USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Old Copp's Hill and Burial Ground : with historical sketches, March 1, 1882 > Part 9
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The committee advertised for a lot for a cemetery, but failed to find one which was satisfactory. Referring to two cemeteries which are about to be started at different points from the city, the committee are of the opinion that the wants of the citizens will be well served by their establishment, and recommend that no further action be taken upon the subject of purchasing for a cemetery to be controlled by the city. The committee recommend that a lot of land, owned by the city, situated on the borders of Dedham, be set apart for a cemetery, to be used when the wants of the population shall require additional burial facilities, and that an appro- priation be made for ornamenting the grounds with forest trees, in anticipation of its future use for that purpose. This report was accepted.
In 1851 Mount Hope Cemetery was established by a pri-
1 City Document No. 39, 1850.
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CITY DOCUMENT NO. 96.
vate corporation, organized under the General Statutes, Chap. 28, and was consecrated June 24, 1852.
In his inaugural address, 1851, Mayor Bigelow expressed his satisfaction that during the preceding year private enterprise had, in a great measure, remedied the wants of the community in regard to suitable burial accommodations, by the establishment of extensive and well-located cemeteries in Malden and Dorchester. 1
In his inaugural address, in 1853, Mayor Seaver says : -
The practice of interments of the dead within the limits of the city has been a subject of anxiety for several years past, and I think the time has arrived when the question should be seriously considered as to what measures are proper to be taken to prohibit it. Many intelligent medical gentlemen are of opinion that the public health demands such pro- hibition, and it has been hoped that the increasing disposition among the citizens to provide burial lots in the vicinity of the city will, at no very distant day, lead to the discontinuance of this practice. The subject has, I am aware, many difficulties, but I trust that some measures may be adopted to remove the evil without too great an in- fringement on private rights, or the wounding of private feeling.
On the 28th of February an order was passed directing the Mayor to petition the Legislature for an act authorizing the Mayor and Aldermen to prohibit any and all interments within the limits of the city proper when they shall deem it expedient to do so.
On the 14th of March an order was passed directing the City Registrar to grant no license to bury or inter any dead body in either of the following-named burial grounds, on and after the first day of the following July, viz. : the Hull-street Burial-ground, the Granary Burial-ground, the Chapel Burial-ground, and the tombs under Trinity Church, Christ's Church, and Park-street Church.
Later in the year the wardens and vestry of Trinity and Christ's Church petitioned to be exempted from the terms of the order. Their petitions were referred to a committee who reported that the order was wise and judicious and recom- mended that the petitioners have leave to withdraw.
In 1854 the proprietors of St. Matthew's Church peti- tioned that interments might be prohibited in the cemetery of that church. The petition was referred to a committee, who reported, July 24, " That their attention has been par- ticularly called to the subject of intramural interments in those places in the city which were excepted from the order of the Board of 1853, and they are fully satisfied that intra- mural interments should be abridged within this city as far as possible, and that no measure appertaining to the public
1 Woodlawn and Mount Hope.
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health is so important as this." They recommended the passage of an order closing certain burial-grounds. The report was recommitted.
The committee again reported, July 31, taking stronger grounds than before against the practice of intramural inter- ments ; they say : -
The committee have in no way changed their views in regard to interments in the City of Boston. The territory is so limited, and the increase of population such, as to render it morally certain that the accu- mulation of decomposing human bodies at the ordinary rate of mortality, if burials are continued, must prove essentially prejudicial to the living. Aside from the combined testimony of all intelligent medical men, to the evil consequences of stowing decaying animal remains under churches and in tombs, in compact settlements, it is the common senti- ment of this community, freely expressed, that burials should no longer be tolerated in Boston. Where an opinion is advanced in opposition to this philosophical conclusion, it is generally based on some reference to a property interest. Throughout Great Britain measures have been energetically adopted to prevent further interments in populous cities. If, by the increase of a terrible nuisance, the people cannot occupy residences contiguous to these vast receptacles of the dead, in sev- eral sections of the city, on account of the offensive odors perpetually wafted from them through the air, - a condition of things that may cer- tainly be anticipated, -it is an act of humanity, as well as official obliga- tion, to prevent a calamity which has had its origin from such a source in other cities. A train of injurious effects arising from fœtid exhala- tions and destructive gases emanating from putrid animal matter might be collected in melancholy array, to sustain the position taken by the committee ; but the fact that a simple declaration of the facts set forth in the history of intramural burials are all that the circumstances of the case require. Several rural cemeteries in the vicinity, distinguished for beauty of location, are accessible at all seasons, and at moderate prices. A large majority of citizens, bereft of their friends by death, prefer these tastefully prepared grounds, where no encroachments inci- dent to the march of business would hereafter disturb the sacred re- mains of those deposited there. A knowledge, however, of the conse- quences that may follow a continuance of the custom of intramural burials in the midst of a thickly inhabited city must obviously, upon the broad principle of self-preservation, be abandoned, and it will redound to the official credit of the Board of Health to close every yard and forbid the opening of another tomb in Boston, till their present con- tents have entirely disappeared.
