhaled, which would 

 ■ have infected the whole neighbourhood if the apparatus of 

 M. Guyton had not been resorted to. This apparatus wa« 

 composed of four earthen pots, in which were mixed m the 

 requisite proportions, sulphuric acid, oxide of manganese, 

 and muriate of soda. The mixture was renewed every 

 morning when the workmen began their labours, and every 

 nioht when they left off, bv which means the pots were left 

 alfnicht in the p:t. Not only were the inhabitants thereby 

 preserved from all annosance, but none of the workmen, of 

 whom there were one hundred, experienced the slightest 

 accident, although the work was executed in the months 

 of June, July, and x\ugusl 1809. 



Tn the beginning of the year 1812, the churchyard of the 

 village of Ciaye, "through' which the canal of the Ourcq 

 passes, was opened ; and in consequence of the same pre- 



*^;!»a'cj (/<> C/u'm7>, tome Ixxxiii. p. 281. , i -i 



+ The serious accidents prodi:ced bv cadaverous emanations when burial- 

 places are incautiously opened, are too well known. Dr. Haguene.t ha» 

 published some shockin<j instunce:^, and no place has been more remarkahle 

 in this respect than the churchyard of the Innocents. It appears that 

 durin^r the latier years of lis e.xistence as a burial-place, no less thnn 5000 

 bodies were aaauallv deposited the-'e Ever since 1721. the inhabuants of 

 the adioininic house's had cMiod the attention of Government to the dau- 

 cerou^ effects of thi» Rtcat fucus of putrid infection; and n\ 176.5 they suc- 

 ceeded in obtaining a decree of the Parhament of Paris, ordauung its sup- 

 pression, and the removal of all places of sepulture beyond the barriers. 

 Notwithstanding all this, in 1781, the reports made by order of the 

 Police, and presented to tlic Academy of Sciences and to the Soculc de M.-de- 

 riu', proved t'.iai the insalubrity of the atmosphere had so increased as to 

 occasion repeatedly in the vicinity diseases of a putrid character, and that 

 animal food recently prepared speedily underwent a fetid alteration, and 

 that the walls of the cellars were so impregnated as to cau,e p.mples in the 

 hands of thofc who touched them, accompanied by excoriations, &c. 1 liese 

 effects were attempted to be removed by throwing qiuck-lime to the depth 

 cl sii inche's into the piVi. but in a few days the deleterious gas burst forli» 

 waiu.— Note of the Editors ol the Ann. de Chmit. 



cautioa 



