[Illustration:
A MODERN CINERARY URN.
(Frontispiece.)
]
THE
CREMATION OF THE DEAD
CONSIDERED
FROM AN ÆSTHETIC, SANITARY, RELIGIOUS, HISTORICAL, MEDICO-LEGAL, AND
ECONOMICAL STANDPOINT
BY
HUGO ERICHSEN, M.D.
LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS OF KINGSTON,
CANADA; MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE OF ORGANIZATION OF THE FIRST
INTERNATIONAL CREMATION CONGRESS; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE CREMATION
SOCIETIES OF NEW YORK AND BERLIN; FOREIGN ASSOCIATE MEMBER OF THE
HYGIENIC SOCIETY OF FRANCE; HONORARY MEMBER OF THE CREMATION SOCIETY OF
MILAN, ITALY; ETC.
With an Introductory Note
BY
SIR T. SPENCER WELLS, BART., F.R.S.
LATE PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND; SURGEON TO
THE QUEEN’S HOUSEHOLD; ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
_Delenda est inhumatio!_
DETROIT
D. O. HAYNES & COMPANY
1887
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Why should we seek to clothe death with unnecessary terror, and
spread horror round the tomb of those we love? The grave should be
surrounded with everything that might ensure tenderness and
veneration.”
—WASHINGTON IRVING.
“Die Leichenverbrennung verdient die Achtung, welche ihr um ihres
hohen Werthes willen im klassischen Alterthum gezollt wurde, auch
heute noch, da sie die einzige Art der Todtenbestattung ist, die
vor den schrecklichen Folgen der Verwesungsduenste sichert und das
bei der Leichenbeerdigung so oft vorgekommene Wiedererwachen im
Grabe verhuetet.”
—J. P. TRUSEN.
“Si nous sommes une statue
Sculptée à l’image de Dieu;
Quand cette image est abattue,
Jetons-en les débris au feu!
Toi, forme immortelle, remonte
Dans la flamme, aux sources du Beau,
Sans que ton argile ait la honte
Et les miséres du tombeau!”
—THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.
_Copyright, 1887_,
BY HUGO ERICHSEN.
J. S. CUSHING & CO., PRINTERS, BOSTON.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO
WILLIAM EASSIE, C.E., F.L.S.,
Honorary Secretary of the Cremation Society of England,
and
DR. PROSPER DE PIETRA-SANTA,
of Paris,
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED
as a mark of high esteem, and in recognition of their untiring labor in
behalf of that greatest of all sanitary reforms, cremation, by their
sincere admirer,
THE AUTHOR.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFACE.
It is hardly necessary to explain the purpose of this work. It is an
appeal to the general public; a plea for the burning of the dead. The
period of fierce and fanatic opposition to cremation has passed, and
made way for a calm consideration of the subject. In 1874 a Persian
gentleman, then a resident of one of the Eastern States of our own free
and great republic, who wanted to have his wife cremated, was compelled
by an ignorant mob to resort to interment. Happily we are over that now.
It is astonishing that the cremation question has not been taken hold of
by the literarians of our country; there is hardly a subject that
rewards its student so well as cremation, and future writers on
incineration, not hampered by the literary inexperience under which I
have labored, will reap a rich harvest indeed when they devote their
talent and time to the reform.
I would counsel those who are in favor of cremation to immediately put
in writing their desire to have their body committed to the flames after
death instead of having it consigned to “dirt and darkness.” Such
written requests should be preserved in places where they can be easily
found after decease; for instance, in the writing-desk. If every
individual promotor of the reform, male or female, considering the
uncertainty of life, would follow this advice, cremation would speedily
prevail.
I am sensible of the many defects of this book, but I trust that it will
be found to furnish some useful information which cannot well be
obtained elsewhere, besides proving an assistance to those who are
desirous of studying the question more fully.
I desire to express my indebtedness to crematists in all parts of the
world for the valuable assistance I received from them in the
preparation of this volume.
For all who like cleanliness, for all who love true sentiment, for all
friends of economy, for all who venerate their dead, and for all who are
not afraid of reform the following pages were written.
It only remains to express the thanks due the following gentlemen for
permission to use illustrations without which this book would have been
decidedly incomplete: Messrs. Dodd, Mead & Co., Cyrus K. Remington,
Augustus Cobb, Albert Meininger, and Dr. M. L. Davis.
H. E.
DETROIT, Feb. 28, 1887.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
THE HISTORY OF CREMATION 1
CHAPTER II.
THE EVILS OF BURIAL; THE SANITARY ASPECT OF INCINERATION 66
CHAPTER III.
CREMATION IN TIMES OF WAR 129
CHAPTER IV.
THE PROCESSES OF MODERN CREMATION 140
CHAPTER V.
THE MEDICO-LEGAL ASPECT OF INCINERATION.—THE OBJECTIONS TO 157
CREMATION
CHAPTER VI.
BURIAL ALIVE.—CREMATION FROM AN ÆSTHETIC AND RELIGIOUS POINT OF 180
VIEW
CHAPTER VII.
THE ECONOMY OF CREMATING THE DEAD.—THE PRESENT STATE OF THE 224
CREMATION QUESTION
INTRODUCTION.
DR. H. ERICHSEN:
_Dear Sir_,—In reply to your request that I should write an introduction
to a work which you are about to compose on cremation, I am placed in
the great difficulty of knowing nothing of your book, not even having
seen its title-page or table of contents. It is quite impossible,
therefore, for me to say how far your views and my own may accord. But,
as I suppose your object is to bring before the people of America proof
of the evil effects to the living inseparable from the present mode of
disposal of the dead by burying them in the earth, as well as to show
how these evils may be avoided by burning dead bodies,—in a word, by the
substitution of cremation for burial, of purification for
putrefaction,—I have great pleasure in doing the little that is in my
power to assist in bringing a very important question of sanitary reform
before a thoughtful, intelligent, and advancing nation.
I do not know how far I am right in supposing that with you in the West,
as with us in the East, a knowledge of sanitary science, of the
conditions which are necessary for the health of mankind, is still
confined to the comparatively few who may be called the well educated
class. Nor do I know how far this knowledge has been diffused among the
classes of your population who have received but little education. But I
do know with us it is the highest classes, in the sense of the best
educated classes, who are the most earnest in their efforts to
disseminate that branch of knowledge or science which, in the words of
_Parkes_, aims at rendering “youth most perfect, decay less rapid, life
more vigorous, and death more remote.” _Parkes_ is dead, but he still
speaks to us by his book, and he says:—
“The disposal of the dead is always a question of difficulty. If the
dead are buried, so great at last is the accumulation of bodies that the
whole country round a great city becomes gradually a vast cemetery.
After death, the buried body returns to its elements. If, instead of
being buried, the body is burned, the same process occurs more rapidly.
A community must always dispose of its dead, either by burial in land or
water, or by burning, or chemical destruction equivalent to burning, or
by embalming or preserving. The eventual dispersion of our frame is the
same in all cases. Neither affection nor religion can be outraged by any
manner of disposal of the dead which is done with proper solemnity and
respect to the earthly dwelling-places of our friends. The question
should be entirely placed on sanitary grounds. Burying in the ground
appears certainly to be the most insanitary plan.”
Parkes died before we had learned how perfectly and cheaply, how rapidly
and inoffensively cremation could be carried on; and he favored burying
in the sea rather than in the earth, whenever the distance was not too
great for transport. He knew well how impossible it is to prevent
graveyards within towns, or suburban cemeteries, from becoming sooner or
later a source of danger or nuisance to the living, how difficult it is
to find a suitable site and soil, sufficient space, and to secure proper
regulations and management. These difficulties may not be so great amid
your unlimited space as with us; but they must be an increasing evil in
and around your large cities. I trust, therefore, that your work may
assist in the more rapid progress of cremation as a substitute for
burial.
With us the legal objection has ceased. It is now acknowledged by the
government, and has been decided by three judges that if cremation is so
performed as to create no nuisance, and incite to no breach of the
peace, it is not illegal.
The religious objection has been answered by the _Bishop of Manchester_,
by _Canon Liddon_, and by the _Earl of Shaftesbury_. The bishop said:
“No intelligent faith can suppose that any Christian doctrine is
affected by the manner in which this mortal body of ours crumbles into
dust and sees corruption.”
_Canon Liddon_ said, in a sermon at St. Paul’s Cathedral:—
“The resurrection of a body from its ashes is not a greater miracle than
the resurrection of an unburnt body; each must be purely miraculous.”
_Lord Shaftesbury_ said to me that any doubt as to the resurrection of a
body because it had been burnt was an “audacious limitation of the
Almighty”; and he asked, “What, then, has become of the blessed martyrs
who were burned at the stake in ancient and modern persecution?”
The medico-legal objection that murdered or poisoned persons if burned
could not be exhumed, as is sometimes done if suspicion of foul play
arise after burial, is answered by the strict observance of proper
regulations before cremation. Much more complete medical certificates as
to the cause of death are required by the cremation society of England
than by any cemetery company; and in some cases, a post-mortem
examination is insisted on. In this way, cremation becomes a security to
the public against secret poisoning or any form of murder.
The sentimental objection is that which can only be overcome by time and
education. When the people know how great are the evils dependent on
burial in the earth, even when this is done under the most favorable
conditions, how seldom these conditions can be secured, and, when the
knowledge becomes general that when a human body which would require
five, ten, or twenty years to slowly putrefy in any soil can in one hour
be cheaply and inoffensively converted into a white ash, public
sentiment must favor cremation in place of corruption, and for
putrefaction substitute purification. The same religious ceremonial
might accompany either mode of disposal of the dead. The ashes might be
dispersed to the winds, harmlessly buried, or preserved in urns near
monuments or memorial tablets in our cemeteries, or beneath or around
any place of worship, or in any family mausoleum, or in some park,
public garden, or any ornamental open space near a great city, as the
wishes of the dead or of the surviving relations and friends may prefer.
Here, we hope the city of London will be the first municipal body in the
Kingdom to set the example in this sanitary reform. But, perhaps, the
impetus may be given by our American cousins and brothers.
I am, dear sir, faithfully yours,
T. SPENCER WELLS.
CHAPTER I.
THE HISTORY OF CREMATION.
Ye in the age gone by,
Who ruled the world—a world how lovely then
And guided still the steps of happy men
In the light leading-strings of careless joy!
Before the bed of death
No ghastly spectre stood—but from the porch
Of life, the lip—one kiss inhaled the breath,
And the mute, graceful genius lowered a torch!
SCHILLER: _The Gods of Greece_.
Primeval man most likely disposed of his dead by carrying them into the
woods or leaving them anywhere above ground, a prey to animals of all
kinds. But soon the organs of sight and smell took offense at the
mutilated and decayed corpses, and they were buried. With the increase
of population it became necessary to render the dead innocuous to the
living, and then, perhaps, cremation was originally resorted to as a
means of protecting the living from the effects of corruption.
In the early stages of the world’s history, when there was plenty of
available land, interment was of course a very cheap process, and
therefore often resorted to by the poorer classes, but persons of
intelligence and education always preferred incineration as the better
method of disposing of dead bodies.
[Illustration: A ROMAN COLUMBARIUM.]
