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JANfKS STREET. iS75- TO HIS WORSHIP W. H. KINGSTON, ESQUIRE, M.D., CM., MAYOR OF THE CITY OF MONTREAL. i. -1 Honored Sir, — Having kindly given the sanction of your presence on the delivery of the following Lecture on the Disposal of the Dead, — and having graciously expressed your approval of the system herein advocated, it is with sincere pleasure that I avail myself of your permission to dedicate this to Your Worship, fully sensi- ble jof the favorable consideration it will receive from the Public, under the concurrence of so enlightened and able a Physician. I have the honor to be, With the highest esteem, Your Worship's obedient Servant, G. A. B. 686 Dorchester Street. Montreal, April, 1875, CREMATION. Gentlemen, — As I announced to you, this will be the last lecture of this course on Hygiene, and I may add, not the least in importance, as opening a question in which a great future in the sanitary efforts of mankind is involved, and which, therefore, claims your honest and unprejudiced consideration. The subject of the evening is the discussion, from a sanitary point of view, of the three modes of sepulture or disposal of the Dead — by Earth — by Water, or by Fire. As the careful provi- sion for the living has been one of the most absorl)ing thoughts of life, with its many anxieties, it is assuredly most natural that, what has claimed such incessant attention when alive, should be regarded with veneration and affection when dead. And as memory treasures up the ineffViccable record of the departed one, so love seems to dictate the last lavish exhibition of tenderness on all that remains of that long loved and cherished one. And who is bold enough, nay, who so dead to sympathy, as to encroach upon the silent and solemn farewell of the living and the dead ? The question before us is, the consideration how to unite these last rites of respect and regard with the least objectionable dis- posal of those that must be separated from us by the inexorable law of nature. My subject begins when exhausted tenderness has poured out her last tear, and the laboring bosom uttered the last farewell. It begins after the words have gone forth "dust to dust, ashes to ashes,'' and all that remains is to lower this earthly tabernacle to its last resting place. But is it rest to which the motionless corpse is consigned when laid with its parent dust.'' Is it the same calm sleep, undisturbed and quiet, which we witnessed, from the moment the spirit left to the day we parted from it .? The answer to this is, the consideration of the results that flow from the only three modes of sepulture — by Earth — by Water — and by Fire — for to the one or other of these great ele- ments we must be consigned. It may be asked — why pry into 'I 6 the action of these three agents upon the dead ? Why disturb the accepted usage common among men ? My answer is, that if a course of Hygiene is to be delivered, I should deem myself highly culpable, were I to omit the disastrous effects that are daily felt by the living from the present mode of the sepulture of the dead. It is now an accepted fact that intramural sepulture, that is, burial among the living, is high treason against life — a mine sprung under the citadel of health — a i)roiific source of insidious contagion. In thickly populated districts, where the earth, rising from her death o*" winter, emits her exhalations in resurrec- tion to the genial sun, how are these exhalations charged ? What does her thawed bosom pour forth for the living, but the deadly gases of buried disease. It is this fact, now universally confessed' that has made the demand for a burial place at a distance from the living. Large cities have their cemeteries some miles from the town. As this is the case, and wise legislation has introduced these needed sanitary precautions, it becomes us very carefully to enquire whether, what has been done effectually prevents now, and secures /// the future, what all confess to have been the rife cause of a perennial or at least annual recurrence of infectious disease. While the disposal of the dead is the question before us, the real subject of consideration is the health and life of the living, and you will readily admit that the phases through which the dead are passing, touching their remains, are of small mo- ment, save as they add to the ordeals through which the living have to fight their way, to reach the allotted goal of longevity, that all naturally expect to attain, and which not one in a