Part 2

When Parent Duchâtelet appeals to and gives such prominence to the instance of the disinterments from the churchyard of St. Innocens, and states that they took place without any injurious consequences, although at last all precautions in the mode of disinterring were thrown aside, and that it occurred during the hottest season of the year, and therefore that the putrid emanations might be believed to be in their most powerful and injurious state, I would reply to this by asking the simple question, what occasion was there for the disinterment? Parent Duchâtelet maintains complete silence on this point; but to me the following notices appear worthy of attention. In the year 1554, Houlier and Fernel, and in the year 1738, Lemery, Geoffroy, and Hunaud, raised many complaints of this churchyard; and the two first had asserted that, during the plague, the disease had lingered longest in the neighbourhood of the Cimetière de la Trinité, and that there the greatest number had fallen a sacrifice. In the years 1737 and 1746 the inhabitants of the houses round the churchyard of St. Innocens complained loudly of the revolting stench to which they were exposed. In the year 1755 the matter again came into notice: the inspector who was intrusted with the inquiry, himself saw the vapour rising from a large common grave, and convinced himself of the injurious effects of this vapour on the inhabitants of the neighbouring house.[1] “Often,” says the author of a paper which we have before often alluded to, “the complexions of the young people who remain in this neighbourhood grow pale. Meat sooner becomes putrid there than elsewhere, and many persons cannot get accustomed to these houses.” In the year 1779, in a cemetery which yearly received from 2000 to 3000 corpses, they dug an immense common grave near to that part of the cemetery which touches upon the Rue de la Lingerie. The grave was 50 feet deep, and made to receive from 1500 to 1600 bodies. But in February, 1780, the whole of the cellars in the street were no longer fit to use. Candles were extinguished by the air in these cellars; and those who only approached the apertures were immediately seized with the most alarming attacks. The evil was only diminished on the bodies being covered with half a foot of lime, and all further interments forbidden. But even that must have been found insufficient, as, after some years, the great work of disinterring the bodies from this churchyard was determined upon. This undertaking, according to Thouret’s report, was carried on from December, 1785, to May, 1786; from December, 1786, to February, 1787; and in August and October of the same year: and it is not unimportant to quote this passage, as it clearly shows how little correct Parent Duchâtelet was in his general statement, that those disinterments took place in the hottest seasons of the year. It is very clear that it was exactly the coldest seasons of the year which were chosen for the work; and though in the year 1787 there occurs the exception of the work having been again begun in August, I think it may be assumed that the weather of this month was unusually cold, and it was therefore thought the work might be carried on without injurious effects. It does not, however, appear to have been considered safe to continue the work at that season, since the report goes on to state that the operations were again discontinued in September.

Against those statements of Parent Duchâtelet, as to the innocuousness of the frequent disinterments in Père La Chaise, statements which are supported by the testimony of Orfila and Ollivier, in regard to their experience of disinterments, I would here place positive facts, which are not to be rejected. “I,” also remarks Duvergie, “have undertaken judicial disinterments, and must declare that, during one of these disinterments at which M. Piedagnel was present with me, we were attacked with an illness, although it was conducted under the shade of a tent, through which there was passing a strong current of wind, and although we used chloride of lime in abundance, M. Piedagnel was confined to his room for six weeks.” Apparently, Duvergie is not far wrong when he states his opinion that Orfila had allowed himself to be misled by his praiseworthy zeal for the more general recognition of the use of disinterments for judicial purposes, to understate the dangers attending them, as doubtless he had used all the precautions during the disinterments which such researches demand: and to these precautions (which Orfila himself recommended) may be attributed the few injurious effects of these disinterments. It, however, deserves mentioning, that, if Orfila did undertake disinterments during the heat of summer, it must have been only very rarely; at least, amongst the numerous special cases which he gives, we find only two which took place in July or August, most of the cases occurred in the coldest season of the year. I cannot refrain from giving, also, the information which Fourcroy gained from the grave-diggers of the churchyard of St. Innocens. Generally they did not seem to rate the danger of displacing the corpses very high: they remarked, however, that some days after the disinterment of the corpses the abdomen would swell, owing to the great development of gas; and that if an opening forced itself at the navel, or anywhere in the region of the belly, there issued forth the most horribly smelling liquid and a mephitic gas; and of the latter they had the greatest fear, as it produced sudden insensibility and faintings. Fourcroy wished much to make further researches into the nature of this gas, but he could not find any grave-digger who could be induced by an offered reward to assist him by finding a body which was in a fit state to produce the gas. They stated, that, at a certain distance, this gas only produced a slight giddiness, a feeling of nausea, languor, and debility. These attacks lasted several hours, and were followed by loss of appetite, weakness, and trembling. “Is it not very probable,” says Fourcroy, “that a poison so terrible that when in a concentrated state, it produced sudden death, should, even when diluted and diffused through the atmosphere, still possess a power sufficient to produce depression of the nervous energy and an entire disorder of their functions? Let any one witness the terror of these grave-diggers, and also see the cadaverous appearance of the greatest number, and all the other signs of the influence of a slow poison, and they will no longer doubt of the dangerous effects of the air from churchyards on the inmates of neighbouring houses.”

