Mr. Chadwick, in his “Report on the Practice of Interment in Towns” (London, 1843), writes:— “The injurious effects of exhalations from the decomposition in question on the health and life of man is proved by a sufficient number of trustworthy facts. The injurious influence is manifest in proportion to the concentration of the emanations. Sometimes it produces asphyxia and sudden death. In a less concentrated state the emanations produce fainting, nausea, headache, languor. If, however, they are often repeated, they produce nervous and other fevers, or impart to fevers arising from other causes a typhoid type.... As there appear to be no cases in which the emanations from decomposing human remains are not of a deleterious nature, so there is no case in which the liability to danger should be incurred by interment amidst the dwellings of the living, it being established as a general conclusion that all interments in towns where bodies decompose, contribute to the mass of atmospheric impurity which is injurious to public health.” The Italian physician Felix Dell’Acqua gives it as his opinion (in his study on cremation), that graveyards infect the earth, the air, and the water, and constantly endanger public health during an epidemic. Dr. Polli proved that graves deteriorate the air we breathe and contaminate the water we drink, by loading them with organic matter. Prof. Antonio Selmi, of Mantua, claims to have discovered organic germs in the air above graves, which he called septopneuma, and which, when injected under the skin of a pigeon, caused a typhus-like disease that ended in death within three days. Specific germs may enter the atmosphere from the graves, which convey the deadliest of maladies, being carried very far by the wind. But the agent that makes cemetery gases so dangerous is carbonic acid. Dr. Parkes (Practical Hygiene), the eminent English scientist, says:— “The decomposition of bodies gives rise to a very large amount of carbonic acid. Ammonia and an offensive putrid vapor are also given off. The air of most cemeteries is richer in carbonic acid, and the organic matter is perceptibly large, when tested by potassium permanganate.” It is a well-known fact that carbonic acid, when inhaled in an undiluted state, causes death; it is fatal to all forms of life. When inhaled diluted with air it interferes with the introduction of oxygen into the body, and causes the carbonic acid, which should be eliminated, to be retained. This, no doubt, prevents the proper tissue changes, and must in time undermine the healthiest body by seriously affecting its nutrition. Dr. E. J. Bermingham (Disposal of the Dead) says:—