A RGUM ENTS FOR AND AGAINST CREMATION. Within the last few years the conviction has rapidly spread that a more rapid and sanitary method of disposal must be substituted for burial, especially in the great centres of population. To find enough land for burial purposes is becoming a more and more difficult matter. It has been estimated that 24 acres are annually required for the burial of the dead of London. if 4000 corpses are crowded into an acre, it has been estimated by the same authority that, at the mortality rate of 20 per 1000, New York, with a population of 3.000,000, requires 17I: acres annually to bury its dead. A similar computa tion of population. death-rate, and space re quired for burial will show that, unless the cus tom is changed, much of the available space in the vicinity of all large cities will eventually be required for burial purposes.
The sanitary objections to burial are of still greater importance than the economic difficulties. Through pollution of the air and water the pres ence of a crowded cemetery may become a menace to the health of the community. The develop ment of the germ theory of disease has added to the realization of this general danger the specific fear that, in the ease of those who die from com municable diseases, the germs may be conveyed through the ground from a dead victim to a liv ing host. To what extent this is possible is still a mooted question among bacteriologists. Elab orate experiments. conducted by Pasteur, would seem to show that, in the case of animals at least, disease germs are conveyed from a buried to a living, animal. It is a well-known fact that the purifying .ig,anisms, for the most part, must work near the surface of the ground, where there is a plentiful supply of oxygen, and that ordinarily bodies are buried too deep and with too many impedimenta about them to be readily acted upon. In 1900 Sir Henry Thompson, in an address before the Cremation Society of Eng land. advocated that while cremation remained optional for ordinary cases, it should he made obligatory when death is due to such transmissi ble diseases as smallpox, diphtheria, scarlet fever, typhoid fever, and tuberculosis. In cases of epidemics and after battles, when there are large numbers of bodies to be disposed of at once, cremation seems especially advisable. In cities like New Orleans, where the soil is so full of water that burial is impossible, cremation seems a more natural alternative than sealing up bodies in artificial tombs, constructed above the surface of the ground.
An objection to cremation, in the minds of sonic, is that trace of the dead is obliterated from the sight of the living. But the condition and ultimate fate of graveyards, especially in the heart of great cities, is a proof that in many cases such memorials are but transitory. In Continental Europe an average of twenty-five years is allowed for the occupancy of a grave, after which, in most cases, the ownership reverts to the municipality and the grave may be opened again. (See CEMETERY.) In England the law permits the opening of graves after fourteen years. In London some of the abandoned ceme teries have been utilized as public parks. It is stated that about 100 graveyards have been de stroyed or partially abandoned in New York since it became a city. During the construction of the Boston subway, King's Chapel burial - ground was excavated and its occupants removed. In considering the comparative merits of inhuma tion and incineration, it should be borne in mind that the ultimate fate of every human body is resolution into its elements.
The Boston Cemetery Board has recommend ed the erection of a municipal crematory for the incineration of paupers and criminals, thus do ing away with the Putter's Field. It is asserted that bodies can be burned for $1 each, while it costs about $3 to bury them. The public burials in Boston amount to about 500 annually, and the Potter's Field is full. A public crematory is doubtless an improvement in all respects over the loathsome Potter's Field.
Aside from the sentimental objection to cre mation already mentioned, the chief argument against cremation is the medico-legal one that with the burning of the body possible traces of crime are obliterated. Frederick L. Hoffman, in a paper on "Cremation as a Life Insurance Prob lem" (Sanitarian for January, 1901), calls at tention to this phase of the subject and points out that. 64 of the 528 persons cremated at Saint Louis, Mo., in IS95-99 died from accidents, vio lence, or suicide. In view of the number of mur ders, by poison or otherwise, that are committed to obtain inJiuranee money, it is recommended that very special precautions be taken to ascer tain the exact cause of death before issuing a permit for cremation. To meet this difficulty, the Cremation Society of England investigates the conditions of death in the ease of every body for whose incineration application is made. It has also secured the services of a distinguished pathologist to make autopsies when necessary.