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53
Cemeteries at a distance from large towns then became
a matter of necessity, hence our present custom.
But as populations increase, habitations spring up
around these cemeteries, and the deaths increase with the
growth of the population, the necessity again arises of
removing cemeteries still farther away.
Now, besides the effect on our special senses, the accumulation
of bodies undergoing decomposition has a marked
influence on the health of the community at large, which
influence must increase in the ratio of increase of the population
; noxious gases are liberated which impregnate the
soil and therefore the water, and especially the air, and by
such means disease is disseminated.
The old stories of ghosts, Will-O'-the-Wisps, &c.,
have some foundation, from the fact that decomposing
organic matters may give rise to luminous appearances in the
process of oxidation, &c., and more frequent occurrence of
such phenomena in old burial grounds or marshes would
naturally be explained by reference to the supernatural.
With the advantage of education and scientific knowledge
we learn, that between the slower and putrescent
decomposition which takes place in the body after death
and burial, and that more rapid oxidation which would occur
in the process of Cremation, there would be manifest advantages
from a hygienic point of view in the latter
process; for in the case of burial we have no control over
the escaping and noxious gases, whereas in Cremation the
products are completely under command, and would not be
more offensive or deleterious than the emanations from a
common fire, and would render them completely inert as
regards the living.