thou- sand ever sees. To give, then, the fairest chance of life to all around, and to secure during its continuance the greatest amount of freedom from the calamities of disease, is the laudable end of the study of Hygiene. If then, gentlemen, we pretend to enter the lists of the benefactors of the human race, we must not be afraid to advocate laws that compel conformity to sanitary prin- ciples ; nor be alarmed, if in doing so, we receive the abuse of prejudice and the insults of ignorance. We must be willing to bear all and suffer all, if we have the consciousness that permanent good will be effected, and our fellow creatures ultimately benefited. It was a wise remark of that sage philosopher. Lord Bacon, when he said, " It is good also not to try experiments in states, unless " the necessity be urgent, and the utility evident — and to be well OTn wwim " aware that it is the reformation that draweth on the change, " and not the desire of change that pretendeth to the reforma- " tion," We cannot be too strongly imbued with this i)rinciph when entering on a theme that will array against us the formi dable opposition of time-honored usage, and the deep-seated prejv dices of ancestral custom, nor should I deem it at all wise, at this time, to do more than fairly discuss the cpiestion of the least in- nocuous mode of disposing of the dead, and the least repugnant to our natural feelings. Some may say, According to your theory, has the necessity be- come urgent ? And my answer is — I think so — on two grounds : I St. The immense increase of population, and with it the large growth of disease ; 2ndly. The spread of infection, not alone from the actual prevalence of the disorder among the living, but from the remains of those who have fallen victims to it. So rife with danger is every dead body, that nothing is more dreaded than any accident arising at post mortem examinations. In climates where decomposition instantly commences, the fu- neral of a deceased person takes place on the day he dies. The object in expeditious burial is to give the least possible chance to infect the air, as the well-known medium of contagion. In all instances of plagues, the most rigid laws are enforced as to in- stant burial, nor is it left to the individual action, the public au- thorities exact the delivery of the dead and undertake its disposal. If, therefore, when the scourge of seme deadly disease threatens a community, law steps in to ])reserve the living, and individual feeling has to yield to the public good, why should there be ob- jection to wise sanitary precautions and strict rules to be oh served in the ordinary causes of epidemic diseases .'' I hesitate not to state, that the spread of such contagions as small-pox and typhoid fevers is due to the want of an energetic and prompt sanitary law. Vain is it. to imagine that rules, however well en- forced, for the removal of exposed nuisances, securing of proper drainage, and breaking up dens of congregated humanity, are sufficient to ward off the pestilential return of these scourges ; they subserve a good end in removing inducing causes to dis- ease ; but how about the disease itself, first in its periodical re- turn, and then in its obstinate continuance .'' Is this due to ii 8 drains? I think not. My firm conviction is that disease is latertt, and needs only the inducing cause to re-appear. Re-appear where .'' say you. In the house where the infection is for a time dormant. Have we laws to enforce the thorough cleansing and purification of a house ? None. In London, notice is left at every house of the rich and poor, that unless measures be taken for the perfect purification of a dwelling in which either the small-pox or typhoid fever has entered, and affected any inmate, the sanitary officers will on a certain day return, and enforce them at the owner's expense. Let us have a similar law. It has an ancient prece- dent in the Law of Moses, wheie houses were scraped and, ^/la^ failings were pulled down, to erad'cate disease, as related in Leviticus, 14 ch., 41-43. The sanitary police should pass by no place where the air is evidently impure, but immediately discover the cause. Each person, as a duty towards his neighbor, should give notice of any known cause of offensive matter at the office of the sanitary police, by a postal card or otherwise. But I now come to the precautions necessary to check disease, when it has made its appearance, and when death has ensued. It is manifest, that where disease of any kind terminates in death, the most