In the gradual growth among scientists of the belief that cremation is
preferable to the present system of inhumation, is seen another instance
of modern civilization borrowing the ideas of the far-distant past.
The pendulum by which the world’s age is measured swings in an immense
arc. Now, after thousands of years, the views of the leaders of human
thought are swinging back to that expressed by some of the earliest
peoples.
Incineration is a most ancient practice. It has always been a matter of
difficulty to ascertain the origin of ancient customs. In the case of
cremation the historians have not been able to discover the date when it
was first practiced. The history of ancient cremation, however, can be
traced to nearly 2000 years before Christ. Incineration is regarded by
some authors as the outcome of the sun-worship of the Phœnicians. Their
solar god (Helios)—the Melikertes of the Greeks—was represented by them
as burning himself, whereby they wanted to indicate the ever-returning
solar year. Among the ancient nations, the sun was especially revered
and worshipped by the Persians, Egyptians, and the Sabian Arabs. At
Heliopolis, Phœnicia, and Palmyra, Syria, there were celebrated temples
consecrated to the sun. In some of the countries mentioned, horses which
were, on account of their celerity, regarded as symbols of the sun were
sacrificed to this celestial body.
Some authors ascribe the origin of cremation to the self-immolation of
Hercules. Dr. Le Moyne, the founder of the first crematorium erected in
the United States, asserted that the first authenticated case of burning
the dead was the proposed incineration of Isaac, and that, although it
was not consummated, it was fully authorized by the Deity. In
consequence he argues that cremationists stand in the shadow of the
Lord, and that any one who opposes them commits a sacrilege.
I do not believe that incineration, as some of its antagonists have
imputed, had its origin in a heathen religion, but I am quite certain,
from existing evidence, that it was originally resorted to upon sanitary
grounds, and as a means to protect the living against corruption.
It may be possible that incineration owes its origin to the ancient
nomadic tribes that burnt their dead and carried the ashes with them.
Among agricultural peoples, those who died in war, and while hunting,
were sometimes consigned to the flames, either because the grave would
not protect them from wild animals, or because it was desired to return
the ashes to the relatives, who would keep them sacred.
The origin of incineration, as appears from what I have said, is
surrounded with a great deal of obscurity. It is, however, an
established fact that the Orient was the birthplace of cremation.
The Egyptians first buried their dead, then embalmed them, and,
according to Walker, at a period not stated, abolished embalming and
substituted burning. They performed incineration by placing the corpse
in an amianthus receptacle, which, remaining intact, kept the bones
apart from the fuel.
The tombs of the Assyrians, discovered on the banks of the Tigris and
Euphrates, furnish us with unmistakable evidence of the fact that the
burning of the dead was not unknown to them. The same applies to the
Babylonians. The tombs of both peoples when explored were found to
contain urns holding human bones and ashes; these urns were often very
large, being sometimes of sufficient size to admit the body of an adult.
The Persians either burned their dead or dissolved them in aqua fortis.
Yet they also practiced burial in deep sepulchres that had niches in
which the bodies were deposited upon slabs.
The Hebrews commonly interred their deceased, but incineration was
likewise practiced. The Mosaic code prescribed that those who
transgressed the laws of wedlock and chastity should be put to death by
fire. In I. Moses xxxviii. 24, we find the first evidence of this. The
third book of Moses, xx. 14 and xxi. 9, also bears testimony to this
fact. Thus we see that cineration was looked upon by this people of
antiquity in the early period of its history as a punishment for
offenders against the married state and chastity. It is barely possible
(deductions one may draw from certain passages in the books of Moses)
that the ancient Jews first stoned these disobedients, then burned their
bodies publicly, and finally erected a so-called mound of infamy over
their remains.
But as we follow Hebrew history, we soon find that cremation was
transformed from a humiliating act of punition to the highest honor, to
a distinction that was only accorded to royalty. The first king of
Israel was cremated after the battle with the Philistines in Mount
Gilboa, where he and his three sons fell. The Holy Bible relates how,
when the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead heard of that which the
Philistines had done to Saul (I. Samuel xxxi. 12): “All the valiant men
arose, and went all night, and took the bodies of Saul and the bodies of
his sons from the wall of Beth-shan, and came to Jabesh and burnt them
there.”
And verse 13 of the same chapter informs us: “And they took their bones
(_ossilegio_) and buried them under a tree at Jabesh and fasted seven
days.”
Asa, king of Judah, was also consigned to the funeral pyre, as we glean
from II. Chronicles xvi. 14: “And they buried him in his own sepulchres,
which he had made for himself in the city of David, and laid him in the
bed which was filled with sweet odors and divers kinds of spices
prepared by the apothecaries’ art; _and they made a very great burning
of him_.” Of Asa’s grandson, King Jehoram, it is said that his people
cremated him not like his fathers, because he had furthered idolatry.
On the other hand, Isaiah xxx. 33 refers to a large pyre that was kept
alight to consume the bodies of the deceased: “For Tophet is ordained of
old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large;
the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord like a
stream of brimstone doth kindle it.”
Jeremiah (xxxiv. 5) prophesied of Zedekiah, another king of Judah, that
he would be burned with the same honors that attended the cremation of
his predecessors. And in Amos vi. 10, we find the following, which also
points to incineration: “And a man’s uncle shall take him up, and he
that burneth him, to bring out the bones out of the house,” etc.
The last passage cited and the one mentioning the Vale of Tophet, are
construed by some writers as meaning that the ancient Jews had recourse
to cremation in great plagues; _id est_, for hygienic reasons.
Now, although these quotations plainly show that the Israelites of old
did execute incineration, we also learn from them that the practice was
never general; at first confined to criminals, at last to kings.
It is impossible to determine when the custom of burning the dead
originated among the Hindoos. It was always connected with religious
observances, and known to the people of India since the earliest times.
It was restricted to certain classes or castes: mainly to Brahmins and
warriors. The merchants, mechanics, and the tillers of the soil were
interred. Children under two years of age were barred from cremation,
and had to be buried in the earth. Some religious sects, however, were
an exception from this rule and executed cineration indiscriminately—for
instance the believers in Vishnu. When a Hindoo died away from home, or
when his body was lost and could not be found, his relatives instituted
a symbolical ceremony. They gathered 360 leaves of a certain shrub and
as many woolen threads. They were under the impression that the human
body consisted of 360 parts. Of the threads and leaves they formed a
figure, somewhat resembling the human form, which was wound round with a
strip of the hide of a black antelope, which had also been previously
wrapped closely round with woolen thread. This figure was then besmeared
with barley-meal and water and burnt as an effigy of the missing body.
From India cremation extended to Europe, and was adopted by all
Indo-Germanic peoples. This was proven by Prof. Jacob Grimm in an
oration on the burning of the dead, delivered before the Royal Academy
of Sciences at Berlin, in 1849, in which the famous scholar highly
commended the ancient custom.
In old tombs on the island of Malta, urns of a kind of clay containing
ashes, lachrymatories, several mortuary lamps (some of excellent
workmanship), and the model of a mummy, formed of a green
semi-transparent substance, were found. This discovery demonstrates that
the orientals who inhabited this isle of the Mediterranean in the
earliest times were in the habit of cremating their deceased.
The Thracians were the next to embrace burial by fire. Of them
_Herodotus_ relates that they exhibited the corpse publicly for three
days, brought many offerings, and bewailed the deceased. At the
termination of the period stated, they cremated the body and then buried
the ashes and bones. After they had erected a mound over the remains,
they played gymnic games.
From Asia, by way of Thrace, cremation reached Greece. Among the Greeks
burial was originally exceedingly primitive, as we learn from a law that
compelled passers-by to place a handful of earth upon the breast of
every unburied corpse. Interment undoubtedly preceded cremation in
Greece. _Heraclitus_ advanced the theory that everything in existence
was created from fire. Therefore he argued that all corpses must be
burned to free the soul from all material matter, and to return it to
its primitive elements. According to _Eustachius_ Hercules burned the
body of Argius, the son of Likymnios, 1500 years before Christ. He had
promised the father to return the youth, but when the latter fell in
mortal combat, nothing remained for him but to cremate Argius and to
bring home with him the ashes to the sorrowful parent. Hercules was
unquestionably the first to cremate himself. When he was tormented by
the pangs of approaching death, he built a pyre and ordered his servant
to ignite it. When the servant failed to set the wood afire, Hercules
descended from the pyre, kindled it himself and again mounted it to
await his fate.
_Pliny_ was disposed to attribute the origin of incineration among the
Greeks to their custom of burning the dead on the field of battle, to
render them secure from the revenge of the enemy.
Be that as it may, certain it is that incineration never became the only
mode by which the inhabitants of Hellas disposed of their deceased;
except in Athens, where it was practiced exclusively for some time.
Suicides, those who had been struck by lightning, and unteethed children
were not cremated, for it was the prevailing opinion that the pure
flames would have been defiled by them.
[Illustration: GREEK FUNERAL URN.]
Homer, that incomparable Hellenic poet (There is, I know, a dispute
whether the name Homer stands for one person or for a number of bards.
As far as I am concerned, I believe that Homer was an individual, a poor
mendicant perhaps, wandering all over Greece, singing or reciting his
heroic epics, and living on the grace of an admiring public. No
collection of bards could have possibly written the Odyssey and Iliad,
which are so uniform in character throughout.), has preserved for us, in
immortal verse, the records of the Trojan war, in which we find many
instances of cremation chronicled. The recent explorations of Dr.
Heinrich Schliemann on the site of Troy have demonstrated beyond a doubt
that the poems of Homer rest on a basis of actual fact.
During the war that was fought for Helen the beautiful, it was customary
among the Greeks and Trojans to reduce to ashes the bodies of those who
had been slain in battle. Line 69 of the first book of the Iliad proves
that the Greeks burned their dead for sanitary reasons.
The bodies of cowards, criminals, and slaves were not incinerated, but
left unburied, a prey for the beasts of the field and the birds of the
air. Agamemnon, the king, addressing his warriors warns them (_vide_
Pope’s translation of the Iliad, B. II, L. 466) that, during battle:—
“Who dares, inglorious, in his ships to stay,
Who dares to tremble on this signal day,
That wretch, too mean to fall by martial power,
The birds shall mangle, and the dogs devour.”
Incineration was denied Ajax, one of the greatest Grecian heroes,
because he had slain himself in a fit of indignation. Hector’s defiance
of the Greek princes (Iliad, B. VII, L. 85) shows that it was also the
custom among the Trojans to burn the dead. There is further evidence of
this in the truce, between Priam and Agamemnon (_vide_ Iliad, B. VII, L.
898 and 450), for the purpose of burning the dead of both armies.
Homer’s narration of the burning of Patroclus, Achilles’ friend, gives
such an accurate description of the method then in use, that I will be
pardoned for quoting it here. The passage to which I refer occurs in the
twenty-third book of the Iliad, and is as follows:—
“They who had the dead in charge
Remained, and heaped the wood and built a pyre
A hundred feet each way from side to side.
With sorrowful hearts they raised and laid the corpse
Upon the summit. Then they flayed and dressed
Before it many fatlings of the flock,
And oxen with curved feet and crooked horns.