The report was laid on the table and the committee were requested to consider the expediency of prohibiting the interment of the dead in any burial-place within the limits of the city. In response to this order the committee reported recommending that the further consideration of the subject be postponed until the city could provide a burial-place beyond the city limits.
On the 9th of October an order was adopted directing the City Registrar to issue no permits for burials in the burying- ground on Dorchester, Sixth, and F streets, and under St. Matthew's Church, and in Copp's Hill ground.
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CITY DOCUMENT NO. 96.
In 1855, Mayor Smith, in his inaugural address, recom- mended that a tract of land situated in Readville, belonging to the city, should be set apart for a burial field and suitably ornamented. He complained of the offensive condition of the tombs in the Washington-street Burying-ground, and recom- mended that they be sunk underground below the sidewalk and an iron fence substituted for the stone wall in front. He says : -
Burials within the city are not to be continued after April, without special permission, under peculiar circumstances, and then but tempo- rarily. Masses of decomposing animal remains in tombs and under churches cannot remain there with impunity in the heart of a city. An interdiction of intramural burials is the first sanitary law that should be rigidly observed.
During the year active measures were undertaken to de- crease the number of burials within the city limits and to abate the nuisances which then existed from this cause.
An order was passed, April 16, authorizing the committee to sink the tombs in the South Burying-ground below the level of the ground, and to remove entirely the tombs owned by the city.
On the 23d of April the Committee on Cemeteries were authorized to offer each owner of a tomb within the limits of the city a sub-soil lot in one of the suburban cemeteries, on condition that the right to the tomb be forever relin- quished to the city, to the end that the tomb may be forever closed.
On the 10th of September the City Registrar was directed not to issue permits to undertakers to deposit bodies in tombs for purposes of speculation.
On the 24th of September the Mayor sent a communica- tion to the Board of Aldermen, calling attention to an act passed by the last Legislature in relation to burials, which, among other things, authorized owners of tombs to appeal to a jury from the order of the Board of Health, in regard to closing a tomb. He expressed the opinion that the act was liable to occasion great expense to the city by causing intermi- nable lawsuits. It completely paralyzed the efforts of the city to gradually abolish intramural interments and arrested the wise and judicious measures which had been adopted to that end. He recommended that the orders adopted March 14, 1853, and October 9, 1854, be rescinded and burials be permitted in any and all burial-grounds and tombs in Boston.
The communication was referred to a committee, who reported an order rescinding and declaring null and void the orders referred to.
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INTRAMURAL INTERMENTS.
Mt. Hope Cemetery was conveyed to the city by deed dated July 31, 1857, for the sum of $35,000. The Board of Trustees was organized Feb. 19, 1858, and they submitted their first report in in 1859.1 In his annual report for 1859,2 the City Physician, Dr. Henry G. Clark, congratulated the City Council that the discussion of the subject of intramural interments has been forever terminated by the establishment of Mt. Hope Cemetery, -"thus removing the last obstruc- tion to the discontinuance of a practice fraught with so much discomfort and danger to the living." Four and three-fourths acres have been set off for the benefit of the inhabitants of the city, free of charge, and is known as the City Cemetery. In 1868 the city purchased an additional lot of twenty acres for $14,000. The cemetery contains, at the present time, an area of about one hundred and five acres.