After having strenuously asserted the general innocuousness of such emanations, and the absence of foundation for the complaints against the anatomical schools, Parent Duchâtelet concludes by an admission of their offensiveness, and a recommendation in the following terms:—

“Instead of retaining the ‘debris’ of dissection near the theatres of anatomy, it would certainly be better to remove them every day: but as that is often impracticable, there ought, on a good system of ‘assainissement,’ to be considered the mode of retaining them without incurring the risk of suffering from their infection.”

After describing the mode of removing the “debris,” he concludes—

“Thus will this part of the work be freed from the inconveniences which accompanied and formed one of the widest sources of ‘infection,’ and of the disgust which were complained of in the theatres of anatomy.”

§ 3. The statements of M. Duchâtelet respecting the innocuousness of emanations from decomposing animal and vegetable remains, observed by him at the _chantiers d’équarrissage_, or receptacle for dead horses, and the _dépôts de vidange_, or receptacle of night soil, &c., at Montfaucon, near Paris, are cited in this country, and on the continent, as leading evidence to sustain the general doctrine; but as it is with his statements of the direct effects of the emanations from the grave-yards, so it is with relation to his statements as to the effects of similar emanations on the health of the population; the facts appear to have been imperfectly observed by him even in his own field of observation. In the Medical Review, conducted by Dr. Forbes, reference is made to the accounts given by Caillard of the epidemic which occurred in the vicinity of the Canal de l'Ourcq near Paris in 1810 and subsequent years:—

In the route from Paris to Pantin (says he), exposed on the one side to the miasmatic emanations of the canal, and on the other, to the putrid effluvia of the _voiries_, the diseases were numerous, almost all serious and obstinate. This disastrous effect of the union of putrid effluvia with marsh miasmata, was especially evident in one part of this route, termed the Petit Pont hamlet, inhabited by a currier and a gut-spinner, the putrid waters from whose operations are prevented from escaping by the banks of the canal, and exposed before the draining to the emanations of a large marsh. This hamlet was so unhealthy, that of five-and-twenty or thirty inhabitants I visited about twenty were seriously affected, of whom five died.

In the carefully prepared report on the progress of cholera at Paris, made by the commission of medical men, of which Parent Duchâtelet was a member, it is mentioned, as a singular incident, that in those places where putrid emanations prevailed, “le cholera ne s'est montré ni plus redoutable ni plus meurtrier que dans autres localities.” Yet the testimony cited as to this point is that of the Maire, “whose zeal equalled his intelligence,” and he alleges the occurrence of the fact of the liability to fevers which M. Duchâtelet elsewhere denies.

“I have also made some observations which seem to destroy the opinions received at this time, as to the sanitary effect of these kinds of receptacles; for,

“1st. The inhabitants of the houses situated the nearest to the depôt, and which are sometimes _tormented_ with fevers, have never felt any indisposition.”