From these magnanimous Achilles took
The fat, and covered with it carefully
The dead from head to foot. Beside the bier
And leaning toward it, jars of honey and oil
He placed, and flung, with many a deep-drawn sigh,
Twelve high-necked steeds upon the pile.
Nine hounds there were, which from the tables of the prince
Were daily fed; of these Achilles struck
The heads from two, and laid them on the wood,
And after these, and last, twelve gallant sons
Of the brave Trojans, butchered by the sword;
For he was bent on evil. To the pile
He put the iron violence of fire,
And, wailing, called by name the friend he loved.
* * * * *
...They quenched with dark red wine
The pyre, where’er the flames had spread, and where
Lay the deep ashes: then, with many tears,
Gathered the white bones of their gentle friend,
And laid them in a golden vase, wrapped round
With caul, a double fold. Within the tents
They placed them softly, wrapped in delicate lawn;
Then drew a circle for the sepulchre,
And, laying its foundations to enclose
The pyre, they heaped the earth, and, having reared
A mound, withdrew.”
These lines are from William Cullen Bryant’s translation of the Iliad,
and give one a very good idea of the cineration of a warrior. In times
of peace the favorite animals of the deceased were placed with him on
the funeral pile, and he was covered with costly robes and rugs. Not
infrequently the pyre was decorated with an abundance of flowers, and
rich folks had their trinkets and jewels thrown into the fire. The
weapons of warriors were consumed with them. The extravagance at
funerals finally became so great among the Greeks that special laws had
to be enacted to put a stop to it. Solon ordained, for instance, that no
more than three robes and one bull should be placed upon the cremation
pyre. After the bones were placed in an urn, the Greeks covered it with
the fat of the animals that had been slaughtered at the funeral
ceremonies, to protect it from the influence of the atmosphere. Many of
the celebrated men of Greece were cremated: Solon, Alcibiades, Timoleon,
Philopoemen, Plutarch, Pyrrhus, and many others.
According to Pindar (Ol. 6, 23, Nem. 9, 54), during the combat of the
Seven against Thebes, funeral pyres were burning at each of the seven
gates of the city, to consume those slain in battle. The heathens, as
they are called, were not to be charged with any lack of respect to
their departed dead. On the contrary, the most tender sentiments
conceivable were attached to the practice of cremation. There was a
Theban regulation that no one should build a house without a specific
repository for the dead.
Æneas and the other Trojans, who escaped with him from the burning city
of the hundred gates (as Priam’s capital was sometimes called),
introduced cremation (Virgil’s Æneid, B. IV, 7) into Carthage, if it did
not exist there previous to their arrival. It is possible that the
inhabitants of Carthage, which was one of the Phœnician cities in
Africa, derived the practice from the mother-country. At all events, the
tragedy of love, in which Æneas was involved, ended with the suicide of
Dido, who cremated herself.
The eleventh book of the Æneas gives a description of an incineration
among the ancient inhabitants of Latium.
Self-cremation seems to have been one of the favorite means of disposing
of one’s self in ancient times, especially among the royalty and
aristocracy. Both tradition and history report of many women, friends,
and servants who, of their own free will, mounted the funeral pyre with
the departed head of the family. Besides Hercules and Dido, already
mentioned, Sardanapalus, the last king of the Assyrians, burned himself
in the year 600 before Christ, because the Tigris had destroyed the
fortifications of besieged Nineveh, and the following also mounted the
pyre for the same purpose: Marpessa, Polydora, and Cleopatra (Vide
Pausanias, 4, 2), three noble women of Messenia, and Euadne, the wife of
Capaneus, who threw herself into the flames which consumed her husband.
The pyre of Sardanapalus, we are told, was very large and contained many
rooms, which were elegantly furnished, and in which the royal treasures
were heaped up, before the king entered them with his women, while his
servants set the pile on fire. It is well known that the widows of
India, until very recently, perished of their own free will in the
flames that consumed their husbands.
Herodotus states that the women of the Thracians, in Eastern Europe, who
were probably of Germanic origin, frequently disputed among themselves
as to which of them should be allowed to ascend the pyre together with
the deceased husband. Œnone, the lawful wife of Paris, whom he had
forsaken to live with Helen the beautiful, forgot all her grievances at
the sight of his misfortune. When the man, whom she had formerly loved
so ardently, wounded by the arrow of Philoctetes, fled to her into the
Ida, she refused to cure him; but when the greedy flames, after death,
devoured his form, she voluntarily ascended the pyre to intermix her
ashes with his. Thus are the ways of the world; the noble deed of the
faithlessly deserted wife is hardly ever mentioned, but frivolous Helena
was made the subject of many works of art, and leads an immortal life in
the songs and poems of man.
[Illustration: CREMATION IN CALCUTTA.]
The ancient Etruscans practiced cremation, both before and after Etruria
became a Roman province; they, no doubt, adopted it from the Greeks, who
were first their rulers and afterward their close neighbors. The tombs
of Etruria were rich in art; the urns in which the ashes of the dead
were kept were either of alabaster or baked clay, the latter often being
decorated with tasty paintings.
The ancient Latins, in turn, borrowed the practice of incineration from
the Etruscans. According to _Mazois_, some cinerary urns, found in the
neighborhood of Alba Longa, prove that the custom of burning the dead
was current among the original population of Latium long before any
recorded epoch of Italian history, for the place in which those urns
were detected was covered entirely over with dense layers of lava, which
apparently came from the mountain Albanus, a volcano, the eruptions of
which have long been buried in oblivion. The urns mentioned are
especially noteworthy, because many of them bear pictures of the
habitations of the earliest residents of Latium, which shows that
cremation was known to them at that time. Such a hut of the aborigines
of Latium was preserved for a long time in the capitol at Rome and was
regarded with great reverence. It is but natural that the Latins, on
becoming the founders of Rome, should have introduced incineration into
their new home. Pliny asserts that the burning of the dead was not
customary among the Romans of old, but Virgil describes it as a usage
that existed long before the foundation of Rome, and Ovid affirms that
the body of Remus was committed to the flames.
Cremation was not in general favor among the Romans until towards the
termination of the republic. Pliny relates that Sylla (78 B.C.) was the
first of the patrician Cornelians who wanted his body to be burned; most
likely because he feared that his remains would be dealt with as those
of Marius had been treated, whose body was exhumed by the order of
Sylla, and thrown into a glutted general grave. During the decline of
the republic and the period of the empire, till the accession of the
Christian emperors, incineration was very popular in Rome; it was not
only general in the capital, but also in the provinces. Julius Caesar,
Antonius, Brutus, Pompejus, Octavius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula,
Nero, and Plinius were cremated. The ashes of Tacitus, the model of
historians, who was likewise consigned to the flames, were cast to the
winds in the middle ages by Pope Pius the Fifth, in order to punish the
heretic. Just think of it! a pontiff outraging a scholar’s remains to
punish him! Caligula and Tiberius were only partially burnt, because
they had been tyrants.
At Nero’s obsequies it was but with difficulty that the train achieved
complete cremation. The Roman aristocracy looked upon partial cineration
as a great disgrace, which adhered to the respective family a long time.
Yet this infamy was often meted out to the poor and unfortunate, as we
shall see later on.
During plagues cremation was compulsory in the city of Rome.
It is not my intention to describe in detail the funeral rites of the
ancient Romans, because a description of cremation as practiced by them
may be met with in every encyclopædia. Moreover, a very good account of
incineration, as customary among the Romans of old, may be found in Lord
Bulwer Lytton’s “The Last Days of Pompeii.”
It was the fashion at Rome to pour fragrant oils and balsams over the
corpse before the pyre was ignited, and to cover it with Cyprus boughs.
Previous to cremation, the corpse was enveloped in asbestos, to keep the
ashes of the body separate from those of the funeral pile. At times
locks of hair were sacrificed to the deceased. At last one finger of the
defunct was amputated, to make certain that death had taken place.
Everything being ready, the nearest relative present unclosed the eyes
of the deceased, and then lit the pyre with averted face. While the
flames rose to heaven, the favorite animals of him who was now being
consumed—dogs, doves, and even horses—were flung into the fire. Costly
robes and arms of the dead were consigned to the same fate. During the
early period of Roman history, prisoners of war were also committed to
the flames.
The amount of spices, oils, and balsams destroyed at incinerations was
enormous. Pliny reports that Nero used up more myrrh, incense, and other
aromatics at the cremation of Poppsæa than could be produced by entire
Arabia in one year.
While cremation was practiced in Rome, at the time of the empire, the
mourning garments were white; but when incineration was displaced by
interment, the raiment of the bereaved assumed a black hue, sombre as
death itself.
The deceased poor of Rome (especially the women and slaves) were treated
shamefully after death. Martial avers that invariably one pile had to
serve for a large number. In times of pestilence, thousands were so
disposed of. A cremation-ground was provided for the indigent in a
wretched suburb upon the Esquiline Hill, which was inhabited by the
outcasts of society, the lowest prostitutes, executioners, necromancers,
and so forth. These localities were called _culinæ_ by the people, the
literal translation of which is “roast-places.” The attendants were
police-slaves, whose hair had been shaved off, and who wore a brand on
the bare pate. These, hurrying to and fro, placed the emaciated dead
poor upon one of the many funeral piles; hardly singed by the fire, they
were taken from it and thrown into a universal ditch. To every ten male
corpses one female body was added, which facilitated the cineration by
means of the great quantity of adipose tissue which it contained. The
funerals of the poor were generally held at night.
The urns of the rich were of marble, bronze, and sometimes of gold or
silver; those of the poor were of baked clay or glass. Glass urns,
enclosed in others of lead, were discovered at Pompeii. The urns were
generally deposited in a tomb at the roadside or placed in the
pigeon-hole of a columbarium.
These columbaria, surrounded by beautiful gardens, were situated on the
Via Appia, Aurelia, Flaminia, and Lavicana. The Appian Way was a
favorite resort of the fashionable Roman world; here, daily,
ever-changing life was seen; here the traveller took leave from the
remains of his ancestors; here, too, lovers met and unfortunates took
refuge.
These columbaria were subterranean chambers which served (as I have
already explained) to hold the ashes of the deceased, the urns being
deposited in arched recesses, hewn out in the rock for the purpose.
These niches resembled pigeon-holes; hence the name, columbarium. The
rare beauty of these columbaria, which may yet be seen in the Eternal
City, led Nathaniel Hawthorne, our great romancer, to exclaim that he
would not object to being decently pigeon-holed in a Roman tomb.
[Illustration:
CREMATION IN SIAM.
The late queen and her little daughter on the pyre.
]
Campana discovered columbaria between the Porta Latina and the Porta San
Sebastiana, which are memorials of the time of Augustus. They contain
not less than 400 inscriptions on marble, commemorative of the dead, and
many urns of marble and terra cotta.
In the city of the Caesars the ashes were placed in upright urns, while
in Greece the urns lay horizontally on the ground, and were covered with
rugs. In Greece the ashes were preserved in beautiful mortuary chambers
in the houses, a custom that also obtained at Rome to a certain extent.
The great contrast between the cremation of the opulent and the poor
finally led to the re-introduction of earth-burial, which, however,
strangely enough, was coincident with the decline and fall of the once
mighty empire.
