The people of Challons upon the Marne, in France, having resolved some years since, to enlarge the yard or square before their town house, by adding to it a part of St. Alpin’s church-yard, and for that purpose, to remove all the bodies lately buried there, were diverted from the execution of their design, by a dissertation wrote by M. Navier, a physician and member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, for shewing the dangerous consequences of opening graves before the bodies are quite dissolved; and as such practices are too frequent in this country, it may be of service to lay before the public an abstract of what this celebrated physician has said upon the subject. The doctor divides his dissertation into two parts, in the first of which he describes the several degrees of corruption which a dead body successively undergoes, and which bring it at last to a total dissolution. From these principles he concludes, that the terrible mixture which results from putrefaction, by raising itself in the form of infectious exhalations, may penetrate even to the inside of the tender and delicate organs of living bodies, and may infallibly occasion their destruction. These exhalations will convey themselves, more or less, into all those who happen to be within their atmosphere; and our fluids being once impregnated with these virulent particles, cannot, without difficulty, disentangle themselves, so that notwithstanding the redoubled efforts of nature, to free itself from the grasp of such a formidable enemy, multitudes must succumb. The misfortune resulting from hence, may not confine itself to that short space of time, during which the air continues infected; for a part of these corrupting impurities which have passed themselves into living bodies, may continue there for a long time, and may be communicated to others, or may lie concealed, even for a considerable time, before they begin to exert their virulence.