DR. J. W. POUOHER. 297 



of deaths are caused by the disinterment of human re- 

 mains. We all know that every few years a dreadful 

 epidemic of cholera or yellow fever or small pox breaks 

 out in an unaccountable way and thousands die and are 

 buried by the panic-stricken survivors, and necessarily 

 in an imperfect manner, and is it not safe to aver that in 

 after years, when these localities have been forgotten or 

 the dread has passed, that a new epidermic has been 

 started by digging up this poisoned soil or by an attempt 

 to move some of these remains ; for who is there who 

 knows whether this person died from small-pox or that 

 one from yellow fever ? It is a matter of history that in 

 1785 the neighborhood of the Cemetery of the Innocents, 

 in Paris, became so offensive and unhealthy that it was 

 decided to remove all the remains outside the city. But 

 so poisonous were the gases generated by the decompos- 

 ing bodies that grave digger after grave-digger was 

 stricken with death on the spot, until no one could be 

 found willing to risk his life in the work. 



In 1744 three grave-diggers met death and two others 

 narrowly escaped, from entering a newly dug grave, and 

 in 1841 two grave-diggers perished in the same way at 

 Aldgate, England. Dr. Reed, of Manchester, after in- 

 vestigating this case says, "The carbonic acid gas simply 

 flowed into these deeply dug graves from the porous 

 surrounding soil like so much water," and, he continues, 

 "these gases will rise to the surface through 8 or 10 feet of 

 gravel, just as coal gas will do, and there is practically 

 no limit to their power of escape." Dr. F. D. Allen, in 

 his official report of the yellow fever epidemic in New 

 York, in 1822, said that the unsanitary condition of 

 Trinity church-yard aggravated the malignity of the 

 epidemic in its vicinity. This church was built in 1698, 

 and the ground had been receiving the dead for 124 years, 

 and some of the bodies were not more than 18 inches 

 beneath the surface, and it was impossible to dig any- 



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