The last Roman funeral piles expired in the fourth century, while the
Indo-Germanic nations practiced cremation till late in mediæval times.
The Germanic tribes and the Celts (according to Tacitus and Diodorus of
Sicily) burned their dead without exception. The testimony of these
historians is confirmed by Ovid (Met., Lib. III, v. 619–620), who adds
that cremation was highly esteemed by these peoples.
Tacitus (_vide_ Germania, Lib. 37), writing one hundred years before
Christ, relates that the ancient Germans preferred a plain funeral to
funereal pomp. Only the bodies of celebrated men were cinerated with
some ostentation on pyres built of certain costly kinds of wood. They
neither ornamented their funeral piles, nor did they use spices at
cremations. The arms of every warrior, however, and sometimes the
battle-horse, were burnt with him. An unadorned mound was raised over
the ashes, and nothing was left to mark the spot where one of their kin
had been laid to rest. Criminals were not cremated, but put to death, in
various ways; traitors and deserters were hanged to convenient trees,
and cowards drowned in swamps.
The Thuringians burned their dead as late as the seventh century; the
Anglo-Saxons down to the end of the eighth century. The Swabians,
Franks, Lombards, Ostrogoths, Alemanni, and Burgundians disposed of
their deceased by fire till 740 A.D. Winfrid, or Boniface, the so-called
apostle of the Germans, in a letter refers to the custom of fire-burial
among the Saxons. Charlemange, who brought about the conversion of the
Saxons by fire and sword, made a special enactment against incineration.
The custom of cremation was so deep-rooted among the Saxons, that the
death-penalty had to be set upon its consummation in order to cause its
abolishment.
The ancient Lithuanians and the forefathers of the present Prussians
were wont to consign their dead to the flames. When the ancient
Prussians were defeated by the knights of the Teutonic order in the year
of our Lord 1249, their vanquishers caused them to promise in writing
that they would henceforth, after cremating their deceased with horse,
armor, and weapons, collect the remains and bury them within the
churchyard, according to Christian usage. There is evidence to show that
cineration of the dead was extant in Western Prussia until after 1300
A.D.
Cinerary urns, containing ashes, were discovered near Dantzig, Prussia,
and in Silesia.
In the course of forming a vineyard in the neighborhood of Wasserbillig,
near Trier, numerous graves were laid bare, in some of which urns were
found with the remains of cremated bodies; in others, skeletons. In the
former case the cinerary urns (_vide_ _Sanitary Record_) were surrounded
by chalkstone slabs; one of the skeletons was contained in a sarcophagus
composed of fourteen roof-tiles. Nine of them had the stamps of the
manufacturer, the same names being given as those of the manufacturers
who furnished material for the erection of the Roman church which forms
the basis of the cathedral of Trier, and for the Roman thermal baths at
St. Barbara. Judging from these circumstances, it is assumed that the
tombs date from the middle of the third century. In one of the graves a
small urn with the representation of a face was found.
In Trier itself, a large glass urn, with cover and handles, was recently
unearthed. It is a relic of the Romans. When opened it was found to
contain bones. Beside this urn five vases of baked clay and several
ornamented lamps were found.
The ancient Swiss were in the habit of cremating their defunct, till the
year 56 before Christ.
Julius Caesar reports that the Gauls burned their dead with
sumptuousness.
Several ancient glass urns, containing calcined bones, were recently
found between two round stones, in the vicinity of Chatenet, France.
The Slavonians observed incineration from the earliest times to the end
of the fifteenth century. When one of their kings died, everything he
might need on awakening in paradise was placed with him on the pyre.
Beside intoxicating drinks, weapons, horses, falcons, male and female
servants, and his wives, his entire household—comprising the minister of
state, secretary, mate at drinking, and physician—was cremated with him.
The Slavonian woman was invariably burned with the corpse of her
husband; but not _vice versa_, the husband with the remains of his wife.
When a bachelor died, single women were substituted for spouses. The
chronicles that have descended to us from the monks affirm that these
women longed for such a death, because they hoped to secure eternal
blessedness thereby.
Large mounds, called Kurgani, were erected over the ashes of the
cremated. These mounds may be seen to-day in the boundless steppes of
Russia, where they afford a rest for the eyes from the monotonous
scenery.
Eckehardt relates that, when Germany was invaded by the Hungarians in
925 A.D., he witnessed the intruders cremate the bodies of the slain
upon rack-wagons.
The Bohemians practiced cremation as late as 1000 A.D.
The Arab Ibn Forszlan, who was ambassador from his native land to the
Russians in the year of our Lord 922, states that he attended the
cineration of a man of rank, on the banks of the Volga River. Previous
to the cremation the deceased was interred, till the robes of state
requisite for the ceremony were finished. Then the ship of the dead was
drawn ashore, the defunct owner placed upon a bench, which had been
covered with gorgeous rugs, and supplied with food, intoxicating
beverages, and a number of slaughtered animals. Thereupon a young girl,
who had voluntarily offered herself for incremation (probably to be the
companion of the deceased in the other world), was led aboard and—after
singing a long chant to the people and drinking a goblet of
mead—strangled and stabbed at the same time. Then the ship was deserted,
and set afire by the nearest relative, who performed this sad office
with averted face. Thereupon every one present threw a burning piece of
wood upon the vessel, which was soon consumed. A mound was erected on
the site on which the ship had stood, in the centre of which a plank was
placed, bearing the name of the departed.
Old German chroniclers mention the cremation of Attila, the king of the
Tartar Huns, who was burned while sitting—fully armed—upon his
war-horse. It is still an undecided question whether incineration was
general among the Huns, or only a royal honor.
The Scythians and Sarmatians of old reduced their dead to ashes, as also
did the Kurds, till 1205 A.D.; and the Esthonians till 1225.
Cremation was likewise practiced by the ancient Scandinavians,—more
especially by the Norwegians and Swedes than by the Danes. The national
Scandinavian epic, the Edda, mentions the funeral piles of Sigurdh and
Brynhilde.
The ancient Britons disposed of their dead by fire. Some workmen engaged
in excavations in the bail within the boundaries of the old Roman city
at Lincoln lately came across a crematorium and a sarcophagus. In the
latter ten urns were found, which contained ashes and calcined bones.
The urns were of different sizes and shapes, and were all provided with
saucer-shaped covers. Only one of them, however, was extracted perfect.
The interior of the sarcophagus was lined with long, thin bricks, that
perished on being exposed to the air.
The Mexicans of antiquity also cinerated their deceased.
Incineration was practiced in India since the most remote ages, and is
now as much in vogue in this country as it was in the earliest times. At
Calcutta, Bombay, Madras,—in fact, all over India,—cremation is executed
daily.
The Vishnavites burn their dead; the worshippers of Siva bury them,
deliver them up to beasts of prey, or throw them into the holy river
Ganges. Folks who are too poor to dispose of their deceased by burning,
also consign them to the waves of the holy stream. This is done at
night, since it is against the law. It is not unusual to see a whole
procession of corpses float down the Ganges, while crows feed on the
remains.
At Calcutta, cremation is performed within the “Burning Ghât,” outside
the city, in a walled enclosure which is frequented by numberless
vultures and other birds of prey, near the Hoogly, as the Ganges is
thereabouts called. This place is seldom visited by the British
inhabitants of Calcutta; for they regard this rude cineration (properly
so) far too horrible to witness.
By order of the government, a cinerator was built on the banks of the
Hoogly, which is used only by a part of the Hindoo population. The
Hindoos are hard to wean from their old-fashioned method of cineration
(which is substantially the same as that practiced by the ancient Romans
and Greeks), and, therefore, seldom make use of a cinerator, as Mr.
William Eassie was informed by the sanitary commissioner of Madras,
where a cinerary apparatus had also been erected. The commissioner,
however, was of the opinion that if the Siemens principle of a furnace
were exhibited before the educated Hindoos, they would very probably
adopt it.
[Illustration: CREMATION AMONG THE TOLKOTINS OF OREGON.]
Thanks to the efforts of the British authorities in India, imperfect
cremation is a thing of the past there.
Cicero already relates that the widows of the Hindoos allow themselves
to be cinerated with the remains of their husbands. Self-cremation of
Indian widows does not occur nowadays; the barbaric custom has been put
down by the English.
It was not before 1831 that the English government in Hindostan
attempted to abolish the practice of burning widows; and up to that
time, as Max Mueller observes, “women were burned wholesale, even in the
immediate neighborhood of Calcutta.” But the custom was probably not
exterminated before late in the sixties—1868 or 69.
Cremation was practiced on the isle of Ceylon as late as 1841.
The people of Burmah cremate their rich dead, and inhume the poor or
consign them to a stream. Persons of rank are embalmed before
incineration, and placed on exhibition in a convent or temple for six
weeks. At the funeral, the body is borne in a coffin on the shoulders of
men, who are preceded by female mourners chanting an epicede. The corpse
is followed by the relatives. When the slowly moving train arrives at
the pyre, which is commonly six or eight feet high, the remains are
placed upon it; the wood of the funeral pile is generally laid
crosswise, to bring about a stronger draught of air. The pyre is set on
fire by the attending priests, who pray before it until the body is
destroyed; then the bones are collected and interred. According to Mr.
W. Eassie, when a Buddhist priest of rank dies in Burmah, the body is
embalmed in honey, laid in state for a time, and then sometimes blown up
with gunpowder, together with its hearse.
Miss Feudge asserts that the inhabitants of Pegu and Laos also cremate
their dead.
In Siam, cremation has undoubtedly existed since primeval times. It is a
universal custom, practiced both by the common people and the
aristocracy; even the kings are incinerated. Crawfurd states that in
Siam the ashes are sometimes interred in the grounds surrounding the
temples, and a small pyramidal mound erected over them.
When one of the Dayakkese inhabitants of Borneo dies, the body is
deposited in a coffin, and remains in the house till the son, the
father, or the nearest of kin can procure or purchase a slave, who is
beheaded at the time that the corpse is burned, in order that he may
become the servant of the deceased in the next world. The ashes of the
departed are then placed in an earthen urn, which is adorned with
various figures; and the head of the slave is desiccated, and prepared
in a peculiar manner with camphor and drugs, and placed near it. It is
said that this practice induces the Dayakkese to buy a slave guilty of
some capital crime, at fivefold his value, in order that they may be
able to put him to death on such occasions.
Cremation is an established and time-honored usage in Japan, now the
oldest empire in the world. Here all incineration establishments are
under government control, and are to be found not only in all the chief
cities, but also in the provinces. The Japanese government, with shrewd
appreciation of the advantages of sanitary laws, has of late years
carefully fostered the practice. Since the earliest times, cremation is
universal among the Japanese.
Before the introduction of Buddhism, the Shinto doctrine was the
prevalent system of faith and worship in Japan. This religion held
sacred, beside a small number of domestic gods, a long series of
celebrated historical personages, who were worshipped after their
decease. It taught that the mikado (emperor) descended from the gods,
and he was its clerical superior. This doctrine, of course, was not
favorable to cremation; and that accounts for the absence of the latter
prior to the introduction of Buddhism. Beginning with the year of our
Lord 552, attempts were made, with varying success, to establish
Buddhism in Japan. In 624, Buddhism was officially recognized; the court
bestowing the title of high-priest upon two priests who had come from
Hakusai. The new doctrine spread through the medium of the Chinese
literature that circulated in the country; and soon temples had to be
built to accommodate the converts.
