14 JANUARY 1832, Page 10

BURYING ALIVE—DISSEMINATION OF CONTAGION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.

81k—A considerable time since, I was favoured by your inserting in the Spec- tator some remarks on Vaccination, from my humble pen ; and I have reason to believe those observations have been beneficial to my fellow-creatures. May I hope you will extend a similar attention to what I ant now writing, on a subject far more important even than the filrmer? In the Spectator for the 2.4th of December last, in the notice on the Cholera, you inform the public, that the Magistrates of Durham have ordered that the corpse of every person who dies of that disease shall be buried within twelve hours. This is very appalling intelligence : are we, in addition to the danger aperishine, by a plague, to endure the more horrible risk of interment while still alive ?Lan end so deplorable, that, in comparison, to perish by the pestilence Would be indulgence. To revive from a crisis between death and a renovation of life; and to awake to the unutterable horror of being conscious of such a situa- tion !—the idea is too terrible for contemplation when in health ; but when at- tacked by illness, the apprehension of such an infliction would be sufficient to drive the miserable wretches to insanity. And yet it is to be feared, if every -person who does not evince any sign of life during so short a period is to be con- signed to the grave, after being fa,stened down hastily in an enclosure of wood (according to the absurd method of modern interment), hundreds of individuals, if this pestilence extends its ravages, may suffer this horrible doom; for all peo- ple conversant with the differences in the appearance of death under opposite

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circumstances, declare, that in many cases it s impossible to pronounce that the vital spark is extinct until the commencement of decay is evident. Surely, be- fore a decree like this was given forth, it was absolutely necessary to have fixed on dome process, to be performed previous to the removal of the supposed dead, which should have rendered these horrors impossible; and satisfactory infor- mation to that effect ought to have accompanied an order of so terrifying a de- .scription. The public are directed to cherish a "a cheerful state of mind." Truly, the prospect of being buried alive is a strange cordial to promote cheer- fables& It is not, I trust, a vain hope that the Board of Health will take this

frightful subject into consideration, and obviate, by some expedient which shall be perfectly certain, the possibility of such a horrid fate. A numerous class of your readers, I am persuaded, would be obliged by the information—of what na- ture are the means the Magistrates must employ to compel submission to the before-mentioned order.

No doubt, an effectual guard against premature interment might easily be de- vised, and which would also prevent any attempts to repeat the atrocities lately committed in order to dispose of bodies to anatomists: for instance, to establish such a measure of safety, it would only be necessary to appoint medical officers, in number according to the population of parishes or districts, and who might be medical gentlemen residing therein. As professional men, these might be solemnly engaged and sworn in to the office; and should be obliged thereby to open and examine internally, in a decent nutuner, at the dwelling of the de- ceased, at a convenient time after the death, every corpse before interment, taking minutes at the same time of the cause of its dissolution ; and further to prevent evasion, the process should be attested by proper witnesses ; and no minister of religion allowed to perform the obsequies of any individual until a certificate to that effect was produced ; and a register should be kept of the cir- cumstances of the death, and regularly delivered at some place appointed for the deposit. With a system of this in operation, no anatomist could mistake, or allege he mistook, the body of a murdered persen for a corpse that had been legally interred; and it would also become a saltitary check on the neglect or cruelty of overseers of the poor, and in many other respects prevent much misery and crime. Such a general practice would not preclude any further dissection authorized by the desire of persons when living, or permitted by the Legislature at the option of their families. The remuneration to medical inspectors might be made by a fixed fee, according to the station of the deceased, and de.. frayed from the parish rates in the ease of paupers. Let it be remembered, that the remains of the Sovereigns of Great Britain, and the Royal Family in general, are always thus examined, and therefore nothing dis- graceful can possibly attach to the proposal; nor, beyond the prejudiced opposi- tion that every alteration or improvement in old customs is certain to encounter, could objections be made without exciting suspicious that there was something to conceal.

Stair me to request a little further indulgence, while I entreat the notice of those who possess influence and power to a circumstance which is strangely overlooked, though fraught with very serious danger, respecting the spreading throughout the kingdom a contagious malady. This is, the number, unpre- cedented in modern times, of wandering paupers, that traverse the country in all directions. These consist for the most part of three classes—agricultural labourers out of employ, and mechanics in a similar melancholy predicament, all honestly desirous to earn their livelihood by industry, but who, having set out front -the place of their ftbode without the means of travelling, are soon re- duced to a state of obsolete destitution, and obliged to subsist on alms. Ano- ther class, it is to he feared, are persons who have been more or less implicated in the riots, or suspected of I ici

Chiruryus" on the Anatomy Bill in our next Number.]