CHAPTER XXII
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_SIR HENRY THOMPSON AND CREMATION._
The mode of disposing of the remains of the dead is naturally one upon which doctors may be expected to have a good deal to say. As guardians of the health of the living, the dangers and diseases which the material remnants of our deceased friends may occasion the living must concern the medical profession. The increasingly dense aggregation of human beings in great towns has impressed the last two generations with the necessity of doing something to prevent disease from spreading through delay in burial, and the use of unsuitable burial-places. But for the most part the efforts which have been made have only taken the form of pushing the evil a little further off; and a little mathematical calculation will show that the present cemeteries must soon be surrounded by habitations, and some fresh arrangements will have to be made. To cope with these evils the practice of cremation has been vigorously advocated, as a more rational and healthy mode of disposing of the dead, by the Cremation Society, of which Sir HENRY THOMPSON is the President.
This distinguished surgeon is the son of Mr. Henry Thompson of Framlingham, Suffolk, having been born on August 6, 1820. It is stated that Mr. Thompson objected to his son’s studying medicine, believing that the profession had a sceptical tendency. Thus it was not till he had reached the age of twenty-one, and became entitled to some property in his own right, that the subject of this chapter was free to pursue his chosen profession. He studied chiefly at University College, London, and also in Paris. He obtained the M.B. degree at London University in 1851, and the Fellowship of the College of Surgeons in 1853, and in the same year was appointed assistant-surgeon at University College Hospital. In 1852 and again in 1860 he won the Jacksonian Prize at the College of Surgeons for essays on subjects to which he had devoted much of his life-work.
The two works on which Sir Henry Thompson’s reputation among the medical profession chiefly rests are his “Clinical Lectures on Diseases of the Urinary Organs,” and his “Practical Lithotomy and Lithotrity,” both of which have gone through numerous editions; but he has also written many smaller treatises on allied subjects, and his articles in Holmes’s “System of Surgery” almost reach the dimensions of separate works. His practice has grown to large dimensions in this department, and in 1877 he was able to publish a list with particulars of 500 cases in which he had performed operations for stone in the bladder, being he believed the largest ever published by an operator. The unrivalled extent, also, to which he was enabled to utilise the experience of other surgeons, by their communication of their cases to him, made his book on lithotomy and lithotrity of unique value.
Sir Henry Thompson is known to have made very large use of the operation devised by Civiale of Paris, in 1817, for crushing stones into powder or gravel, rendering it unnecessary to perform the serious operation of lithotomy. Civiale’s first operations of this kind were performed in 1824, and to him the introduction and successful application of the method is due. The operation has been largely improved of late years, and much of this is due to Sir Henry Thompson. Owing to his well-known skill in this department of practice, he was called in to the late King of the Belgians in 1863, and succeeded in affording him relief by operation, when the most distinguished Continental surgeons had failed. The honour of knighthood was subsequently conferred upon Mr. Thompson by Queen Victoria in recognition of his great services to her uncle. About this time Sir Henry became full surgeon to University College Hospital. He has since relinquished active work at the hospital, becoming Consulting Surgeon and Emeritus Professor.
Sir Henry has become known to the public in connection with several important social and religious questions. One which excited much controversy was his letter to Professor Tyndall in regard to prayer for the sick, which appeared in the _Contemporary Review_ in 1872. After classifying the various objects of prayer, and considering the possibility of testing the actual results of prayer, he says: “There appears to be one source from a study of which the absolute calculable value of prayer (I speak with the utmost reverence) can almost certainly be ascertained. I mean its influence in affecting the course of a malady, or in averting the fatal termination. For it must be admitted that such an important influence manifestly either does, or does not exist. If it does, a careful investigation of diseased persons by good pathologists, working with this end seriously in view, must determine the fact. The fact determined, it is simply a matter of further careful clinical observation to estimate the extent or degree in which prayer is effective. And the next step would be to consider how far it is practicable to extend this benefit among the sick and dying. And I can conceive few inquiries which are more pregnant with good to humanity when this stage has been arrived at.”
The practical method proposed for testing the question was that a single ward or hospital, under the care of first-rate doctors, containing patients suffering from diseases best understood, should be made a subject of special prayer by the whole body of the faithful for three or five years, and that at the end of that time the mortality should be compared with the past rates, and also with that of other leading hospitals during the same period. But the experiment was never tried, owing to the storm of obloquy and controversy with which the proposal was greeted, in which scant regard was paid to the evident good faith of the proposer.
Sir Henry Thompson soon came before the public in a new light. Having failed to get people to pray systematically for the sick, he next attempted to induce them to burn their dead, a proceeding which, as it appeared, was little less shocking to many than the former proposition had proved. The first paragraph of his first article in the _Contemporary Review_ (January 1874), since reprinted, with a second on the same subject, struck a sensational key.
“After death! The last faint breath had been noted, and another watched for so long, but in vain. The body lies there, pale and motionless, except only that the jaw sinks slowly but perceptibly. The pallor visibly increases, becomes more leaden in hue, and the profound tranquil sleep of death reigns where just now were life and movement. Here then begins the eternal rest.
“Rest! no, not for an instant. Never was there greater activity than at this moment exists in that still corpse. Activity, but of a different kind to that which was before. Already a thousand changes have commenced. Forces innumerable have attacked the dead. The rapidity of the vulture, with its keen scent for animal decay, is nothing to that of nature’s ceaseless agents now at full work before us.”
After explaining the process of animal decomposition, and describing the various modes of disposing of the dead between which it is necessary to choose, the writer went on to insist that our present mode of burial is certainly injurious to health either now or in the future, and constitutes in reality a social sin of no small magnitude. A curious aspect of this question was brought to light by the mention of the large annual importation of bones for manuring the soil, while we bury a vast quantity of human bones annually, too deep in the earth to be useful agriculturally. The evils of burial customs and expenditure were also dwelt upon, and then the new, yet old plan of cremation was advocated, practically following nature’s indication, and hastening the process so as to make it safe, without unpleasantness. It was suggested that funeral rites could be most appropriately associated with cremation. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust” would express a literal and evident fact. The condition of many churchyards, past and present, has given conclusive evidence that the present mode of burial consigns moist remains to water or damp, and generates loathsome effluvia, too often causing severe disease in those living near.
This subject is still one of controversy, though it has emerged into “practical politics” by reason of a decision by Mr. Justice Stephen that cremation is not illegal under the present law. Sir Henry Thompson continues his vigorous efforts in favour of cremation.
Sir Henry has also distinguished himself as an advocate for great moderation and even total abstinence in the use of intoxicating liquors, stating that without them he can do his work better and with more zest, and that his constitution has improved under abstinence. Among his lighter works, “Food and Feeding” is pleasant and popular; while a still later display of varied literary tastes is seen in a medical novel, “Charley Kingston’s Aunt,” published under the pseudonym of Pen Oliver.
The artistic tastes and attainments of Sir Henry Thompson are well known. He studied painting under Elmore and Alma Tadema, and has frequently exhibited at the Royal Academy. He has a very fine collection of blue and white Nankin china, of which a quarto catalogue has been published.
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