Undoubtedly the origin of extra-mural interment is to be traced to the fact that the ancients early perceived that they could not retain the remains of the dead in their habitations with impunity to the living. Embalmment might remove the offensiveness, but the accumulation of remains in course of time soon became too great to be retained within the limits of the cities, and too burdensome a care for the sur- vivors ; therefore a special place of deposit became necessary.3 Cremation likewise demanded a place for the preservation of the ashes, and involved much additional expense ; in fact, special objections attended every method of disposing of the dead ; but inhumation was probably shown, by experience, to be least objectionable of all, when performed under proper restrictions. Hence the most ancient practice of any, that of putting the body away in a grave or tomb, to be resolved into its original elements by the natural methods, again prevailed. The evil effects of this method arise from its abuse.
It would seem almost unnecessary, at the present advanced stage of sanitary knowledge, to endeavor to prove that the burial of the dead in the vicinity of habitations is injurious to the health of the community ; yet it may not be deemed superfluous to cite a few of the many instances on record, to show the evil effects of the practice.
The decomposition of bodies gives rise to a very large amount of carbonic acid. Ammonia and an offensive putrid vapor are also given off. The air of most cemeteries is
1 City Doc. No. 10, 1859.
2 City Doc. No. 9, 1859.
3 Dr. Latour, in " L'Union Médicale," remarks, that if the human race had, for the last three thousand years, practised embalming, there would not have been to-day a portion of the earth's surface which was not occupied by a mummy.
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CITY DOCUMENT NO. 96.
richer in carbonic acid (7 to 9 per thousand - Ramon de Luna), and the organic matter is perceptibly larger when tested by potassium permanganate. In vaults, the air con- tains much carbonic acid, carbonate or sulphide of amnio- nium, nitrogen, hydro-sulphuric acid, and organic matter. Fungi and germs of infusoria abound.1
The influence of these emanations of health is manifest in proportion to the degree of concentration. It is evident that in a very concentrated form they may cause asphyxia and sudden and complete extinction of life. In less concentrated form the result may be a depression of the vital powers, and a disturbance of the healthy functions of the system. If these effects are often repeated, and the putrefactive emanations long applied, they may produce fevers, or impart to fevers due to other causes a typhoid or low putrid character. Con- tagious material may also be present in the effluvia from dead bodies. The putrefactive exhalations may cause the most developed form of typhus fever.2
The disorders commonly complained of in the neighbor- hood of burial-grounds are headaches, diarrhea, and ulcer- ated sore throats. According to a report of the French Academy of Medicine, the putrid emanations of Père-la- Chaise, Montmartre, and Montparnasse, have caused frightful diseases of the throat and lungs, to which numbers of both sexes fall victims every year. "Thus a dreadful throat dis- ease, which baffles the skill of our most experienced medical men, is traced to the absorption of vitiated air into the wind- pipe, and has been observed to rage with the greatest vio- lence in those quarters situated nearest the cemeteries." 3
In 1764 Dr. Haguenot, a professor in the University of Montpelier, had his attention called to the danger of intra- mural interment by an incident which he relates, as fol- lows : -
On the 17th of August, 1764, the body of a layman was conveyed to the church of Notre Dame ; while lowering the corpse a man first went down to support the coffin, and fell senseless; another followed to assist him, and, though drawn out in time, was afflicted with a severe illness; the third was drawn up immediately; a fourth dared the danger, and died as soon as he had entered the vault; the fifth came out once to recover strength, and, returning the second time, staggered from the ladder and fell dead. The bodies at last were drawn up with hooks. In the neighborhood of the church, where the above calamity took place, the small-pox broke out and raged with great violence. Dr. Haguenot made many experiments, showing its influence on caus- ing fatal or epidemic diseases.4
Dr. Parkes' Practical Hygiene. Boston Pub. Lib., 3766.77.
2 Hygiene and Public Health, N.Y., 1879.
3 Eassie.
4 Pascalis.
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INTRAMURAL INTERMENTS.