In 700 A.D., Dôsho, a high-priest of a temple at Nara, in the province
Yamato, ordered his pupils to burn his body after death, and it was
done. This was the first cremation in Japan.
Three years later, the corpse of the empress Jito was incinerated; her
example was followed by 41 emperors and empresses, who occupied the
throne from that period till the beginning of the seventeenth century.
The last mikado whose body was burned, was Goyozei, who reigned from
1587 till 1610 A.D. At this time much attention was paid to the
doctrines of Confucius, which are as unfavorable to cineration as the
Shinto doctrine.
In the ninth century Buddhism made considerable headway through the
efforts of Kobo, a priest. Up to the fourteenth century, however,
Buddhism remained the religion of the military and the aristocracy; the
common people knew nothing of it. It owes its adoption among all classes
of Japan, to the arduous labors of two missionaries, Shinran and
Nichiren, who became the founders of great sects, and who had their
corpses burned as an example for their pupils.
Cremation is fast becoming general in Japan, burial more and more
obsolete. At the present time the number of bodies disposed of by
incineration is very great.
The greatest number of believers in cremation are found among the Shin
and Yoto sects, likewise among the Zen, Tendai, and Nichiren sects; the
fewest, among the Shingon sect. Incineration is, however, not compulsory
among these religious denominations. In 1868, when the shogun
(commander-in-chief) was deposed by the revolutionists, when the mikado
re-obtained his former authority and the power of the almost independent
princes of the provinces was destroyed, the government attempted to
re-establish the Shinto religion. Among other measures they prohibited
incineration (July 23, 1873), claiming that it was contrary to the
Shinto doctrine.
They soon discovered that it was impossible to carry out the
interdiction, and, therefore, revoked it (May 23, 1875), granting
thereby, as it were, religious freedom to Japan.
The young generation of the Japanese physicians and naturalists regard
cineration from a sanitary standpoint, and constantly urge the
government to promote its interests on hygienic grounds.
[Illustration: CREMATION AMONG THE THLINKETS IN ALASKA.]
It must be conceded that the Japanese mode of cremation is by far
superior to the method of the Hindoos, who still adhere to the ancient
funeral-pile. The cost of incineration is small. The body is reduced to
ashes completely though slowly, and the process takes place in clean,
well-kept, closed buildings, in a manner which, as far as the simple
arrangements permit, offends neither the eye nor the olfactories.
At Osaka cremation is carried on in stone furnaces, which are closed by
iron sliding-doors. There are three large crematories, situated at the
outskirts of the city; they are enclosed by high walls, and when seen
from a distance, if it were not for the chimneys 60 feet high, one would
take them to be temples. The principal crematory contains twenty large
furnaces, each of which is capable of reducing three bodies; thus it is
evident 60 bodies can be incinerated at the same time. The corpse is
placed upon an iron grate, the fire being underneath, and covered with a
straw mat, that has been previously saturated with salt water.
Incineration under these circumstances is said to be entirely
satisfactory. The cremations begin at 11 P.M., and are finished at 3
A.M.
At Tokio, and most of the other cities, a black earthenware urn is
fashionable; but in the province Totomi the ashes are placed in an urn
of red color.
When the Asiatic cholera raged in Japan in 1877, the people were
compelled by the authorities to cremate its victims. But the sanitary
measure met with no resistance, its wisdom being recognized even by the
lower classes of the people. By the decree, making cremation obligatory
in times of cholera, the Japanese government has given an example of
sanitary legislation which should be imitated.
Most of the books on cremation inform us that incineration was and is
not practiced in China. This is an error. Marco Polo repeatedly asserts
(Travels. New York: Harper & Bros., 1845. pp. 153, 155, 158, 159, 160)
that the Chinese wherever he travelled were in the habit of burning
their dead.
On the other hand, Chinese historical works make no mention of the
practice, and burial is the almost universal custom at present. The
books in which the subject of cremation is treated only speak of it as
being practiced upon the bodies of Buddhist priests and lepers.
In the last issue of the Chinese imperial maritime customs medical
reports, Dr. A. Henry contributes some remarks upon cremation in that
country. In only one of the many Buddhist temples at the town where Dr.
Henry is stationed, are the bodies of the inmates burned after death.
The method of incineration is commendable as efficient, æsthetic, and
inexpensive; but it is too slow except for Buddhist priests in China. In
the grounds of the temple is a small dome-like edifice, the interior of
which communicates with the open air by a small door only—a charcoal
kiln, in fact. The dead priest is placed in a sitting posture inside the
dome, and charcoal and firewood are piled around him; fire is applied,
and the door is shut until combustion is complete. Children are
sometimes burned, but for superstitious reasons only. When several young
children of a family have died in succession, the body of one of them is
burned, under the belief that the ceremony will insure the survival of
the next child born to the family. In these cases the body is simply
brought to an open field in a box, and placed upon firewood, which is
ignited.
Although incineration is known in Corea, the most usual way of disposing
of the dead is by inhumation. Mr. Carles, in an official report of a
journey into the central provinces of Corea, says:—
“At one village the remains of the body of an old woman who had been
eaten by a tiger, were being burnt in a fire of brushwood lighted on the
spot.”
Cremation in America is not a novelty. When I began to investigate the
subject of cremation among North American Indians, I was at first quite
disappointed; and well I might have been, for Schoolcraft (History of
the Indian Tribes of the United States. Vol. I, p. 38) asserts:—
“The incineration of the bodies of the dead was not practiced on this
continent, even in the tropics; and is a rite unknown to the tribes of
the United States.”
Although slightly disheartened, I continued my search for information,
and was in consequence speedily rewarded. John McIntosh (The Origin of
the North American Indians. New York, 1853. p. 164) states:—
“The bodies of those who die in war are burned, and their ashes brought
back to be laid in the burying-place of their fathers.”
My studies in this direction, however, received the greatest impetus
through Dr. H. C. Yarrow’s excellent “Introduction to the Study of
Mortuary Customs among the North American Indians” (Washington
Government Printing Office, 1880, pp. 49 to 59), which was kindly sent
to me by the author, and from which I obtained much valuable
information.
Dr. H. C. Yarrow affirms that cremation was performed to a considerable
extent among North American Indians, especially those living on the
northern slope of the Rocky Mountains; but also (as indisputable
evidence proves) among the more eastern ones.
The Nishinams of California, the Tolkotins of Oregon, the Se-nél of
California, and the Cocopa tribe on the Colorado River, practice
cremation.
The Unotello Indians of Oregon also incinerate their dead. On Oct. 9,
1884, several of them got drunk at Lastine, Ore., and engaged in a
bloody fight. One was cut to death, and two others badly slashed. The
Indians burned the body of their dead comrade, and held a war-dance
while the body was slowly consumed.
Mr. George Gibbs avers that the Indians of Clear Lake, Cal., burn their
dead upon scaffolds built over a hole, into which the ashes are thrown
and covered.
The Digger Indians have a queer custom; they mix the ashes of the dead
with gum, and smear them on the heads of the mourners.
The Comanches also burn their dead.
The Indian method of cremation is like that of the ancients; the corpse
is burnt on a pyre six feet high, amidst exclamations of grief and
sorrow, funeral songs and dances.
Incineration is current among some of the native tribes of Alaska,
principally among the Thlinkets.
In the summer of 1884, I received a letter from a former fellow-student
of mine,—Dr. Hugh S. Wyman,—who was then assistant surgeon in the United
States Marine Hospital Service, and stationed at Sitka, Alaska. This
missive contained the following:—
“The Thlinket Indians cremate their dead in every instance except
one—that of the Indian doctor, whose body is never burned, but placed in
a sort of ‘cache,’ constructed of timber, above ground. Carvings of
images, etc., representing the family history, are made on the grave, or
a tall pole is erected by the side, with a red flag. With the body of
the doctor are placed all his personal effects. These are supposed to
remain undisturbed; but the empty appearance of the caches and the
skulless skeletons of the few graves I have visited, with a curiosity to
look inside, have led me to believe that the effects and body do not
always lie unmolested.
[Illustration:
INDIAN CINERARY URN.
Found in Kentucky.
]
[Illustration:
INDIAN CINERARY URN.
Found in Indiana.
]
[Illustration:
INDIAN CINERARY URN.
Found in Georgia.
]
[Illustration:
INDIAN CINERARY URN.
Found at Lake Nicaragua.
]
“The cremation of a Thlinket takes place in open air. The body, after
lying in state for a few days, is taken out of the house through some
opening made for the purpose, never through the regular entrance. It is
placed on a pile of logs, which are ignited, and the corpse rolled about
with long poles until thoroughly consumed.
“The ceremonies attending cremation vary very much, according to the
standing of the deceased, age, sex, and so on.
“The only reason I have ever heard given by the Indians why they cremate
was that if not burned, the body would always remain cold in the happy
hunting-grounds.
“I was unable to find out why they do not burn doctors.
“I believe cremation among the civilized will necessarily become
generally practiced in the future, and without ideas of horror, when
people are more fully enlightened, especially in hygienic principles.”
In recent times, the missionaries are trying to put a stop to cremation
in Alaska. This is a great mistake; and they will find it out before
long. The missionaries should endeavor to do what the English in India
have done and are doing still—attempt to substitute scientific
incineration for the crude ancient method of burning the dead on pyres.
And in this undertaking, I am sure, they would have the support of the
most intelligent among the Indians. The natives of Alaska, no doubt,
learned by some terrible, never-to-be-forgotten experience the dangers
and evils of burial in the ground; and, although their method of
obviating these dangers and evils is rude and barbaric, the principle
which impelled them to adopt cremation is right.
The first Caucasian who was cremated in the United States was Colonel
Henry Laurens, who was the president of the first Congress, which
convened at Philadelphia in 1774; he was also a member of the military
family of General Washington. Laurens was of Huguenot descent, born in
Charleston, S. C., in 1724, and eminent as a statesman before and during
the Revolutionary War. He was educated in one of the best universities
of Europe, and although following the vocation of a merchant during many
years, he achieved great distinction as a writer on political topics;
his pamphlets on the public questions of the time received much
consideration. Appointed minister to Holland, he was taken captive on
the voyage thither by a British man-of-war, and was imprisoned for some
time in the Tower as a rebel. Among his visitors there was a friend of
other years, Edmund Burke, by whose influence he was finally set free.
One of Laurens’ daughters had, when a child, apparently died of
small-pox, but, being placed near an open window, she revived. Since
this occurrence, the colonel lived in constant fear of being buried
alive, and therefore requested his daughters, by an injunction and
detailed directions given in his will, to burn his body after death; his
fervent wish was carried out in his garden at Charleston, S. C., in
1792.
The second to be burned was Mr. Henry Barry, who lived and was cinerated
in the vicinity of Marion, S. C.
