Although we are disposed to admit with _Diemerbroeck_[155] and Dr. _Bancroft_,[156] that the effluvia which issue from putrefying human bodies are not capable of generating the specific contagious matter of Plague, Typhus, or any true pestilential fever, yet, but little reflection is necessary to lead any reasoning mind to the conclusion, that in the decomposition of the human body various noxious principles are developed highly injurious to human life. Dr. _Bancroft_, in order to establish his position respecting the non-pestilential nature of these effluvia, relates two instances of extensive exhumations, which he says furnish facts on so large a scale as completely, in his opinion, to decide the question. The first relates to those made in the church-yard of _St. Eloi_, at Dunkirk, in the year 1783; and the other to those made three years afterwards, in the famous cemetrie of the _Saint Innocens_, at Paris. As the operations and results were similar in both instances, it will be sufficient if we describe only the latter. The church-yard of the Saint Innocens, situated in one of the most populous quarters of the city of Paris, had been made the depository of so many bodies, that, although its area enclosed near two acres of ground, yet the soil had been raised by them eight or ten feet higher than the level of the adjoining streets: and upon the most moderate calculation, considerably more than six hundred thousand bodies had been buried in it, during the last six centuries: previous to which date, it was already a very ancient burial ground;[157] numerous complaints having been made concerning the offensive smells which arose from this spot, and had penetrated into the houses, and the deleterious effects which such emanations produced, having been described in a memoir read before the Royal Academy of Sciences[158] in 1783, by _M. Cadet de Vaux_, who held the useful office of _Inspecteur Général des objects de Salubrité_, the Council of State decreed in 1785 that so much of the superstratum should be removed as would reduce the surface to the level of the streets. This work was accordingly undertaken in 1786, under the superintendance of _M. Thouret_, a Physician of eminence in Paris,[159] and in two years he accomplished it. It does not appear that any epidemic evils were experienced from these extensive exhumations, but it must be remembered that the great mass of bodies had been converted into a harmless and inoffensive substance resembling spermaceti, to which the name of _Adipocire_[160] has been given; had this change not occurred, it is more than probable that worse consequences would have been experienced from this horrible accumulation: sufficient instances however occurred to prove the dangerous tendency of the mephitic vapours[161] which were emitted; grave-diggers were thrown down suddenly, and deprived of sense and motion, upon breaking open, by their spades, the abdominal viscera;