Dr. Maret, of Dijon, in a book published in 1773, relates that " a catarrhal affection, or influenza, existed in Saulien, a populous town of Burgundy. Two persons who died with it were buried beside each other, in graves dug under the pavement of the parish church, within an interval of twenty- three days. The coffin of the first accidentally broke, and a quantity of putrid fluid was effused, which in an instant filled the whole building with a stench intolerable to the by- standers, and out of one hundred and seventy persons one hundred and forty were seized with putrid malignant fever, which assumed the character of an epidemic, differing only in intensity and fatality.1
Dr. Navier, an eminent physician of Chalons, wrote in 1775 on the subject of inhumation. He states that the con- fidence with which cemeteries were suffered to exist in large and populous cities is founded on the erroneous belief that bodies in the earth are very soon destroyed; but this is far from being the case. He ascertained that four years are not a sufficient period for this purpose ; and relates that, having examined three bodies disinterred, -the one after twenty, the second after eleven, the third after seven years, -he found the bones were still invested with some flesh and integu- ments ; from which it is certain that, whatever receptacles of the dead are opened, there is unavoidably a contamination of the air, or some attacks of disease occasioned or in- creased ; this he says he has often witnessed. He attributes the abuses which existed in burying-grounds at that time to the selfish and unreasonable custom of burying the dead among the living, -a custom kept in operation by vanity, avarice, and superstition. 1
During the general disinterment of the remains of the dead in Paris, in 1785, a number of grave-diggers were killed on the spot by the poisonous gases which arose from the graves, although the exhumation was performed in the winter. The neighborhood of the Cemetery of the Innocents had become extremely unhealthy, and the neighbors had complained for several years of the offensiveness of the cemetery. Since the removal of the remains the vicinity has become very healthy. M. Fourcroy, who superintended the disinterment, wished to make further researches into the nature of the gases evolved from bodies ; but he could find no grave-digger who could be induced, even by a promised reward, to assist in its collec- tion, because it resulted in almost sudden death if inhaled in a concentrated form near the body, and even at a distance, when diluted and diffused through the atmosphere, produced
1 Pascalis.
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CITY DOCUMENT NO. 96.
depression of the nervous system, and an entire disorder of its functions.
In 1814 a battalion of militia was stationed in a lot on Broadway, the rear of which bounded on Potter's field, from whence a most deadly effluvia arose. A number of the soldiers were attacked with diarrhea and fever. They were removed at once ; one of the sick died, and the others rapidly recovered. It was the opinion of Dr. Joseph Ackerly, that Trinity church-yard was an active cause of the yellow fever in New York in 1822, and that it aggravated the malignity of the disease in its vicinity. The effluvia was so offensive as to annoy passengers on the surrounding streets before the yellow fever commenced. The virulence of the disease in the immediate neighborhood of the cemetery called for active measures on the part of the authorities, and the yard was covered with quicklime, fifty-two casks being used. During the operation the excessive stench caused several of the laborers employed in the work to vomit.1
In 1828, Professor Bianchi explained how the dire reap- pearance of the plague in Modena was due to an excavation made in the ground where, three hundred years previously, the victims of the disease had been interred.2 The outbreak of the plague in Egypt, in 1823, was traced to the opening of a disused burial-ground at Kelioub, fourteen miles from Cairo.2 In 1843, when the parish church of Menchinhamp- ton was rebuilding, the soil of the burial-ground, or what was superfluous, was disposed of for manure, and deposited in many of the neighboring gardens. The result was that the town was nearly decimated.2
Tardieu states that in 1830, at the Marche des Innocents, on the site of an old cemetery, temporary burials were made, and a ditch was dug twelve feet by seven, and ten feet deep. When the pavement was removed and about six inches of sand beneath it, they came upon a black, greasy soil, filled with bones and pieces of coffins, and exhaling such fetid odors that one of the workmen was suddenly suffocated. At Riom, in Auvergne, the earth of an ancient cemetery was dug up to embellish the city. A little while after an epidemic occurred, which carried off a great number of persons, and was most fatal near the cemetery. The same thing caused an epidemic, six years before, in a small town of the same province, called Embert.3
The epidemic of yellow fever in Charleston, S. C., in 1838- 39, was attributed to the decomposition of animal and vege-
1 Allen.
2 Eassie.
3 A Treatise on Hygiene and Public Health, N. Y., 1879.
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INTRAMURAL INTERMENTS.
table matter. A report upon the subject recommended bury- ing the dead without the limits of the city.1
Dr. Shank2 relates the case of a man who died of cholera in California, in 1850, and who was buried with his cloak around him. The natives exhumed the body for the purpose of getting the cloak, and six of them died of cholera.
