The disorders commonly complained of in the neighbourhood of burial-grounds are headaches, diarrhœa, and ulcerated sore throats. According to a report of the French Academy of Medicine, the putrid emanations of Père-la-Chaise, Montmartre, and Montparnasse, have caused frightful diseases of the throat and lungs, to which numbers of both sexes fall victims every year. 'Thus a dreadful throat disease which baffles the skill of our most experienced medical men, and which carries off its victims in a few hours, is traced to the absorption of vitiated air into the windpipe, and has been observed to rage with the greatest violence in those quarters situated nearest to cemeteries.' An officer once stated to Mr. Chadwick, that when a building looking over a certain Liverpool churchyard was used as a barracks, he and his men always suffered from dysentery. It was related by Messrs. Houlier and Fernel that, during the prevalence of the plague in Paris in the beginning of the eighteenth century, 'the disease lingered longest in the neighbourhood of the _Cimetière de la Trinité_, and that there the greatest number had fallen a sacrifice.' In such desperate plight also were the houses which abutted upon the churchyard of St. Innocent, that the vapour was _seen_ to rise from the soil, and the stench was unbearable. It is on record, too, that, when a large common grave, fifty feet deep, was dug in the same cemetery in the following year, candles would not burn in the cellars of the adjacent houses, and those who only approached their apertures were immediately seized with alarming attacks. The walls of the cellars streamed down also with an offensive moisture. Numerous other instances might here be quoted. It was proposed by M. Fourcroy to analyse the foul gases evolved from bodies which had been interred in this oversaturated soil; but no grave-digger would venture to assist in its collection, because it resulted in almost sudden death if inhaled in the concentrated form near the body, and even at a distance, 'when diluted and diffused through the atmosphere, produced depression of the nervous system and an entire disorder of its functions.' As a rule, the grave-diggers there had a cadaverous appearance and all the other signs of slow poisoning. M. Patissier also noticed several cases where death resulted from digging the graves. Doubts have been expressed as to the baneful effect of putrid emanations upon grave-diggers; but, as Mr. Chadwick has observed, if a number of these men be compared with a number of men following healthier occupations, it will be found that the mephitic influences entail a loss of at least one-third of the natural duration of life and working ability. As a rule, none but the healthiest and most robust men choose this trade, and they drink very freely, in order to overcome the nervous depression caused by unhealthy emanations, live on stimulating foods, and work but for a few hours per day.