virulent form must probably have existed while living, and the corpse is an impregnated mass of contagion, only rec^uiring the channel to engender the fatal malady. The opportunity is im- mediately granted, for without any precautionary disinfection, the nurse opens the window that the air without may relieve the fetidness within, and carry forth the pestilentious vapor to con- taminate the atmosphere, resulting, as it invariably does, in dragging fresh victims under the scourge. This outrage against common sense, and the first law of self-protection, is perpetrated without remonstrance, and endured by the community w'th the placidity of sheep going to the shambles. You reasonably would inquire what should be done .'' I return to the duty of the health- officer, or, what would be better, to the duties of a physician call- ed in Paris the "Medecin-Verificateur," without whose certificate no one can be buried, and whose duty it ought to be to proscribe all hi ses where infectious disease has broken out, and to see that the inmates are 7vell supplied with disinfecting chemicals; and if death ensues, that orders are lef*" for the application 01 the most power- ful disinfectants to be plentifully used and for the removal of the body as quickly as possible to the place of interment. Further, 9 that a strict (iiuirantinc l)c put upon the house until it has under- j^one the prescribed cleansing, and the inmates have been pro- nounced free from infection. I'he delay in funerals, and the paradingof the dead through our streets, are fraught with danger. Let me instance what a thoroughly trustworthy jtcrson stated last summer. A child that died of scarlet tcver was be- ing taken in an o|)en child's hearse to the Roman ('a- tholic Cemetery, along Sherbrooke Street. A little boy, attracted by the white pony, ran out of his house and follow- ed the funeral, and came back with an account of the pony and the carriage; a few hours after, the boy was taken sick, and not many days after died of scarlet fever. Now, as that gentleman ob" served, there was not an instance of scarlet fever in the neighbor- hood, nor any trace of it in the surrounding streets. What was the cause of a healthy child's being thus suddenly seized with a con- tagious disease.' Can any one doubt for a moment that the dead child slew the living. I believe it a wise precaution, nay, more, it should be a law, to have hearses always enclosed. It is proverbial, "caught his or her death at a funeral," On Sunday, the 28th of Feb., 1 heard one remark : "I have just been to poor Mrs. S.'s funeral; she was in perfect health when she went to her sister's funeral on the 9th of Januar)(, caught her death, and is now dead." But to return to our subject. In what way cm the progress of disease be arrested, and what can be done to eradicate conta- gion.? I have dwelt somewhat on the sanitary precautions that should be adopted in the treatment of houses and their inmates. 1 now more especially enter on the sub; rt of the disposal of the dead, not only as to the immediate tre, '^ment of the deceased, whose body shoiild be carefully subjected to the action of dis- infectives, but to the broad question of its final disposition. I have said, that to the action of one or other of the great elements of nature, we must, as far as the body goes, be consigned, and the only question that arises is, which of the three, earth, water or fire, is the least revolting to nature, and the most conducive to the benefit of the living ? When a country is young, there is not the same urgency in the question as in thickly populated districts. The first movement in this direction, is the demand for extramural interment, and then, as the population increases, and the suburbs enlarge, the environs become gradually vast cemeteries. " A community," says Doctor Parkes, "must always dispose of its dead, 10 II ; either by burial in Kind or water, or by burning, or clicmicai destruction ujuivalent to burning, or by embalming and preserv- ing." Accustomed as we are to land burial, there is something almost revolting, at first sight, in the idea of making the sea the sepulchre, or of burning the dead. Yet the eventual dispersion of our frames is the same in all cases; and it is probably a matter of mere custom, which makes us think that there is a want of affection, or of care, if the bodies of the dead are not suffered to rei'ose in the earth that bore them. In reality, neither affection nor religion can be outraged by any manner of disposal of the dead, wh'ch is done with