During the prevalence of the cholera in Burlington, Iowa, in July, 1850, a number of the dead were interred in the city cemetery. No deaths occurred in the neighborhood of the cemetery until about twenty had been buried there ; after this, until the epidemic ceased, cases occurred, and always in the direction from the cemetery in which the wind blew.3
During the epidemic of yellow fever at New Orleans, in 1853, it appears that in the fourth district the rate of mor- tality was four hundred and fifty-two per thousand of the population, being more than double that of any other district. There are three extensive cemeteries in this district, in which were buried during the preceding year nearly three thousand bodies. The third ward of this district contained all the cemeteries and most of the vacheires, and the proportion of deaths in this ward was five hundred and eight per thousand. The authorities were advised to close the cemeteries within the city against future use. 4
The virulence of the cholera in London, in 1854, was en- hanced by the excavations made for sewers in the site where, in 1665, the victims of the plague were buried.5
In 1855 the yellow fever carried off forty-five per cent. of the population of Norfolk and Portsmouth, Va. In a paper upon the subject,6 Dr. Bryant attributes the virulence of the disease to decomposing animal matter. He recommends the disinterment of the dead, and their removal to a distance of not less than eight miles from the city, together with the total prohibition of intramural, or even suburban, cemeteries. He believes that if this is not done it is unquestionable that sporadic, and, at intervals, epidemic yellow fever will pre- vail.
The investigation by the committee of Parliament, in 1842, elicited a vast amount of conclusive testimony as to the evil effects of the exhalations from burying-grounds and cemeteries upon the public health. It was shown that typhus
1 Rauch,
2 Hay's Medical Journal.
8 Rauch.
Report of the Sanitary Commission on the Epidemio of Yellow Fever in 1853,
published by authority of the City Council of N.O., by Dr. E. H. Barton, 1854. 5795.57 5 Coopor "On the Cause of Some Epidemios," Glascow, 1874.
6 American Journal of Medical Sciences, April, 1856. Boston Pub. Lib., 3736.1. Vol. xxxi.
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CITY DOCUMENT NO. 96.
and other fevers were prevalent in the neighborhood of such places. Persons employed upon the grounds testified to suffering from inhaling the fœtid odors which arose from the graves and vaults. Houses in the vicinity of burying- grounds were found to be infected and rendered unhealthy by the poisonous gases. In his testimony before the com- mittee, Sir James Fellowes, M.D., says : -
It becomes a serious question with an increased and increasing popu- lation upon what rational grounds such an objectionable feature can be longer continued without danger to the public health.
Dr. Southwood Smith, of London, states that "the miasms arising from church-yards are in general too much diluted by the surrounding air to strike the neighboring inhabitants with sudden and severe disease ; yet they may materially in- jure the health, and the evidence appears to me to be decisive that they often do so."1
James Copeland, M.D., Censor of the Royal College of Physicians, says : -
I believe that the health of large towns is influenced by four or five particular circumstances : the first, and probably the most important, is the burial of the dead in large towns. In considering the burials in large towns, we have to consider not only the exhalations of the gases, and the emanations of the dead into the air, but the effect it has upon the sub-soil, or the water drank by the inhabitants.
Other eminent physicians testified to the same effect.
Mr. Chadwick sums up the result of his investigations, as follows : -
There is no doubt that the emanations from human remains are of a nature to produce fatal diseases, and to depress the general health of all who are exposed to them, and that interments in the vaults of churches, or in graveyards surrounded by inhabited houses, contribute to the mass of atmospheric and other impurities by which the general health and average duration of life of the inhabitants are diminished.
Numerous cases of infection, caused by the emanations from burial-grounds, could be quoted from the medical authorities ; but it is believed to be unnecessary. Enough has been said to show that the removal of the dead is essential to the safety of the living.
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