Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/600

Rh 56G warm and dry tlian the Egyptian, The scarcity of fuel might also be a consideration. The Chinese are influenced by the doctrine of Feng-Shui, or incomprehensible wind water ; they must have a properly placed grave in their own land, and with this view corpses are often sent home from California. Even the Jews used cremation in the vale of Topliet when a plague came ; and the modern Jewg of Berlin and the Spanish and Portuguese Jews at Mile End Cemetery have been among the first to welcome the lately revived process. Probably also, some nations had religious objections to the pollution of the sacred principle of fire, and therefore practised exposure, suspension, throwing into the sea, cave-burial, desiccation, or envelopment. 1 Some at least of these methods must obviously have been suggested eiinply by the readiest means at hand. Cremation is still practised over a great part of Asia and America, but not always in the same form. Thus, the ashes may be stored in urns, or buried in the earth, or thrown to the wind, or (as among the Digger Indians) smeared with gum on the heads of the mourners. In one case the three processes of embalming, burning, and burying are gone through ; and in another, if a member of the tribe die at a great distance from home, some of his money and clothes are nevertheless burned by the family. As food, weapons, &c., are sometimes buried with the body, so they are sometimes burned with the body, the whole ashes being collected. 2 The Siamese have a singular institution, according to which, before burning, the embalmed body lies in a temple for a period determined by the rank of the dead man, the king for six months, and so dDwnwards. If the poor rela tives cannot afford fuel and the other necessary prepara tions, they bury the body, but exhume it for burning when an opportunity occurs. There can be little doubt that the practice of cremation in modern Europe was at first stopped, and has since been prevented in great measure, by the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body ; partly also by the notion that the Christian s body was redeemed and purified. 3 Science has shown that burning merely produces quickly what putrefaction takes a long time to accomplish ; but the feeling of opposition still lingers among the clergy of more than one nation. Some clergy men, however, as Mr Haweis in his Ashes to Ashes, a Cremation Prelude, London, 1874, have been prominent in the reforming movement. The objection was disposed of by Lord Shaftesbury when he asked, &quot; What would in such a case become of the blessed martyrs 1 &quot; The very general practice of burying bodies in the precincts of a church in order that the dead might take benefit from the prayers of persons resorting to the church, and the religious ceremony which precedes both European burials and Asiatic cremations, have given the question a religious aspect. It is really a sanitary one. The disgusting results of pit-burial made cemeteries necessary. But cemeteries are equally liable to overcrowding, and are often nearer to inhabited houses than the old churchyards. There is indeed a dis position to build villas near ornamental cemeteries. It is possible to make a cemetery safe approximately by selecting a soil which is dry, close, and porous, by careful drainage, and by rigid iuforcement of the rules prescribing a certain depth (8 to 10 feet), and a certain superficies (4 yards) for graves. But one has only to read such a work as Baker s Laws Relating to Burial to see how many dangers burial legislation has to contend with. A certain amount of irre- spirable gas will escape into the air, or into sewage drains, 1 The Colehians, says Sir Tlios. Browne, made their graves iii the air, i.e., on trees. 2 In the case of a great man there -was often a burnt offering of animals and even of slaves (See Coesar, T&amp;gt;e Bell. Gall, iv.) 3 A temple of the Holy Ghost (see Tertullian, De Amma, c, 51, cited in Miiller, Lex. dcs Itirchenrechts, s.v. &quot;Begrabniss&quot;). and thus reach houses, or will percolate so as to contaminate water which is afterwards used. The great Paris cemeteries inflict headache, diarrhoea, and ulcerated sore throat on their immediate neighbours ; and a great mass of similar well-authenticated facts may ba brought against even recent cemeteries in various countries. A dense clay, the best soil for preventing the levitation of gas, is the worst for the process of decomposition. The danger is strikingly illustrated in the careful planting of trees and shrubs to absorb the carbonic acid. Vault-burial in metallic coffins, even when sawdust charcoal is used, is still more dangerous than ordinary burial. It must also be remembered that tho cemetery system can only be temporary. The soil is gra dually filled svith bones ; houses crowd round ; the law itself permits the re-opening of graves at the expiry of fourteen years. &quot;We shall not, indeed, as Browne says, &quot;be knaved out of our graves to have our skulls made drinking bowls and our bones turned into pipes !&quot; But on this ground of sentiment cremation would certainly prevent any interruption of that &quot; sweet sleep and calm rest &quot; which the old prayer thatthe earth might lie lightly has associated with the grave. And in the meantime we should escape the horror of putrefaction and of the &quot; small cold worm that fretteth the enshrouded form.&quot; For the last ten years many distinguished physicians and chemists in Italy have warmly advocated the general adop tion of cremation, and in 1874, a congress called to consider the matter at Milan resolved to petition the Chamber of Deputies for a clause in the new sanitary code, permitting cremation under the supervision of the syndics of the com mune. In Switzerland Dr Vcgmann Ercolani is the champion of the cause (see his Cremation the most Rational Method of Disposing of the Dead, 4th ed., Zurich, 1874), and there are two associations for its support. So long ago as 1797 cremation was seriously discussed by the French Assembly under the Directory, and the events of the Franco- Prussian war have again brought the subject under tho notice of the medical press and the sanitary authorities. The military experiments at Sedan, Chalons, and Metz, of burying large numbers of bodies with quicklime, or pitch and straw, were not successful, but very dangerous. Tho matter was considered by the municipal council of Paris in connection with the new cemetery at M6ry-sur-0ise ; and the prefect of the Seine in 1874 sent a circular asking information to all the cremation societies in Europe. The municipality of Vienna has actually made cremation permissive. There is a propagandist society, called the &quot; Urne,&quot; and the main difficulty for the poor seems to bo the cost of conveying the bodies five miles. To overcome this a pneumatic tube has been proposed. Dresden, Leipsic, and Berlin are the centres of the German move ment, and Professor Eeclam s De la Cremation des Cadavrcs seems to be the most important work. In Britain tho subject has slumbered for two centuries, since in 1658 Sir Thomas Browne published his quaint Hydriotaphia, or Urn- burial (see edition by St John, London, 1838), which was mainly founded on the De Funere Eomanorum of tho learned Kirchmannus. In 1817 Dr J. Jamieson gave a sketch of the &quot; Origin of Cremation &quot; (Proc. Royal Soc. J Jdin., 1817), and for many years prior to 1874 Dr Lord, medical officer of health for Hampstead, continued to urge the practical necessity for the introduction of the system. It wa Sir Henry Thompson, however, who first brought the question prominently before the public, and started in 1874 the Cremation Society of London. Its object is to introduce through the agency of cemetery companies, and parochial and municipal authorities, and burial boards, some rapid process of disposing of the dead, &quot;which cannot offend tho living and shall render the remains absolutely innocuous.&quot; Thompson s problem was &quot; Given a dead body, to re-