§ 4. To prove the innocuousness of emanations from human remains on the general health, evidence of another class is adduced, consisting of instances of persons acting as keepers of dissecting rooms, and grave-diggers, and the undertakers’ men, who it is stated have pursued their occupations for long periods, and have nevertheless maintained robust health.

The examination of persons engaged in processes exposed to 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 examples of the general innocuousness of the offensive miasma generated in the process in which they are engaged. Professor Owen mentions 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 injury 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 offensive and dangerous work done by an inferior assistant; and that 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 to do, and even in some of the new cemeteries, that as a class they are unhealthy and cadaverous, and, notwithstanding precautions, often suffer severely on re-opening graves, and that their lives are frequently cut short by the work.[2] 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 of ten 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.” Fellmongers, tanners, or the workmen employed in the preparation of hides, have been instanced 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 are 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 engaged in the slaughter-houses, in which perfect cleanliness and due ventilation are neglected, are of a cadaverous aspect, and suffer proportionately in their health.

Medical papers have been written in this country and on the continent to show that the exposure of workmen to putrid emanations in the employment of sewer cleansing has no effect on the general health; and when the employers of the labourers engaged in such occupations are questioned on the subject, their general reply is, that their men “have nothing the matter with them:” yet when the _class_ of men who have been engaged in the work during any length of time are assembled; when they are compared with classes of men of the same age and country, and of the like periods of service in other employments free from such emanations, or still more when they are compared with men of the same age coming from the purer atmosphere of a rural district, the fallacy is visible in the class, in their more pallid and shrunken aspect—the evidence of languid circulation and reduced “tone,” and even of vitality—and there is then little doubt of the approximation given me by an engineer who has observed different classes of workmen being correct, that employment under such a mephitic influence as that in question ordinarily entails a loss of at least one-third of the natural duration of life and working ability.

The usual comment of the employers on the admitted facts of the ill-health and general brevity of life of the inferior workmen engaged in such occupations is, “But they drink—they are a drunken set;” and such appears frequently, yet by no means invariably, to be the case. On further examination it appears that the exposure to the emanations is productive of nervous depression, which is constantly urged by the workmen as necessitating the stimulus of spirituous or fermented liquors. The inference that the whole of the effects are ascribable to the habitual indulgence in such stimuli is rebutted by the facts elicited on examination of other classes of workmen who indulge as much or more, but who nevertheless enjoy better health, and a much greater average duration of life. It is apt to be overlooked that the weakly rarely engage in such occupations, or soon quit them; and that, in general, the men are of the most robust classes, and have high wages and rather short hours of work, as well as stimulating food. A French physician, M. Labarraque, states in respect to the tanners, that, notwithstanding the constant exposure to the emanations from putrid fermentations, it has not been “remarked” of the workmen of this class that they are more subject to illness than others. A tanner, in a manual written for the use of the trade, without admitting the correctness of this statement, observes: “Whatever may be the opinion of M. Labarraque on this point, we do not hesitate to declare the fact that this species of labour cannot be borne by weakly, scrofulous, or lymphatic subjects.”[3]