In the spring or winter of 1855, Count Pfeil, a German aristocrat, then
proprietor of a farm in the neighborhood of Milwaukee, attempted to
incinerate the corpse of his wife in accordance with her own request. He
accordingly erected a funeral pile in his own yard, on the soil that he
owned. When his intention to burn his wife became known among the
farmers in the vicinity, there was a great uproar; they finally went so
far as to march in a body to the residence of the count, and to declare
that they would mob him if he would dare to execute the cremation. He
then proposed, since the matter was creating a disturbance in the
neighborhood, to transfer the incineration to the lake shore. But the
prejudice of the farmers was so great that they would accept no
compromise. They finally petitioned the governor, and were successful in
obtaining a decree prohibiting the cremation. The count, disgusted at
the lack of our boasted liberty, interred his wife, sold his estate, and
departed for Europe.
The third reduced to ashes in the United States was the Baron de Palm,
prince of the Holy Roman Empire, a native of Augsburg, Bavaria, who was
incinerated in the Le Moyne crematory at Washington, Pa., on the 6th of
December, 1876. The baron had died at the age of sixty-seven at New
York, in May, 1875, and his body had been immediately embalmed and
placed in the receiving vault of the Lutheran cemetery, where it was
kept until the Le Moyne crematorium was finished.
On this day mentioned, many members of the secular press, and
delegations from various scientific and sanitary societies, assembled at
the crematory to witness the cineration of the defunct nobleman; many of
the leading newspapers of this country, and also of France, Germany, and
England, were represented. About 30 invitations had been issued, and
many members of the prominent boards of health were present. The fires
had been started at two o’clock in the morning. On opening the casket it
was found that the weight of the body had been reduced from 175 to 92
pounds. At 27 minutes past eight o’clock, everything being pronounced
ready, the body, lying in the iron cradle and covered with a shroud
(which had previously been soaked in an alum solution, to prevent its
too rapid ignition), and decorated with flowers and evergreen, was
consigned to the retort, which was instantly shut. The actual
temperature of the retort could not be ascertained, as no pyrometer was
at hand; it was, no doubt, a little over 2000° Fahrenheit. Through a
small opening in the cast-iron door, which closed the retort, an
occasional glimpse of the interior was obtained, and the effect of the
heat upon the body observed. In about 15 minutes the aqueous vapor had
all been expelled, leaving the shroud completely charred, but still
retaining its form sufficiently to completely conceal the outlines of
the body. In an hour the outlines of the prominent bones were plainly
visible, and an hour later the incineration was complete, but it was
deemed advisable to continue the heat for four hours from the time the
body had been first placed in the furnace. When last seen, much of the
form of the body had remained, owing to the exclusion of the atmospheric
air. During the burning, the ordinary draft of the furnace was increased
by means of a fan-blower. The body was not removed from the furnace
until some 24 hours had elapsed, to allow the retort to cool. During the
entire process there was no offensive odor, either at the top of the
chimney or elsewhere. The cremation was entirely satisfactory, and
nothing of an unpleasant nature occurred. The residue left, after the
incineration was completed, was three pints of ashes, which were
carefully collected, and, after being sprinkled with perfume, were
deposited in an antique vase, which was delivered to the officers of the
Theosophical Society in attendance, of which the baron was a member.
[Illustration: CREMATORY AT WASHINGTON, PA.]
Forty bushels of coke were consumed in burning Baron Palm, the whole
cost of the operation being $7.04.
In the afternoon a meeting was held at Washington, presided over by J.
Lawson Judson, Esq., at which addresses were made by Colonel Olcott on
the history of cremation; Rev. George P. Hayes (president of the
Washington and Jefferson College) on the bearing of the Bible and
Christianity upon the subject of cremation; Dr. James King on
incineration from a sanitary point of view; Dr. Le Moyne on the general
advantages of cremation; Boyd Crumine, Esq., who spoke of the popular
prejudices against this method of disposing of the dead; and Mr.
Nicholas K. Wade, who alluded to the mechanical necessities of a perfect
cremation.
It is to be regretted that so many of the persons who attended this
incineration had a preconceived notion of the practice, which rendered
them totally unfit to judge of it. Being prejudiced from the beginning,
it is not at all surprising that they should have given unsatisfactory,
highly sensational, and misrepresenting accounts of the affair to the
world; but as Mr. W. Eassie pertinently remarks, the same thing has
occurred in every case of modern cremation up to the present time, and
will, no doubt, continue until the reform is more commonly practiced.
The fourth body that was cremated in the United States was Mrs. Jane
Pitman, from Cincinnati, who was destroyed in the Le Moyne crematorium,
Feb. 6, 1877. The fifth disposed of by fire in America was Dr. Winslow,
of California, who was burned at Salt Lake City on the 31st of July,
1877, in a primitive furnace temporarily erected through his request by
the administrators of his estate. The sixth was a child of Mr. Julius
Kircher, who cremated it in his oven at New York City, in the fall of
1877.
The Le Moyne crematory was closed to the general public Aug. 1, 1884.
After that date no bodies were received by the trustees of the
crematorium, outside of Washington County, for cremation. Bodies were
admitted to the Le Moyne furnace for incineration from all parts of the
country, only in order to carry out Dr. Le Moyne’s view of
reform—keeping the subject before the public. Since the interest
manifested by the people of the United States in the subject of
cremation is speedily growing, other crematories are building where the
public will be accommodated; and as the business increased to such an
extent that it occupied more time than the trustees could possibly
devote to it, they were compelled to limit the use of the crematory.
Hereafter, therefore, no body will be cremated in this furnace, who has
not lived within the county in which Dr. Le Moyne lived and died. And
whereas not one of the persons consumed in this crematorium (except the
owner himself) hailed from Washington County, we may presume that this
pioneer furnace of cremation in America has been closed forever.
Of all the cremations which took place in the Le Moyne furnace, that of
Professor S. D. Gross, M.D., LL.D., attracted the greatest attention. It
was in accordance with his expressed wish that he was committed to the
flames. He more than once declared he had no desire that some “curious
impertinent” should, a hundred years hence, hand around his jawbone for
inspection and comment, and to avoid such a contingency he gave positive
directions for the burning of his body. Cremation as a mode of decently
disposing of the dead could receive approval from no higher source, and
in no more conspicuous manner, than in the disposition of his remains by
that means. Dr. Gross stood without a peer among his fellows; he was
venerated not only by the medical profession of America, but even by
physicians of foreign lands. He was to the profession of medicine what
Charles O’Connor was to the profession of law, and his deliberate choice
of incineration in preference to burial attracted wide and respectful
attention even in so conservative a class as doctors. Perhaps no man
ever drew breath who was better qualified to express an opinion on this
subject. Who is so well entitled to form a correct opinion as the man
who for nearly three-quarters of a century had the closest possible
relations with the dying and the dead? That his example gave a new
impetus to incineration there is no room to doubt. He sought to be a
teacher even after his death; he wanted to benefit his race even in his
decease. Perhaps he believed that others might follow where he led, as
they had done in life. Others will follow his example, and the work go
on until the present custom shall give way to the better one. It may be
long before that time comes, but come it will.
On its way to Washington, Pa., the body was accompanied by Mr. A. H.
Gross and Dr. Horwitz. There were no ceremonies at the incineration, and
the remains were reduced to ashes in two hours. The ashes weighed about
seven pounds, were hermetically sealed in a tin box, and placed in the
coffin in which the body was carried to Washington. On reaching
Philadelphia the coffin was removed to the late residence of Dr. Gross,
and subsequently the ashes were enclosed in a marble urn about three
feet high, unornamented and without inscription, and placed beside the
coffin of Dr. Gross’ late wife in the family vault at Woodlawn Cemetery,
where the Rev. Dr. Charles Currie read the Episcopal burial service.
Voltaire derided his contemporaries by declaring that they could not
protect themselves from the fatal power of the dead. But when the great
Revolution came along, overthrowing the then existing order of things,
and performing a painful but necessary work, the same France that had
listened to the voice of the great philosopher became aware of a means
that shielded from the dangers of the burial-ground—cremation.
On the 28th of March, 1794 (28 Germinal, An II), the deceased republican
Beauvais, physician at Montpellier and member of the National Assembly,
was cremated in the Champ-de-Mars at Paris. The urn containing his ashes
was deposited in the archives of the nation.
In the year V of the republic (1797), a motion by Daubermesnil, to
introduce facultative incineration, providing that the act would take
place outside of Paris, was rejected by the Council of the Five Hundred;
but in 1799 (year VII of the republic), a law was passed by the Seine
department in favor of cremation. Advantage was frequently taken of the
permission granted. At this time the Institute of France offered a prize
of 1500 francs for the best essay on the question whether interment or
cineration is preferable. In consequence, 40 dissertations were sent in,
and all of them demanded optional cremation. The prize was accorded to
two essays: those of MM. Mulot and Amaury-Duval.
From 1856 to 1867, the French cremationists were led by M. Bonneau and
Dr. Caffe; the latter has retained the leadership till the most recent
times, and has done much, by his admirable expositions of the subject,
to popularize cremation in France. One point was brought out by him that
is deserving of mention here, namely, that one tempted to stray from the
path of honor and virtue may be restrained by the presence of ancestral
urns.
Dr. Prosper de Pietra-Santa is to-day the foremost incinerationist in
France, a position to which he does honor and which he well merits. His
essays, first published in _L’Union Medicale_, are the chief
contributions to modern French cremation literature. In 1873, he issued
a complete manual of the subject, in which he deplored the absence of
popular sympathy with incineration in France. But the time will come
when France will recognize the value of the labors of this ardent
reformer, whose name is destined to occupy a most prominent place on the
roll of honor of his native country.
The cremation society of France, the proper designation of which is “La
Societé pour la propagation de la cremation,” was founded in 1880, and
incorporated on the 23d of December of the same year. The late Edmond
About and Leon Gambetta—_L’illustre citoyen que la France a perdu_—were
members of this association. At present the society numbers 570 members.
Its principal object now is to obtain a law permitting cremation; when
this is secured, it will devote its funds to the erection of crematories
and the purchase of inventions which tend to simplify the process.
According to Professor R. Beverly Cole, M.D., for many years past
cremation is not infrequently practiced in Paris, the retorts of the gas
factories being employed for the purpose.
The first and only incineration in Belgium took place in 1798 or 1799,
when a certain M. Yoidel, a resident of Mons, cremated the body of his
child in the yard of his house, and preserved the ashes in a golden urn.
The cremation society of Brussels was founded on the 28th of February,
1882, and numbers now over 600 members.
The cremation society of Holland, which boasts a very complete
organization, extends over the entire kingdom by means of branch
societies. It was founded on the 28th of December, 1874, and
incorporated by the royal decree of Sept. 1, 1875. Over 1500 members
belong to it. The branch societies are located at Amsterdam, Rotterdam,
Nijwegen, Delft, Leyden, Shiedam, Zutphen, Dortrecht, and Harlem. Since
1876 a small periodical is published quarterly by the society of
Holland, containing occasional communications concerning cremation, and
detailing the proceedings of the society. The funds of the association
are in good condition, being mostly invested in government stock.
The first cinerary furnace built in the German Empire was erected at
Dresden, Saxony, and put in use in 1874, when bodies were cremated on
the 9th of October and 6th of November; the wife of Sir Charles Dilke
was one of them. No incineration occurred in this apparatus since that
time, owing to a refusal of the Saxon government to permit the same.
