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NATURE 



V7^ 



to determine that life was actually extinct. She had been 

 haunted with the most terrible fears that she might be 

 buried alive, fears much intensified by the existence in 

 her family of a tradition that one of her relatives had 

 actually been subjected to this awful ordeal. She had 

 directed in her will that she was to be cremated, but her 

 legal adviser, who had himself drawn out the document, 

 discovered that it had no force in regard to the direction 

 of cremation, and two of the nearest relatives having a 

 determined and conscientious objection to the process, 

 the body had to be interred. In this instance every pre- 

 caution was taken that the body was absolutely dead, and 

 even decomposed, before it was laid in the earth, and to 

 this extent the wishes of the deceased were fulfilled ; but 

 the fact that the law does not respond to the wishes of 

 the dead is a point to be remembered by all who would 

 be cremated. The same failure of law seems to be 

 operative in Italy, for we all remember that the final 

 request of the great Garibaldi as to the disposal of his 

 body by fire remains to the present moment disregarded. 



Dr. Erichsen must at once receive the credit of having 

 written the best book that has issued from the press on 

 the subject of cremation. It is short and yet full, concise 

 and yet complete. There are eight chapters : the first, 

 a history of cremation ; the second, the evils of burial, 

 and the sanitary aspects of incineration ; the third, cre- 

 mation in times of war ; the fourth, the processes of 

 modern cremation ; the fifth, the medico-legal aspect of 

 incineration, and the objections to cremation ; the sixth, 

 burial alive, cremation from an aesthetic and religious 

 point of view ; the seventh, the present state of the 

 cremation question. 



The introductory letter by Sir Spencer Wells, to which 

 reference has already been made, is an excellent prelude 

 to the chapters above recorded. Sir Spencer Wells has for 

 many years been a staunch and consistent advocate of 

 cremation, and has put it on record that, when the time 

 comes — may it be long delayed ! — his body is to be 

 destroyed by fire. He writes, therefore, with authority, as 

 one who has well considered the subject in all its details, 

 and has learned the best and most forcible answers to 

 the many objections that have from time to time been 

 raised against cremation. He quotes the late Dr. Parkes's 

 statement " that neither affection nor religion can be out- 

 raged by any manner of disposal of the dead which is done 

 with proper solemnity and respect to the earthly dwelling- 

 places of our friends. The question should be placed 

 entirely on sanitary grounds. Burying in the earth 

 appears certainly to be the most insanitary plan." On the 

 religious side of the question, Wells also adds a strong 

 sentence from the late Lord Shaftesbury, who remarked 

 to him that, if cremation were wrong, " what has become 

 of the blessed martyrs who were burned at the stake in 

 ancient and modern persecutions ? " 



We turn naturally, as scientific readers, to the section 

 of Dr. Erichsen's work which treats on the sanitary aspect 

 of the subject. This is not, in our view, the strongest 

 part. In it the author has collated the widely reported 

 instances of the spread of epidemics on the opening 

 of burial-places where persons who died of contagious 

 diseases, similar to maladies which have broken out, have 

 been interred. But here three fallacies are suggested. 

 In the first place, it is impossible to accept all the illus- 



trations as illustrations strictly in point and entirely 

 trustworthy — or, for the matter of that, any of the evidence 

 as absolutely trustworthy — seeing that other causes 

 which might have been at work to produce the effects 

 named are not duly eliminated. In the second place^ 

 if the instances cited may be accepted as primA 

 facie evidence, they accord imperfectly with other 

 instances, not of exceptional, but of every-day life, 

 in which cemeteries and graveyards holding the re- 

 mains of those who have died of contagious maladies 

 have been partly or largely opened without any manifes- 

 tation of the dangers referred to ; or in which persons 

 have lived for long series of years in close proximity to 

 graveyards and cemeteries receiving the dead from in- 

 fectious diseases, and yet have not suffered from those 

 diseases more than others in other localities. There is 

 at the present moment a cemetery near London, from 

 which at times, emanations of the worst kind proceed, 

 indicating that the cemetery is overcharged with dead, 

 and ought at once to be closed ; but no epidemic has 

 broken out from it as a centre of contagion. In the third 

 place, the evidence collected by the author, if it were 

 accepted as mainly trustworthy, is not quite ad rem. It 

 would be correct in so far as old burial-grounds and 

 old modes of burial are concerned, but it would have no 

 bearing whatever on the earth-to-earth system of burial 

 which our countryman, Mr. Seymour Haden, has done so 

 much to introduce and to perfect. 



Dr. Erichsen's answer to these objections would be : 

 Why hnger at all over the bodies of the dead ? they feel 

 not, neither do they know. " It is of no consequence to 

 the dead whether they rot in earth and originate mias- 

 mata, or are transformed by fire into pure white ashes. 

 They feel as little of the process of decay as they do of 

 the flame : their eye is surrounded by the same darkness, 

 whether down in the deep grave or in the glowing light of 

 the crematory furnace. But it is of greatest consequence 

 to us, the living ; and the only way to protect ourselves 

 from poisonous infection by our dead is to burn them." 



In this one sentence lies, in a scientific sense, the gist 



of the whole question. If it were true and demonstrable 



that the only way by which the living can be preserved 



from the dead is to burn the dead, every true man of 



science would support the principle of cremation out and 



out, and the practice would become universal in a very 



short space of time. Moreover, as Science, like Nature 



herself, has no morbid sentiments, but goes straight to 



and for the truth, she would not tarry long in making 



herself heard. It is just because the voice of Science 



cannot be so absolute that it demurs or hesitates. Her 



scholars inquire amongst the living of the day to see if 



they afford an answer to the important question. They 



ask : Are the persons whose duty it is to be nearest to 



the dead immediately after death — the upholsterers and 



the servants of the cemeteries and graveyards — more 



i liable than others to the infectious diseases from their 



j special occupations ? and the answer which comes back 



is certainly negative. They ask other and similar ques- 



j tions : — How many times has it been known that a 



j medical man in conducting the autopsy of a person who 



I has diaJ of a contagious affection has contracted the 



I disease? How many women of the death-chamber have 



' contracted disease from the deid.? These questions also 



