41 
Review. 
Quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non. — Hor. 
Burning the Bead, or Urn Sepulture , religiously , socially , and 
generally considered ; with suggestions for a revival of the 
practice as a sanitary measure. By a Member of the Royal 
College of Surgeons, London : George Philip and Son, 32, 
Fleet Street, pp. 34. 
There are but few persons whose feelings at first would 
not revolt at the proposition to have their deceased relatives 
or friends consumed by fire. Yet when the subject is deli- 
berately considered, there is nothing in it to shock the most 
sensitive, and it is perfectly in accordance with reason and 
philosophy, to say nothing of its advantages in a sanitary 
point of view. Besides this, the act is far less offensive than 
that of the slow decomposition of the body, and its gradually 
becoming the food of worms. With sorrow, not unmingled, 
perhaps, with some degree of disgust, was the request made 
by the patriarch, cc that I may bury my dead out of my 
sight.” He had looked on the putrifying corpse of the once 
beautiful and beloved, and he could bear it no longer. 
Nor can it be but of little moment, however strong the 
affections might have been, what becomes of the clay tene- 
ment, since this is not the real man, that exists in the soul; 
and which, as soon as the body is dead, wings its way to its 
Great Source — 
“ The witness of its actions, now its J udge.’’ 
Further : the material elements making up the body 
are not by combustion destroyed. The watery parts, 
which constitute by far the greater portion of the frame, are 
quickly dissipated, it is true, by heat, and the same thing ob- 
tdlmsslowly when the body is placed in the cold and silent grave; 
and thus, in both instances, after the lapse of a shorter or a 
longer period, all that remains is only a handful of senseless 
xxxi. 6 