On the 6th and 7th of June, 1876, an international cremation congress,
which was attended by representatives from almost all countries of the
globe, was held at Dresden, and did much to promote the interests of
incineration in Germany. Many important resolutions were adopted, among
others that of forming an international committee to establish a journal
for the propagation of cremation. On June 7, the delegates witnessed the
cineration of several animals in a Siemens apparatus, which completely
reduced the animals experimented upon in one hour and one-half.
[Illustration:
INTERIOR OF WASHINGTON CREMATORY.
The accompanying wood-cut represents that part of the crematory at
Washington, Pa., in which the incineration takes place. The numbers
refer respectively to (1) the incinerator, closed; (2) the fire-box,
open; (3) the ash-pit; and (4) coal-bin. The room, as will be seen,
is needlessly plain, and might with slightly increased expense in
building be made more attractive. An ornamental front concealing the
brick-work and the coal-bin would serve greatly to improve its
appearance. With a slightly different arrangement the fire-box and
ash-pit might be kept continually out of sight. If the incinerator
were turned end for end and made to open from the opposite side,
nothing would be seen by the friends of the deceased but its open
door and rosy light, which are most attractive to the eye.
]
Cremation is now most extensively practiced in Gotha, in the new
crematory established by the municipal council of that city, which was
opened to the public on the 17th of November, 1878.
The first cremation at Gotha came off on the afternoon of the 10th of
December, 1878, when Mr. Stier, a civil engineer whose embalmed body had
awaited the completion of the crematorium for some time, was consigned
to the furnace. Since the establishment of the crematory, over 500
persons have been incinerated at Gotha, many of whom were from foreign
lands,—Russia, England, France, America, etc.
Berlin is the center of the reform in Germany. The Berlin cremation
society has an enormous membership, and counts among its members many
persons of distinction. Altogether the society numbers 534 members, 45
of them being physicians.
Italy may be considered the pioneer of cremation in modern times; for
there, for the first time, incineration was practiced in a systematic
and improved manner, and in no land have the cremationists been so
active and energetic in advocating the reform as in this.
From 1774 till 1874 cremation was advocated by Piattoli, Moleschott,
Coletti, Morelli, Du Jardin, Bertain, Castiglione, Pini, and Polli.
Baron Albert Keller, who, though of German descent, was an Italian
citizen and a resident of Milan, and above all an enthusiastic patron of
cremation, deposited 10,000 lire for the cineration of his own body, and
directed that after defraying the costs of his cremation, the remaining
money should be used to form a fund for the erection of a building
exclusively devoted to the burning of the dead. When this nobleman died
in 1874, his last directions were carried out, and the cremation temple
which bears his name became, in accordance with the testament of the
deceased, the property of the city of Milan.
The Italian clergy opposed incineration but very little. In the capital
of Lombardy a distinguished prelate even declared that the burning of
the dead is in no wise contrary to the dogma of the church; and here one
also can witness how priests accompany the body to be incinerated to the
_Tempio Crematorio_, where they say a last prayer: indeed proof of
tolerance and genuine Christianity.
The Fourth Medical Congress held at Milan on the 5th of September, 1877,
endorsed cremation, stating that it is a veritable scientific progress
which has the advantage over inhumation in corresponding to the
exigencies of hygiene. It also expressed its conviction that
incineration in no way offends against the affection of families for
their defunct, the respect and veneration for human remains, and the
religions principles of the surviving.
The Milan cremation society was organized chiefly through the efforts of
Drs. Pini and Cristoforis, the latter being elected president. As the
Polli-Clericetti apparatus in the crematorium had not given general
satisfaction, the gasometer behind the temple was removed, in 1880, and
suitable wings were built. Two furnaces were then erected, one being
built on the Gorini system, in which the ordinary cremations are
performed, and the other on the Venini system, where cremation of the
remains of persons who died from contagious diseases, and of strangers,
takes place. The building also has three columbaria, one on each side of
the crematorium, and an ordinary one in the vaults below.
Owing to the success of the Milan crematory, crematoria were built at
Padua, Cremona, Varese, Lodi, Brescia, and Rome. A cinerary furnace was
also speedily erected in the hospital at Spezzia, by order of the
Secretary of the Navy; this apparatus was principally used for the
cremation of cholera victims.
The urns holding the ashes of the cremated cannot be removed from an
Italian columbarium except by permission of the prefect of the province.
The urns must be tightly closed, and must bear the name of the deceased
and the date of his or her death. The ashes of only one body may be
placed in an urn, the reverse being strictly forbidden. Every cremation
is registered both by the board of trustees of the crematory and by the
civil authorities.
Looking over the history of cremation in Italy, one needs must gain the
firm conviction that Dr. Gaetano Pini of Milan is the most ardent
cremationist in his native country. Whenever a cremation society was
organized there, the indefatigable doctor was on hand, giving advice and
delivering addresses, increasing the zeal of the advocates of the
reform, and encouraging its timid friends. Really, the amount of labor
performed by this gentleman is truly marvelous. Already the doctor is
reaping the fruits of his philanthropic work. Incineration is steadily
advancing in Italy, and is gaining popular favor rapidly, and Dr. Pini’s
name will be handed down to succeeding generations as that of a
benefactor of his land and people.
Cremation societies now exist at Ancona, Asti, Bologna, Brescia, Capri,
Codogno, Como, Cremona, Demodossola, Florence, Genoa, Intra, Livorno,
Lodi, Milan, Modena, Novara, Padua, Parma, Pavia, Perugia, Piacenza,
Pisa, Pistoga, San Remo, Siena, Turin, Undine, Varese, Venice, and
Verona.
In Spain, where the body of Merino, the man who attempted the
assassination of Queen Isabella, was burned in 1852, cremation has made
as yet but little progress, but even in this stronghold of Catholicism
it can point to friends.
_El Anfiteatro Anatomico Español_ of March 15, 1874, contains an
admirable article on incineration by Don Federico Gilman. Two pamphlets
on the subject also appeared, one by Enrico Salcedo at Valencia in 1876,
the other by L. Gallardo at Madrid in 1878.
The Board of Public Health at Madrid resolved in 1884 to request the
government to make cremation obligatory during epidemics, and to permit
incineration in all cases where the family of a deceased wish to dispose
of him so.
Dr. Cervera, member of the municipal chamber of Madrid, proposed the
erection of a crematory temple in the new cemetery of that city.
At Lisbon, Portugal, cremation is not only optional, but the authorities
of the city have even issued a decree making cremation compulsory in
time of epidemics.
The cremation movement in Switzerland began in the spring of 1874. On
the 20th of December, 1878, the municipal council of Zuerich granted
leave to erect a crematorium on a ceded piece of ground in the new
cemetery of that town. I am sorry to say that a crematory has as yet not
been erected, owing to a lack of funds. This deplorable condition is due
to a great extent to the ridiculously small membership-fee and annual
dues of but two francs; yet, in spite of all this, success is sure to
come in the end, for even this lagging fund grows yearly. The society at
Zuerich now numbers nearly 400 members, and is (the fund dilemma
excepted) in a prosperous condition. Wegmann-Ercolani is its recognized
leader, and must be looked upon as the foremost champion of incineration
in Switzerland.
In Austria the outlook for cremation is not favorable, but one need not
be surprised at that, for Austria is known to be one of the most
conservative countries in the world.
In 1658, when several collections of cinerary urns were discovered in
Old Walsingham, Norfolk, England, Sir Thomas Browne, a learned
physician, came forward with a brilliant dissertation on cremation,
which still holds its rank among standard English literature. This
essay, conspicuous for the erudition displayed, was a singularly
powerful and idiomatic plea for incineration. The next to take up the
righteous cause of cremation in Great Britain was no less a person than
Sir James Y. Simpson, the eminent surgeon of Edinburgh, Scotland. He
demonstrated how easy it would be for his fellow-townsmen to maintain a
fire constantly on the hill of the Hunter’s Bog, near Edinburgh. But he,
too, only had in view the ancient pyre; therefore it is not astonishing
that his efforts were not crowned with success.
It appears that about the year 1844, the sanction of the authorities of
the city of London was obtained for the cremation, within the City of
London Gas Works, of the dead of Bridewell Hospital; an arrangement was
also concluded with the city authorities for the incineration of bodies
of dead prisoners, and of the condemned meat and offal of the markets.
The project, however, met with so much opposition from certain churchmen
that it fell into abeyance.
In modern times the gong of cineration was first struck by Sir Henry
Thompson, who had become enamored with incineration at the Vienna
Exposition, and who earnestly treated of cremation in a brilliant paper,
“The Treatment of the Body after Death,” in _The Contemporary Review_
for January, 1874. This article, as might be expected, elicited great
popular interest, much approval from all classes of the public, and some
vigorous opposition. It was replied to, in the February issue of the
same periodical, by Mr. Philip H. Holland, the Medical Inspector of
Burials for England and Wales, whose statements and arguments, adroit
though some of them were, were properly refuted in the succeeding number
of the _Review_. Sir Henry fortified his arguments by citing some
experiments with the bodies of lower animals, which he had burned, with
little cost and no inconvenience, in a Siemens furnace.
For many years prior to 1874, Dr. Lord, health officer for Hampstead,
continued to urge the practical necessity for the introduction of
incremation.
The Cremation Society of England was founded on the 13th of January,
1874, and no sooner was it established than letters of encouragement
poured in from all parts of Great Britain, and there was a great influx
of new members and subscribers to its declaration. Every cremationist
must feel proud to know that among those who, under Sir Henry Thompson’s
able presidency, founded the society, were such men of distinction as
the late Shirley Brooks and Anthony Trollope, the well-known novelist.
The English Cremation Society was founded for the propagation of the
tenets of incineration, not for trading purposes, as may have been
supposed by some incredulous, ill-disposed, or ignorant minds.
[Illustration: THE CREMATORIUM AT GOTHA.]
In 1878, the society purchased an acre of ground in a secluded part of
St. John, Woking, in Surrey, especially adapted by position for the
purpose, and erected thereon a building, with an apparatus of the most
approved kind, for effecting cremation of the dead. After some
deliberation, the system of Professor Gorini, of Lodi, in Italy, was
adopted, since it was considered the best for the site, inasmuch as no
supply of gas is required to insure combustion, but only coal or wood.
It is to be regretted, that owing to a lack of funds, only the furnace
could be built, which standing alone in spacious fields, must present
rather a dreary aspect; must, I take it, appear far too realistic. It is
to be hoped that the society will, by means of large bequests or
sufficient contributions from the public, be placed in a position to
roof over the furnace, and to erect a chapel or a hall in front of it,
so as to accommodate the friends and mourners. The apparatus was next
tested by an experiment, which consisted of the burning of a portion of
the carcass of a horse weighing 140 pounds, that was consumed in two
hours, at a cost of a very small quantity of fuel. The ashes resulting
from the combustion were perfectly white, and weighed a little under six
pounds; not the slightest odor could be detected in the closest
neighborhood of the furnace, or even with the doors of the crematory
chamber open; and there was, moreover, no escape of smoke from the
chimney. The success of the system was established, and the possibility
of cremation without offence completely demonstrated.
