A quartercentury of cremation in North America ; being a report of progress in the United States and Canada for the last quarter of the nineteenth century; to which have been added, as an afterthought, a few words about the advance in Europe during the same period.

  • Cobb, John Storer.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A quartercentury of cremation in North America ; being a report of progress in the United States and Canada for the last quarter of the nineteenth century; to which have been added, as an afterthought, a few words about the advance in Europe during the same period. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    human body to ashes by means of fire will still be obnoxious. All the arguments and facts which may be presented to show the baneful effects of inhuma- tion may be admitted or, at least, not controverted. It may even be accorded that, in remote periods of time and in far distant lands, cremation may be well enough — nay, even a necessity. But when the ques- tion is brought so near home as to embrace the possi- bility of subjecting one's own body or, what is a much surer and more exacting test, that of the dearly be- loved friend, to the operation of fire, there is at once a shrinking and recoiling from the thought. And it must be accepted as a fact that, in most instances, this repugnance arises from reverence for the departed and an affectionate regard for their memory. The sentiment may be accounted a mistaken one; it is, nevertheless, entitled to the utmost respect. Burial in the earth is a method of disposition with which all have been familiar from the period of their thoughts' inception. The processes carried on within the grave are therefore likely to escape observance. If reflection upon the subject does cause this humiliating procedure, with all its painful and revolting acces- sories, to come before the mind, it has to be instantly put aside. Immediately, however, that a new method is proposed these features are what first engage the attention. And how different is the result when we dwell upon the body's disintegration by means of heat. One who has witnessed the operation writes about it with an approbation so earnest that the reader of his words would think him an ardent partisan of the cause. Yet he is a Christian clergyman who sacrificed his feelings to the sacredness which attaches to the request of a dying friend. Against his inclination he accom- panied the body to the Washington crematorium; and,