DR. J. W. POUCHER. 303 



diphtheria, scarlet fever, small-pox and other contagious 

 and infectious diseases, they respectfully ask the Board 

 of Health to suppress such practices. 35,000 people 

 from New York and Brooklyn are annually interred in 

 Newtown. The population of the town is about 17,000. 



Many cemeteries are located upon the beautiful banks 

 of our rivers, and within them thousands of putrefying 

 dead. It is well known that 85 per cent, of the human 

 body is water. These little drops of water which drift 

 into the rivers from the dead are loaded with sure death 

 to the living who drink it. A professional wag of Phila- 

 delphia once told a patient that when he drank Schuyl- 

 kill water he was sampling his grandfather. Typhoid 

 fever is never communicated by the atmosphere nor from 

 one patient to another but in almost every instance epi- 

 demics of typhoid have been traced to polluted water. 



The question of how to dispose of the dead with the 

 least danger to the living has at all times absorbed the 

 attention of sanitarians and occupied the public mind. 

 Sound papers condemning burial in churches and cities 

 were published as early as 1539, and since then the sub- 

 ject has been almost constantly agitated and discussed 

 all over the world in medical and scientific publications ; 

 but although the custom of earth burial was condemned 

 by the most enlightened men of all countries during over 

 three hundred years, and although hundreds of striking 

 examples of the dangers of infection from burying in the 

 earth have been shown, it was not until 1874 that the 

 first crematory for the systematic incineration of the 

 bodies of the dead was built at Milan, Italy. In 1869 

 Professors Caletti & Casliglioni, "in the name of public 

 health and civilization," introduced in the International 

 Medical Congress at Florence the question of cremation. 

 A resolution was passed at this congress urging that every 

 possible means be employed to promote the substitution 

 of incineration for burial, and in 1872, three years later, 



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