i^roper solemnity and respect to the earthly dwelling place of our friends. The ([uestion should be placed entirely on sanitrry grounds, and we then shall judge it rightly. After death, the buried body returns to its elements, and gradually, and often by the means of other fo; ms of life, which prey \ipon it, a large amount of it forms carbonic acid, ammonia, suli)huretted and carburetted hydrogen, nitrous and nitric acids, and various more complex gaseous products, many of which are very fetid, but which, however, are eventually all oxidised into the simpler combinations. The non-volatile sub- stances, the salts, become constituents of the soil, pass into plants, or are carried a>vay into tlic water percolating through the ground. The bones may remain in some soils for many centuries, and retain in measure a portion of their animal con- stituents. U, instead of being buried, the body is l)urned, the same process occvrs more rapidly, and with different combina- tions : carbonic acid, nitrogen, or ))erhaps rombinati jns of nitrogen, water, &c., are given off, and the nineral constituents, and a little curbon renjain behind. The practice of embalming or mummifying the dead, has long become a matter of disuse nor ij it at all probaJ>le that it will ever again become common. Men seem to agree on the uselessness of preserving the remains of the departed, at the best, for a few more years, and that only to be an object of indifference to future generations. The ;ues- lion lies between burial in the land or sea, and burning. Bury- ing in the ground is certainly the most insanitary plan of the three methods, and could we see what is passing in the earth, " the glimpse of the reality," as Sir Henry Thou.pson says, "which we achieve by burial, would annihilate, in an instant, every sen- timent for continuing that process. Nay more ; it would arouse 11 1, '■■ a powerful rcpiignanrc to the horrible notion that we too must some flay t)erome so vile and offensive, and it may r)e, so danger- ous;" l)i',t when we consider that this is the least matter of con- sideration, and that the real objection lies in tlie fact that this mass of corruj/iion is capable of so infecting the atmosphere, that what a right-minded man would sh- ink from in life, viz: injuring his neighbor, he is innocently made the cause of in his sepul- ture. I am persuaded that if the clioice were given to him, he would prefer that mode which would be least injurious to those he left behind. If we glance at the testimony given on all sides, as to the contaminated character of the air, at certain times, over cemeteries ; and the fact of water rendered impure, both surface and underground, issaing from them,we at once recognize two most dangerous sources for the propagation of disease. The vicinity of graveyards cnnnot be otherwise than unhealthy, and the dis- turbance of graveyards has often given rise to disease, and where such is attempted the most stringent precautions against infection should be adojjted. Dr. Parkes states that at the conclusion of the Franco-German war, in 1870, around Metz the graves of men and horses and cattle were disinfected with lime, charcoal, and sulphate of iron. Immense exertions were made to clean and disinfect the camps and battle-fields, and in the month of May, tSyi, from 1,200 to 1,600 laborers ,/ere employed by the Ger- mans. Wherever practicable, the ground was sown with oats or barley, or grass. The hillocks formed by the graves were plant- ed with trees. In many cases, bodies were dug up by the Ger- mans, when there was any fear of water courses ]>eing contamin- ated, or if houses v/ere near. On account of the danger to the workmen, graves containing more than six bodies were left un- touched, and the work was always done under the immediate superintendence of a physician. The earth was removed care- Uilly, but not far enough to uncover the corpse; then one end of the corpse was uncovered, and as soon as the uniform or parts of the body were seen, chloride of lime and sawdust, or charcoal and carbolic acid, were put in ; the whole ea "th round the body was thus treated, and the uody at length laid bare, lifted and carried away. The second body was then treated in the same way. The Belgian experience at Sedan was in favor of employing chloride of lime, nitric acid, sulphate of iron, and chlorine gas — carbolic acid did not answer so well. The extreme caution and 12 care used where disinterment was necessary, and* the means adopted to neutralize and absorb exhalations, go to prove the accepted