A supplementary report on the results of a special inquiry into the practice of interment in towns.Chadwick, Edwin
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A supplementary report on the results of a special inquiry into the practice of interment in towns.
Chadwick, Edwin
Burial; Cemeteries -- Great Britain; Mortality -- Statistics; Public health -- Great Britain; Working class -- Great Britain
Can you suggest any method for preventing the escape of miasmata
from graves, or from places for the interment of the dead?—I cannot
suggest any methods as the results of experiment; but, at the same
time, I think it possible that the evil might be much abated by the
use of certain materials. For example, in a theoretical point of
view, chloride of lime would be quite effectual, but it might not be
applicable in practice, both from its expense, and from its great
tendency to be decomposed. A cheap method of absorbing putrid
effluvia, is by a mixture of charcoal from burnt tar, burnt clay,
and gypsum. When such a mixture is mixed with putrid matter, all
smell is immediately removed, and the matter is rendered inoffensive
to health. When this mixture is strewed over decomposing animal and
vegetable matter, it ceases to emit disagreeable odours. In like
manner, if a layer of such a cheap mixture as this were thrown
around and over a coffin, it would absorb probably the greatest
part, if not all, of the putrid miasmata arising from the
decomposition of the body. It possesses also this advantage, that it
would not impair by keeping, even though the coffin did not burst
for some years. I beg, however, again to state, that I throw this
out as a mere suggestion, as I have never tried it in the case of
graves, although I think it would be well worthy of a trial.
Vegetation also ought to be encouraged over the graves. The
legitimate food of plants is derived from decaying animal matter;
for indeed all the food existing in the air, from which they derive
their nutriment, is furnished to the atmosphere by the decay of
organic matter. Plants assist in absorbing the emanations which
escape from graves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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