Since that time the place has been maintained in perfect order, but has
not been used, owing to a doubt raised soon after the date referred to,
as to the legality of adopting the process in England. A deputation of
the cremation society waited upon the Home Secretary on the 20th of
March, 1879, with a view of representing to the government their own
wishes in respect to the crematory at Woking. The Home Secretary
admitted that the proposed practice was unaffected by existing law, but
he had been advised that inasmuch as the registration of deaths in her
Majesty’s country had always been associated with burial, he was
constrained to conclude that cremation must first be approved by
Parliament, and that if persisted in, he saw no other course open than
to legislate against it. He further advised the council to introduce a
short bill into the House of Lords, and not to rely upon the opinions of
Queen’s counsel which had been obtained by them affirming that it might
be practiced. Thus the so-called Cameron bill originated. It is strange
that England, so far advanced in political freedom, should yet be so
deficient in intellectual liberty. Among the English there are doubtless
as many unbiased investigators as among any other nation, but both the
representatives of the people and the government present the deplorable
picture of solicitous embarrassment, and maintain an obstinate
conservatism when any question involving religion or ecclesiastical
rites comes up before them; any act that is not seconded by the Church
of England is rejected through non-support; any abuse which the
Established Church desires to retain cannot be removed. That this holds
true is evinced by the repeated failure of the bill permitting a widower
to marry his sister-in-law, notwithstanding that even the royal family
desire to contract such a marriage. Finally the bill was accepted by the
House of Commons, but has been since stubbornly rejected by the House of
Lords.
Dr. Cameron’s cremation bill—providing legal sanction for the adoption
of cremation in Great Britain—was submitted to the House of Commons some
time in 1884—I do not remember the exact date. This bill, which asked
but for permissive incineration, a privilege that is readily granted in
all civilized countries of the globe, was rejected on the second reading
by a vote of 149 to 79. It is a solace to know that the minority
included the scientific men, men of such world-wide fame as Sir Lyon
Playfair, Sir John Lubbock, and many others. Mr. Gladstone, zealous in
his endeavors to serve the Church, brought the influence of the
Government to bear against the bill, pleading in excuse that it was
contrary to public opinion. Every well-balanced mind must conceive
instantly that the Premier might have reserved the expression of the
public will and opinion for Parliament, but that he wished to oblige the
Church of England. That Englishmen regard cremation from the same
standpoint as other people is proven by the 79 favorable votes that were
cast.
Mr. W. Eassie delivered excellent addresses on cremation before the
first congress of the Sanitary Institute of Great Britain, held in 1877,
at Leamington, and before the congress at Manchester, in 1879, when he
exhibited the model of the Polli-Clericetti apparatus. In March, 1879,
the question of cremation was also presented to the House of Lords, but
without practical results.
In August, 1880, Sir T. Spencer Wells, late president of the Royal
College of Surgeons of England, and Surgeon to the Queen’s Household,
read a masterly paper on incineration, entitled “Cremation or Burial,”
at the meeting of the British Medical Association, at Cambridge. At its
conclusion a memorial was drawn up, addressed to the Home Secretary, and
praying that permission be granted for the practice of cremation. The
address was as follows:—
“We, the undersigned members of the British Medical Association,
assembled at Cambridge, disapprove the present custom of burying the
dead, and desire to substitute some mode which shall rapidly resolve the
body into its component elements by a process which cannot offend the
living, and may render the remains absolutely innocuous. Until some
better mode is devised we desire to promote that usually known as
cremation. As the process can now be carried out without anything
approaching to nuisance, and as it is not illegal, we trust the
government will not oppose the practice, when convinced that proper
regulations are observed and ampler guarantees of death having occurred
from natural causes are obtained than are now required for burial.”
This memorial was signed by Sir T. Spencer Wells and many other
prominent physicians and surgeons, altogether by over one hundred
members of the association.
On Jan. 13, 1884, an incident occurred that speedily wrought a
metamorphosis of the whole question regarding the legality of cineration
in the United Kingdoms. There is an eccentric physician of South Wales,
who is known as Dr. Price. He claims to be the nineteenth century
representative of the ancient Druids. His costume is green trousers,
white smock coat, and fox-skin head-covering. He is an educated
physician and a member of the British Medical Association. The Druids of
old burned their dead, and the child of Dr. Price having died, he
determined to dispose of her remains by cremation. He retired at
nightfall to a hill-top, where, placing the corpse in a cask of
petroleum, he applied the torch. The burning aroused the populace, who,
on nearing the spot, discovered its purpose. Amid much excitement the
charred remains were rescued, and the Druid doctor placed under arrest.
He was tried at the Glamorganshire Assizes, Cardiff, and acquitted. Sir
James Stephen, the learned judge, when charging the grand jury at the
trial, stated that Lord Justice Fry agreed in the views about to be
expressed by him. He reviewed elaborately all the authorities bearing on
the case, and, after discussing the methods of disposing of the dead in
ancient Europe, failed to discover any law, ancient or modern, which
forbids cremation, providing it be done in such a manner as to cause no
nuisance.
This decision, of course, rendered the society free to act as it
pleased. Advertisements were immediately put in the newspapers, to say
that anybody could be cremated who would adhere to the rules formulated
by the society. Under these circumstances the cremation society felt it
a duty to indicate, without delay, those safeguards which they deemed it
essential to associate with the proceeding in order to prevent the
destruction of a body which might have met death by unfair means. They
were aware that the chief practical objection which can be urged against
the employment of cremation consists in the opportunity which it offers,
apart from such precautions, for removing the traces of poison or other
injury which are retained by an undestroyed body, and therefore framed
the sequent rules, which still hold good:—
“1. An application in writing must be made by the friends or executors
of the deceased,—unless it has been made by the deceased person himself
during life,—stating that it was the wish of the deceased to be cremated
after death. 2. A certificate must be sent in by one qualified medical
man at least, who attended the deceased until the time of death,
unhesitatingly stating that the cause of death was natural, and what the
cause was. 3. If no medical man attended during the illness, autopsy
must be made by a medical officer appointed by the society, or no
cremation can take place. These conditions being complied with, the
council of the society reserve the right in all cases of refusing
permission for the performance of the cremation, and, in the event of
permitting it, will offer every facility for its accomplishment in the
best manner.”
The Cremation Society of England owes much to its indefatigable honorary
secretary, Mr. William Eassie, C.E., whose propaganda for incineration
is not confined to the British Isles, but extends all over the world. I
am sure that his name will always head the list of those who have
promoted cremation in the country of Shakespeare, and in this respect
even place him over and above that illustrious surgeon and physicist,
Sir Henry Thompson. I would not, I am certain, experience the least
astonishment should I hear that Mr. Eassie sent some of his valuable
essays on cineration to some savage in Africa, for instance the king of
Dahomey, and that the royal negro, pleased with the idea, instantly had
several hundred of his subjects cremated before him, which, being a
complete success in every respect, led his dusky majesty to swear by all
the holy idols with which he is familiar that he too should be reduced
to ashes after death.
Public sentiment reflected in the press of the United Kingdoms has been
almost unanimously in favor of cremation. Journals of all classes,
religious, fashionable, popular, Whig, Radical, or Tory, from the _Court
Circular_ to the _Rock_, from the _Times_ to _Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper_,
have by a vast majority pronounced in its favor.
The Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers have appointed a committee with
the view of considering the propriety of erecting a crematorium at
Ilford.
The oldest case of cremation on record in Great Britain was that of a
widow, Mrs. Pratt, of George Street, Hanover Square, London. The lady
was burned, in obedience to directions given in her testament, in the
new graveyard adjoining Tyburn turnpike, on the 26th of September, 1769.
[Illustration:
THE CREMATORIUM AT MILAN.
(From Dr. Pini’s work.)
]
On the 8th and 9th of October, 1882, the wife of Captain Hanham, and his
mother, Lady Hanham, wife of the late Sir James Hanham, Bart., of Dean’s
Court, Dorset, were cremated in a cheap temporary crematory, devised by
Mr. Richards of Wincanton. The furnace had been built under the
supervision of Captain Hanham himself. The coffins were placed on iron
plates, and fire bricks above the furnace, a chimney 22 feet high
furnishing the draught. The process lasted two hours, and was successful
in every respect.
A year later, on the 7th of December, 1883, the captain, Thomas C.
Hanham, was reduced to ashes in the same apparatus at his residence in
Manstone, Dorsetshire. The incineration was public, and in conformity
with the last testamentary dispositions of the deceased. The cremation
was accomplished in 9 hours and 40 minutes. The ashes were deposited in
the family mausoleum.
The Danish Cremation Society at Copenhagen was founded in 1881, and is
in a flourishing condition. It has several branch societies in the
provinces. Soon after its organization it numbered 1500 members; it now
counts 1800 members, among them 120 physicians. Several attempts were
made in Denmark to legalize incineration, but in vain: as there is,
however, no law prohibiting the act, the society is determined to
imitate the example of England, to execute incineration at their own
risk, and await further legislation.
Mr. Per Lindell, a civil engineer, did much to popularize cremation in
Sweden. For many years he treated of the subject in the columns of the
_Norden_, a journal edited by him. It was through his influence that the
Swedish Cremation Society was established on the 31st of May, 1882, at
Stockholm, under the presidency of Colonel E. Klingenstierna. At present
the society numbers from 700 to 800 members. There is no law forbidding
incineration; the prospects are therefore very good. As soon as
sufficient money is on hand a crematory will be erected and put in use.
A society, affiliated with the central one, was recently organized at
Gothenburg.
In the neighborhood of the new cemetery, St. Francisco Xavier, at Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil, a large space of ground has been assigned for the
erection of a crematory temple. Incineration will be practiced there in
order to lessen, if possible, the alarming rate of mortality in that
unhealthy place. Dr. A. Vinelli deserves great credit for his admirable
articles in support of cremation in the _Revista Medica de Rio de
Janeiro_ of 1878.
In the Argentine Republic, Mexico, and Uruguay, a steady movement is on
foot in favor of the reform. The authorities in Mexico have already
granted permission for the construction of a crematorium on the Gorini
pattern.
It is said that the government of Venezuela has also decided to erect a
crematory, wherein to reduce to innocuous ashes the bodies of persons
deceased of yellow fever.
The idea to propagate cremation at Valparaiso, Chili, originated with
the Lessing Lodge of Free Masons, which, on the 6th of August, 1881,
directed a circular to the other Masonic lodges of the city, requesting
them to send representatives to a preliminary meeting. This meeting came
off on the 3d of December of the same year. Cremation was freely
discussed from every standpoint, but on the whole the meeting was not
followed by any practical result.
On the last of December, 1881, a proclamation to organize a cremation
society was published in the journal _Il Mercurio_ by the committee
having the matter in charge. On the 20th of May, 1882, the Cremation
Society of Chili was formed under the presidency of Señor O. Malvini.
This society is in a flourishing condition, and now numbers over 200
members.
Towards the end of 1883 a committee to organize a cremation society at
Alexandria, Egypt, was formed by M. Lumel, who, unfortunately, died in
the same year. The committee, however, is still in existence, and is at
present occupied in realizing the ideas of M. Lumel. At Cairo Messrs.
Titus Figari and Cesare Praga labor to found a cremation society.