fact of the danger arising from the decomposition of the dead, and the effects that may be dreaded should the air be- come charged with fetid gases. Nor is it right to suppose that the tainting of the atmosphere can only be temporary — the air when thoroughly impregnated with noxious vapor has a power of retention that exceeds belief. In the great plague that burst forth in the 15th year of the reign of Justinian, a plague that, appearing first in the neighborhood of Pelusium, A.D, 542, taking a double path from the eastern channel of the Nile, spread to the east over Syria, Persia, and the Indies, and penetrated to the west, along the coast of Africa and over the continent of Europe — a plague that left desolate tracks of country once full of a teeming population which fen cenirries have not supplied ; a plague that saw the fruits of the earth in many parts wither and waste upon its bosom, because there was none to harvest them ; a plague that devastated populous cities, leaving neither record nor conjecture as to the numbers which perished, — so loaded was the atm jsphere with the deadly malaria that the difference of seasons appeared neither to check nor alleviate it. In Constanti- nople, where it raged, the death rate during three months was as high as five thousand, and finally reached ten thousand per day. When in time its first malignity was abated and dispersed, the plague alternately languished and revived, but it was not till the end of a calamitous period of fifty-two years, as related by Gibbon, from A. D. 542 to 594, that mankind recovered their health, or the air resumed its pure and salubrious cpuility. The plague of London, in 1665, that nearly desolated the city, commenced in May, which was an unusually hot and sultry month, and continued till the end of November, averaging 1,800 deaths per week, in the early part of its breaking out in May, and increasing, so that in July and August the rate was about 6,000 per week, and in September 10,000 per week. At first all burials took place at night, and strict orders were given for all persons who were well not to be out of their houses after sunset, and every effort was made to prevent the attendance at funerals, which was certain to affect those who followed them, but the mor- tality increased so rapidly that they were obliged to bury by day as well as night. Towards the end of November, what with the 13 immense reduction of the population by death, and the flight of those who could get away, the rate was reduced to 300 per week. The plague more or less hung round the city till the opening of the year 1666. On the 2nd of September of that year, the great fire of London broke out, which is vividly de- scribed in the Memoirs of John Evelyn, of Wotton near Dork- ing, who lived at that time, and writes as an eye witness of the destructive fire. After enumerating the streets on fire, he adds : " The conflagration was so universal, and the peo- ' pie so astonished, that from the beginning they hardly stirred to quench it. so that there was nothing heard or seen but crying out and lamentation, people running about like distracted creatures, without at all attempting to save even their goods, such a strange consternation there was upon them. It burned both in breadth and length, the churches, public halls, exchange, hos- pitals, monuments and ornaments, leaping after a prodigious manner from house tc house, and street to street, at great dis- tances one from the other ; for the heat, with a long set of fair, warm weather, had even ignited the air and prepared the materials to con ceive the fire which devoured after an incredible manner, houses, furniture and everything. O ! the miserable and calamit- ous spectacle, such as happily the world had not seen the like of since the foundation of it, nor to be outdone till the universal conflagration. All the sky was of a fiery aspect like the toj) of a burning oven, the light seen above forty miles round about for many nights. God grant my eyes may never behold the like, now seeing above 10,000 houses all in one flame; the noise and cracking and thunder of the impetuous flames, the shrieking of women and children, the hurry of tiie i)eople, the f.">.ll of towers, houses and churclies, was like an hideous storm, and the air all about so hot and inflnmed that at last one was not able to ap- proach it, so that they were forced to stand still and let the flames burn on, which they did for near two miles in length and one in breadth. The clouds of smoke were dismal, and reached, upon computation, near fifty miles in length. Thus I left it, this after- noon, burning, a resembb.nce of Sodom, or the last day. London was, but is no more. " T shall not extract more about the fire ; language can hardly dei)ict a more harrowing scene There were 13,000 houses destroyed, but so thoroughly was the earth and at- mosphere purified by the fire, that there has never been a recur- ^mmmm ■^\;.qa&ji;Aa; '\^ti '* It must be thus stated. The animal must be resolved into a Carbonic Acid, water, and ammonia ; l> Mineral constituents, more or less oxidized, elements of the Earth's structure : T^ime, Phosphorus, Iron, Sulphur, Magne- sia, &c. .