_SIR HENRY THOMPSON AND CREMATION._
The mode of disposing of the remains of the dead is naturally one
upon which doctors may be expected to have a good deal to say. As
guardians of the health of the living, the dangers and diseases
which the material remnants of our deceased friends may occasion the
living must concern the medical profession. The increasingly dense
aggregation of human beings in great towns has impressed the last
two generations with the necessity of doing something to prevent
disease from spreading through delay in burial, and the use of
unsuitable burial-places. But for the most part the efforts which
have been made have only taken the form of pushing the evil a little
further off; and a little mathematical calculation will show that the
present cemeteries must soon be surrounded by habitations, and some
fresh arrangements will have to be made. To cope with these evils
the practice of cremation has been vigorously advocated, as a more
rational and healthy mode of disposing of the dead, by the Cremation
Society, of which Sir HENRY THOMPSON is the President.
This distinguished surgeon is the son of Mr. Henry Thompson of
Framlingham, Suffolk, having been born on August 6, 1820. It is
stated that Mr. Thompson objected to his son’s studying medicine,
believing that the profession had a sceptical tendency. Thus it was
not till he had reached the age of twenty-one, and became entitled
to some property in his own right, that the subject of this chapter
was free to pursue his chosen profession. He studied chiefly at
University College, London, and also in Paris. He obtained the M.B.
degree at London University in 1851, and the Fellowship of the
College of Surgeons in 1853, and in the same year was appointed
assistant-surgeon at University College Hospital. In 1852 and again
in 1860 he won the Jacksonian Prize at the College of Surgeons for
essays on subjects to which he had devoted much of his life-work.
The two works on which Sir Henry Thompson’s reputation among the
medical profession chiefly rests are his “Clinical Lectures on
Diseases of the Urinary Organs,” and his “Practical Lithotomy and
Lithotrity,” both of which have gone through numerous editions;
but he has also written many smaller treatises on allied subjects,
and his articles in Holmes’s “System of Surgery” almost reach the
dimensions of separate works. His practice has grown to large
dimensions in this department, and in 1877 he was able to publish
a list with particulars of 500 cases in which he had performed
operations for stone in the bladder, being he believed the largest
ever published by an operator. The unrivalled extent, also, to which
he was enabled to utilise the experience of other surgeons, by their
communication of their cases to him, made his book on lithotomy and
lithotrity of unique value.
Sir Henry Thompson is known to have made very large use of the
operation devised by Civiale of Paris, in 1817, for crushing
stones into powder or gravel, rendering it unnecessary to perform
the serious operation of lithotomy. Civiale’s first operations of
this kind were performed in 1824, and to him the introduction and
successful application of the method is due. The operation has been
largely improved of late years, and much of this is due to Sir
Henry Thompson. Owing to his well-known skill in this department
of practice, he was called in to the late King of the Belgians in
1863, and succeeded in affording him relief by operation, when the
most distinguished Continental surgeons had failed. The honour of
knighthood was subsequently conferred upon Mr. Thompson by Queen
Victoria in recognition of his great services to her uncle. About
this time Sir Henry became full surgeon to University College
Hospital. He has since relinquished active work at the hospital,
becoming Consulting Surgeon and Emeritus Professor.
Sir Henry has become known to the public in connection with several
important social and religious questions. One which excited much
controversy was his letter to Professor Tyndall in regard to prayer
for the sick, which appeared in the _Contemporary Review_ in 1872.
After classifying the various objects of prayer, and considering
the possibility of testing the actual results of prayer, he says:
“There appears to be one source from a study of which the absolute
calculable value of prayer (I speak with the utmost reverence) can
almost certainly be ascertained. I mean its influence in affecting
the course of a malady, or in averting the fatal termination. For
it must be admitted that such an important influence manifestly
either does, or does not exist. If it does, a careful investigation
of diseased persons by good pathologists, working with this end
seriously in view, must determine the fact. The fact determined,
it is simply a matter of further careful clinical observation to
estimate the extent or degree in which prayer is effective. And
the next step would be to consider how far it is practicable to
extend this benefit among the sick and dying. And I can conceive few
inquiries which are more pregnant with good to humanity when this
stage has been arrived at.”
The practical method proposed for testing the question was that
a single ward or hospital, under the care of first-rate doctors,
containing patients suffering from diseases best understood,
should be made a subject of special prayer by the whole body of
the faithful for three or five years, and that at the end of that
time the mortality should be compared with the past rates, and also
with that of other leading hospitals during the same period. But
the experiment was never tried, owing to the storm of obloquy and
controversy with which the proposal was greeted, in which scant
regard was paid to the evident good faith of the proposer.
Sir Henry Thompson soon came before the public in a new light. Having
failed to get people to pray systematically for the sick, he next
attempted to induce them to burn their dead, a proceeding which,
as it appeared, was little less shocking to many than the former
proposition had proved. The first paragraph of his first article in
the _Contemporary Review_ (January 1874), since reprinted, with a
second on the same subject, struck a sensational key.
“After death! The last faint breath had been noted, and another
watched for so long, but in vain. The body lies there, pale and
motionless, except only that the jaw sinks slowly but perceptibly.
The pallor visibly increases, becomes more leaden in hue, and the
profound tranquil sleep of death reigns where just now were life and
movement. Here then begins the eternal rest.
“Rest! no, not for an instant. Never was there greater activity
than at this moment exists in that still corpse. Activity, but of a
different kind to that which was before. Already a thousand changes
have commenced. Forces innumerable have attacked the dead. The
rapidity of the vulture, with its keen scent for animal decay, is
nothing to that of nature’s ceaseless agents now at full work before
us.”
After explaining the process of animal decomposition, and describing
the various modes of disposing of the dead between which it is
necessary to choose, the writer went on to insist that our present
mode of burial is certainly injurious to health either now or in
the future, and constitutes in reality a social sin of no small
magnitude. A curious aspect of this question was brought to light by
the mention of the large annual importation of bones for manuring
the soil, while we bury a vast quantity of human bones annually, too
deep in the earth to be useful agriculturally. The evils of burial
customs and expenditure were also dwelt upon, and then the new, yet
old plan of cremation was advocated, practically following nature’s
indication, and hastening the process so as to make it safe, without
unpleasantness. It was suggested that funeral rites could be most
appropriately associated with cremation. “Ashes to ashes, dust to
dust” would express a literal and evident fact. The condition of many
churchyards, past and present, has given conclusive evidence that the
present mode of burial consigns moist remains to water or damp, and
generates loathsome effluvia, too often causing severe disease in
those living near.
This subject is still one of controversy, though it has emerged into
“practical politics” by reason of a decision by Mr. Justice Stephen
that cremation is not illegal under the present law. Sir Henry
Thompson continues his vigorous efforts in favour of cremation.
Sir Henry has also distinguished himself as an advocate for great
moderation and even total abstinence in the use of intoxicating
liquors, stating that without them he can do his work better and with
more zest, and that his constitution has improved under abstinence.
Among his lighter works, “Food and Feeding” is pleasant and popular;
while a still later display of varied literary tastes is seen in
a medical novel, “Charley Kingston’s Aunt,” published under the
pseudonym of Pen Oliver.
The artistic tastes and attainments of Sir Henry Thompson are
well known. He studied painting under Elmore and Alma Tadema,
and has frequently exhibited at the Royal Academy. He has a very
fine collection of blue and white Nankin china, of which a quarto
catalogue has been published.