18 On the Advantages of 



X. — On the Advantages of Burning the Dead. 

 By James Edward Neild, M.D., 



Lecturer on Forensic Medicine in the University of Melbourne. 

 [Read 8th December, 1873.] 



I think there is no more loathsome object than a putrid 

 human body. It offends the senses, and it shocks the 

 sensibilities, even of those whose duties make them familiar 

 with the sight. As a rule, interment takes place before 

 decomposition has advanced sufficiently far to alter the 

 appearance of the dead, so that sorrowing survivors are not 

 generally distressed by witnessing those repulsive changes, 

 which begin to take place more or less rapidly, according to 

 temperature, as soon as life ceases. But they do take place, 

 whether the body be above ground, in the earth, or under 

 the water. A number of offensive gases are liberated, and 

 the air is thereby contaminated, and rendered to that extent 

 less fit for respiration. Doubtless it is only in the course of 

 nature, that the human body, like every other organised 

 substance, should undergo those changes by which the 

 elements composing them separate from each other, in order 

 to effect new combinations, and serve in their turn to com- 

 pose other organised structures. While acknowledging 

 this law of continual change, however, it would, I think, 

 be only in accordance with the improved hygiene which is 

 one of the principal characteristics of the present time, to 

 reduce, as far as may be, the unpleasantness and the 

 unhealthiness accompanying these organic reactions. What 

 is known as sanitary science, comprehends in its teachings' 

 and purposes, a mitigation of the effects of such chemical 

 reactions. Drainage, sewerage, the removal of refuse and 

 excreta, deodorisation, disinfection, ventilation, all have 

 reference to the lessening of the effects upon the system, of 

 certain gaseous products, and the disease-germs which 

 frequently accompany them. In securing sanitary precau- 

 tions, the common good has sometimes been obtainable only 

 by over-riding old prejudices, and combating long-cherished 

 but mistaken convictions ; and, indeed, the principal 

 obstacles to such improvements, have, for the most part, 

 been represented by a mistaken conservatism. For example, 

 there are still many otherwise excellent and intelligent 

 persons, who regard cold-bathing every day as a rash 

 exposure to serious risk. It is this general prejudice 

 against innovation, coupled with some superstitious regard 