^ " The first group, gaseous in form, go into the atmosphere. " The second group, ponderous and solid, remain where the body lies, until dissolved and washed into the earth by rain. '* The process of decomposition affecting an animal body, is one that has a disagreeable, injurious, often fatal, inflitence on the living man, if sufficiently exposed to it. Thousands of human lives have been cut short by the poison of slowly decaying and often diseased animal matter. And I need hardly add that in times of pestilence its continuance has been often due mainly to the poisonous influence of the buried victims." With such able authorities before us, and the fact established that death, even by the common order of non-contagious disease, renders the body in its decay and corruption a certain medium for affecting both the air above and the water beneath, and that the most injurious effects are to be traced to no other cause than the mode now com- mon among us of disposing of the dead, surely we may say, that the time is come, when "the necessity is urgent " to discover a more safe way of sepulture if only on the ground of sanitary pre- caution. 21 If the ultirrate result is the same by any process, viz ; That the human body must return to its affinities, whether by a slow or a rapid process — yet return it must, — and if in the sh)w process all manner of danger threatens the survivors, what possible argu- ment can be raised against a more ra[)id and safe mode of arriv- ing at the same end ? Can anything commend itself more than to assist nature to return at once to her constituent elements ? Water t(j water — sulphur and acids to be oxidized into other com. binations, leaving the dust to return to dust, or be i)reserved in the urn that respect or regard may have prepared for it. — And thus in an hour effecting the work of a long process of dangerous transmutations for years in some cases, through a scene de- scribed by our Lord and Master in Matthew xxiii, 27, as "full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness." But if the burial of the dead dying under ordinary causes is so rife with mischief to the living, what shall we say to the care- fully husbanding in the earth of Plague, small-pox and a host of contagious fevers to send up their annual exhalations till ex- hausted, assisting Death to renew his battle with life, upon the patient survivors ? Surely it may fairly be challenged whether our practice deserves a better name than ignorant homicide ! If these recurring calamities are to be patiently endured, as if be- yond our control, and, if, like the Turks, we are wedded to the doc- trine of fatality, and shrug our shoulders and die, we richly deserve it. No generation hereafter will ever pity us. Was there ever a more daring outrage against common sense and every sanitary principle perpetrated than the ripping up of that Roman Catholic burial-ground on Dorchester street, with no more precaution than in removing furniture in May. Giv- ing in charity old cofifin-boards for fuel to be burned in dwi llings and poisoning whole households ! Is there any wonder that dis- ease was spread from that wholesale rejection ot all precaution- ary measures ? The same thing is meditated in the Protestant burial-ground in Dorchester street, and no law is enforced as to the proper mode of exhumation. I know one gentleman who very wisely observed the other day that he should be sorry to disturb his grandmother, who is buried there, for she died of cholera ! If it be necessary to get rid of the cemetery out of the city, let it be done under proper sanitary regulations ; let us take a lesson 22 from the f*ni««i' W arise frnm ,.^i . "^"irali/e the Leases nn,l ,(Tj • , n'.sc irom exhumation '^ '^"^' eflluvia that ''^d the,r body laid into a shin •' th.O " '^'"''"*' '•"'°"' '<> die, nd ..owfire burning it; tha 'o;,ce '!:""''""'' "'"• ^'^"^ -' fbme, and ,n such manner burv ,? f ' " ""S'" ''l-''^'-' "I> in ''■-kyand in the oce,:, , 2^,:! "". ^''f °'d "e™, a. oncl "■.7. ..nconsciou., that thev .t "' :^'°^^<' "'»• «» I fon -y -de ocean ,.ith its monstet'ald ..Tr'^""'. ''?