Report of the Improvement Committee of the Hon. the Commissioners of Sewers of the City of London, on city burial-places : with the report of the Medical Officer of Health thereupon.

  • City of London (England). Commissioners of Sewers. Improvement Committee.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Improvement Committee of the Hon. the Commissioners of Sewers of the City of London, on city burial-places : with the report of the Medical Officer of Health thereupon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    amount of animal matter which rots beneath the surface. The vaults beneath churches are, in many instances, similarly overloaded with materials of putrefaction, and the atmosphere, which should be kept pure and without admixture for the living, is hourly tainted with the foetid emanations of the dead. For the most part, houses are seen to rise on all sides in immediate contiguity to the burial- ground, forbidding the possibility of even such ventilation as might diminish the evil; and the in- habitants of such houses complain bitterly, as they well may, of the inconvenience which they suffer from this confined and noxious atmosphere. “ With respect to burial in vaults, which prevails to a very great and dangerous extent in this City, I may observe that, among persons who are ill- informed on the subject, there exist erroneous notions as to the preservation of bodies under these circumstances. They are supposed, from the com- plete closure of their coffins, to remain unchanged for ages, like the embalmed bodies of Egypt and Peru; or, at least, if perhaps they undergo some interior and invisible change (as the chrysalis within its sheath) yet to suffer no interference with their general arrangement, no breach in the compactness of their envelope. Nothing can be less correct than this supposition. “ It is unnecessary that I should detail to you the process of decay, as it occurs within the charnel- house, nor need I inquire for your information