A supplementary report on the results of a spiecal [sic] inquiry into the practice of interment in towns made at the request of Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department / by Edwin Chadwick.

Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A supplementary report on the results of a spiecal [sic] inquiry into the practice of interment in towns made at the request of Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department / by Edwin Chadwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    miasma from decomposing animal remains in general only shows that habit combined with associations of profit often prevents or blunts the perceptions of the most offensive remains. Men with shrunken figures, and the appearance of premature age, and a peculiar cadaverous aspect, have attended as witnesses to attest their own perfectly sound condition, as evidence of the salubrity of their particular occupations. Generally, however, men with robust figures and the hue of health are singled out and presented as exam- ples of the general innocuousness of the offensive miasma generated in the process in which they are engaged. Professor Owen men- tions an instance of a witness of this class, a very robust man, the keeper of a dissecting room, who appeared to be in florid health (which however proved not to be so sound as he himself conceived), who professed perfect unconsciousness of having sustained any in- jury from the occupation, and there was no reason to doubt that he really was unconscious of having sustained or observed any ; but it turned out, on inquiry, that he had always had the most offen- sive and dangerous work done by an inferior assistant; and tl 1 at within his time he had had no less than eight assistants, and that every one had died, and some of these had been dissected in the theatre where they had served. So, frequently, the sextons of grave- yards, who are robust men, attest the salubrity of the place; but on examining the inferiors, the grave-diggers, it appears, where there is much 1o do, and even in some of the new cemeteries, that as a class they are unhealthy and cadaverous, and, notwith- standing precautions, often suffer severely on re-opening graves, and that their lives are frequently cut short by the work.* There are very florid and robust undertakers; but, as a class, and with all the precautions they use, they are unhealthy; and a master undertaker, of considerable business in the metropolis, states, that in nine cases out often the undertaker who has much to do with the corpse is a person of cadaverous hue, and you may almost always tell him whenever you see him.” Felimongers, tanners, or the workmen employed in the preparation of hides, have been in- stanced by several medical writers as a class who, being exposed to emanations from the skins when in a state of putrefaction, enjoy good health; but it appears that all the workmen are not. engaged in the process when the skins arc in that state, and that those of them who are, as a class, do experience the common consequences. The whole class of butchers, who are much in the open air and have very active exercise, and who are generally robust and have florid health, are commonly mentioned as instances in proof of the innocuousness of the emanations from the remains in slaughter- houses ; but master butchers admit that the men exclusively ViJe also, Traite ties Maladies des Artisans, par Patissier, d’apres llamazzini, 8 vo. Paris, 1822, p. 151, sur les Fossoyeurs : “Le sort des fossoyeurs est tres deplorable, leur face est livide, leur aspect triste : je n’en ai vn aucun devenir vieux.” Also pp. 108-9, 137, 144.