The strongest of this class of negative evidence appears to be that of undertakers, all of whom that I have seen state that neither specific disease nor the propagation of any disease was known to occur amongst them, from their employment. Neither the men who handle, or who “coffin,” the remains; nor the barbers who are called in to shave[8] the corpses of the adult males; nor the bearers of the coffins, although, when the remains are in an advanced state of decomposition, the liquid matter from the corpse frequently escapes from the coffin, and runs down over their clothes, are observed to catch any specific disease from it, either in their noviciate, or at any other time. When decomposition is very far advanced, and the smell is very offensive, the men engaged in putting the corpse into the coffin smoke tobacco; and all have recourse to the stimulus of spirituous liquor. But it is not known that, by their infected clothes they ever propagate specific disease in their families, or elsewhere. Neither does this appear to be observed amongst the medical men themselves.[9] § 8. On the other hand, the undertakers observe such instances, as will be stated in their own words in a subsequent part of the report, where others have caught fever and small-pox, apparently from the remains of the dead, and they mention instances of persons coming from a distance to attend funerals, who have shortly afterwards become affected with the disease of which the person buried had died. Of the undertakers it is observed, that being adults, they were likely to have had small-pox. Dr. Williams, in a work stated to be of good authority, on the effects of morbid poisons, relates the case of four students infected with small-pox by the dead body of a man who had died of this disease, that was brought into the Windmill-street Theatre, in London, for dissection. One of them saw the body, but did not approach it; another was near it, but did not touch it; a third, accustomed to make sketches from dead bodies, saw this subject, but did not touch it; the fourth alone touched it with both his hands; yet all the four caught the disease. Sir Benjamin Brodie mentions cases which occurred within his own knowledge, of pupils who caught small-pox after exposure to the emanations in the dissecting-room from the bodies of persons who had died of that disease. Dr. Copeland, in his evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons, adduced the following remarkable case, stated to be of fever communicated after death:—