^^' "^fyin.' the 'f sentiment is to have a vot ''"'^ """S*'" "•ore natural rep„«nanc o thJI " T'^""' ' ""^' "card of "'''"• The associations are , „ , "' '' '"""' "'"« 'l^™ to any f-r' many voyages to the Ea t f'™,',' ""'""' ""' l>ave d--atli will draw sharks -.f ! ' " ''" ^"" "'•" the scent nf ;;';;- .oaded cor;:e t ;: ir;- :f '> ''-y never :iru:: i-K^'n.ng speed by the voradous mon ters 'I' n "'' "'"""'''' -"" I" the bunal at sea, some of t^I 7 ^'^ ^'"''<'' "''serve, I'°« other forms of life „"' ' ^^'^ '' T"'"^ «" «' °n« to s2 ^"-1, and without the d :: ,s r"'^ ,'"■?" '■" '"^ case of land "d .n the vast abyss of tie" ocean th^ ""°" °' '"""'" "™d- ^ ^he ntmpet shall sound, which stll'tdr ^ sTat • "' """■ vve have considered 1= f n ;'"» that follo^v the d DO •"' '"''"'^^ >"" Pe™it the ■by water. We have seen Zf- °^ "'« dead by hnd -eh process is the sVr: . t'mo": ' d "" ""™'^'« --'' ^ unquesttonably burying i„, he eZf ^T""' •" ">e living is to consider the only other at '"-"'■" '■e™»i'>s now for ns ^s I shall endeavor^. I """"^'^e, that of Fire t ti i! 7 "eavor to show vou hie „ , * "e . ll.ismode, jn every point of view. As REr, ">'•" commends itsei; ■nnocuous mode, not only et r!n, ^? "-"""=• '' '' "'e only decaying and putrescent matter in itlTr "" '"= <^'^e effects of : effectual means of checking t,e„eva' ".' "'"''"'"^ "-e mos OARBs T„. De..., it is thele stp „ ?!' of contagion. As R,. « painful to contemplate; it removes 23 from us that revolting thought, that the lonj.; irocess of decay and corruption is steadily but surely at work tearing down the citadel, and reducing all that once was the beauty of form and matter to (without any exception) the most revolting thing in creation. It is argued that fire is the representative and characteristic of judgment, and that to submit the body to the action of fire has that character. My answer is, that Death is judgment, and the wages of Sin — and that fire has a type of acceptance as well as judgment, which Death never has, far less corruption. Fire is the emblem of purification. Gold tried by fire is the figure of true faith coming out under trials. In its action it is represented as removing all impurities, and leaving nothing but the pure metal And this is the action of Cremation on the human body, — every particle of impuritv 1*^ passed off into its correspondmg elements, and the white pure dust remains to be awakened at the voice of the Arch-angel, as the seed that shall be changed into a glorified body by " the power of Him who is able to subdue all things to himself." There is something remarkably noble in the request of Lady Dilke that Sir Charles should grant that she might be the first re- cognized instance of a return to the old and innocuous form of burial, that only requires to be fairly weighed and considered to at once com:^end itself to the departing one as well as to the survivors. Look fairly at the three subjects passing through the process of a return tc their native elements. In the Earth .' as the old ballad of the Fair Imogcne sung, " The worms they Ciept in and the worms they crept out And sported her eyelids and temples about." So much for that ! Is the sea better? ask the devouring fishes all feeding on the passive corpse. _ .'.And for Cremation ? Regard those pure white ashes gathered in that urn— that was my Lady Dilke ! They will remain to the hour of Resurrection. ,, It may be asked. Suppose it granted— what would you pro- pose ? I would have at the expense of the town a chapel built immediately over the cremation furnace, and there I would have "24: fecited over the dead whatever service each man's persuasion rriay require — a scene m h like what I nov/ present to you in this draw- ing, taken from the Canadian Illustrated News of Dec. 5th, 1874. Immediately underneath should be one of Doctor William Sie- men's reverberating furnaces, in which is placed a 'Cylindrical vessel about seven feet long by five or six in diameter. The in- ner surface of the cylinder is smooth, almost polished and no solid matter but that of the body is introdui^ed into it. The pro- duct therefore, can be nothing more than the ashes of the body. No foreign dust can be introduced, no coal or other solid com- bustible being near it ; nothing but a heated hyporarbon in gaseous form and heated air. Nothing is visible in the cylinder before using it but a pure, almost white, interior, the lining having acquired a temperature of white heat. In this case, the gases given off from the body so abundantly at first, pass through a highly heated chamber among thousands of ''nterstices made by intersecting fire bricks, laid throughout t-he entire chamber, lat- tice-fashion, in order to divide minutely and delay the current, and expose it to an immense area of heated surface, .^y this means they are rapidly oxidized and not a particle of smoke issued by the cnimney; no second furnace therefore is ne- cessary by this methcc^ to consume any noxious matters, since none escape. The process would be completed in fifty-five minutes, and the ashes removed with ease. This description is from Sir Henry Thompson — and receives only the body — if It was preferred that the body be received into the fur- nace ill the shell or coffin, the only difference would be, that in- stead of the pure ash of the deceased alone, there would ne- cessarily be the ash of the coffin and d 'apery. I should prefer in all cases the lowering of the body in its coffin, as far less danger- ous than removing it from its shell, leaving a ainted coffin to be got rid of, a highly objectionable feature, as the very end to be attained is to prevent as far as possible infection from the corpse. The thinner the substan:e of the shell or coffin the better, as not retarding the incineration, which, without it, may be perfectly performed in fifty-five minutes, I would have in a town of our ' size at least four furnaces, as a very great object to be attained is the removal of the body to as short a distance as possible to avoid infection. All cases of death by infectious disorders should be sub- jected to cremation within twenty-four hours, and precautions taken from the moment of dissolution by a liberal use of disinfectlves to check the possibility of infection. The expense of constructing one of Dr. Siemens furnaces is comparatively inconsiderable, so that no village need be without one. When once it is a recognized fact that by the p.doption of Cremation as the true means of innocuously disposing of the dead, the bill of health advances rapidly, and the frightful retu rn of death perceptibly diminishes, it will go far to commend its universal adoption. Indeed I do not know what objections can be possibly raised against it. Some have suggested the often dread- ed thought of the possibility of a body being burned while in a state of catalepsy. That burial, under such circumstances, has taken place, from a want of proper medical examination, cannot be denied; but it in noways militates against cremation; but quite the contrary : for were it possible for any one in a state of catalepsy to be exposed to cremation, that is, to descend at once into a heat of 2,000 degrees of Fahrenheit, I need hardly say, this at once precludes the possibility of consciousness again, and surely this is better than to awake up in the silent grave to die again the most horrible of deaths. But let us look at the question again as one to be decided by each for himself, and for example, let me ask whether in the case of the amputation of a limb, either from disease or accident, any one would care what became of the limb after it was cut off.'' would it excite anything more than a smile if he were told that an admirable lecture had been given on the nature of white swelling, and that after the instruction was over the leg had been burnt ? And what, may I ask, is the difference between the cremation of one leg or two .^ or of two and the whole body, when we have left it ? ' . , No sensible person will regard the question in any other light than in a sanitary point of view ; and I fearlessly take my stand on this ground; that it is impossible to calculate the immense revolution that would take place in the bill of mortality, by the change oi the present dangerous and death-dealing mode of sepul- ture ; and I woulu add to this a determination to deal stringently in all cases of contagious diseases and epidemics, by the supervision and care of sanitary physicians, whose duties 1 have hinted at in the former part of this lecture. 26 A r,> ^11 manner of censure, if I \)resume to I h„e been warned °"^' "^f " ° „e„en, Let it come! promulgate these v,ew ! aU can ^ ^^ ^^^^^ j ^„„„g,,,, '"""" H rrr Ue7b an fLilies-one who has greatly recommend to be c^^""^^ by fession, one whom in this matter-his name is Common Sense. . ' -#. ^•"' *,'«t,% 7C< '"!?"'?■ ^- .,,;,^ ^*«4^r'#^<*- -. ■ t'