§ 5. So far as observations have been made on the point (and the more those reported upon it are scrutinized, the less trustworthy they appear to be), workmen so exposed do not appear to be peculiarly subject to epidemics; many, indeed, appear to be exempted from them to such an extent as to raise a presumption that such emanations have on those “acclimated” to them an unexplained preservative effect analogous to vaccination. That one miasma may exclude, or neutralize, or modify the influence of another, would appear to be _primâ facie_ probable. But it is now becoming more extensively apparent that the same cause is productive of very different effects on different persons, and on the same persons at different times; as in the case mentioned by Dr. Arnott of the school badly drained at Clarendon Square, Somers’ Town, where every year, while the nuisance was at its height, and until it was removed by drainage, the malaria caused some remarkable form of disease; one year, extraordinary nervous affection, exhibiting rigid spasms, and then convulsions of the limbs, such as occur on taking various poisons into the stomach; another year, typhoid fever; in another, ophthalmia; in another, extraordinary constipation of the bowels, affecting similar numbers of the pupils. Such cases as the one before cited with respect to the depôt for animal matter in Paris, where the workmen suffered very little, whilst the people living near the depôt were “tormented with fevers,” are common. The effects of such miasma are manifested immediately on all surrounding human life (and there is evidence to believe they are manifest in their degree on animal life[4]), in proportion to the relative strength of the destructive agents and the relative strength or weakness of the beings exposed to them; the effects are seen first on infants; then on children in the order of their age and strength; then on females, or on the sickly, the aged, and feeble; last of all, on the robust workmen, and on them it appears on those parts of the body that have been previously weakened by excess or by illness. Whilst M. Parent Duchâtelet was looking for immediate appearances of acute disease on the robust workmen living amidst the decomposing animal effluvium of the Montfaucon, I have the authority of Dr. Henry Bennett for stating that he might have found that the influence of that effluvium was observable on the sick at half a mile distant. “When I was house surgeon at St. Louis,” says Dr. Bennett, “I several times remarked, that whenever the wind was from the direction of the Montfaucon, the wounds and sores under my care assumed a foul aspect. M. Jobert, the surgeon of the hospital, has told me that he has repeatedly seen hospital gangrene manifest itself in the wards apparently under the same influence. It is a fact known to all who are acquainted with St. Louis, that the above malady is more frequent at that hospital than at any other in Paris, although it is the most airy and least crowded of any. This, I think, can only be attributed to the proximity of the Montfaucon. Indeed, when the wind blows from that direction, which it often does for several months in the year, the effluvium is most odious.” As an instance of a similar influence of another species of effluvium, not observed by the healthy inhabitants of a district, it is stated that at a large infirmary in this country, when the piece of ornamental water, which was formerly stagnant in front of the edifice, had a greenish scum upon it, some descriptions of surgical operations were not so successful as at other times, and a flow of fresh water has been introduced into the reservoir to prevent the miasma.

The immediate contrasts of the apparent immunity of adults to conspicuous attacks of epidemics, may perhaps account for the persuasion which masters and workmen sometimes express, that they owe an immunity from epidemics to their occupation, and that the stenches to which they are exposed actually “purify” the atmosphere. Numbers of such witnesses have heretofore been ready to attest their conviction of the preservative effect, and even the positive advantages to health, of the effluvia generated by the decomposition of animal or of vegetable matter, or of the fumes of minerals, of smoke, soot, and coal gas. But though they do not peculiarly suffer from epidemics, it is usually found that they are not exempted. In a recent return of the state of health of some workmen engaged in cleansing sewers, whilst it appeared that very few had suffered any attack from fever, nearly all suffered bowel attacks and violent intestinal derangement. If the effects of such emanations invariably appeared in the form of acute disease, large masses of the population who have lived under their influence must have been exterminated. In general the poison appears only to be generated in a sufficient degree of intensity to create acute disease under such a conjunction of circumstances, as a degree of moisture sufficient to facilitate decomposition, a hot sun, a stagnant atmosphere, and a languid population. The injurious effects of diluted emanations are constantly traceable, not in constitutional disturbance at any one time; they have their effect even on the strong, perceptible over a space of time in a general depression of health and a shortened period of existence. This or that individual may have the florid hue of health, and may live under constant exposure to noxious influences to his sixtieth or his seventieth year; but had he not been so exposed he might have lived in equal or greater vigour to his eightieth or his ninetieth year. A cause common to a whole class is often, however, not manifest in particular individuals, but is yet visible in the pallor and the reduced sum of vitality of the whole class, or in the average duration of life in that class, as compared with the average duration of life of another class similarly situated, in all respects except in the exposure to that one cause.[5] The effects of a cause of depression on a class are sometimes visible in the greater fatality of common accidents. An excess of mortality to a class is almost always found, on examination, to be traceable to an adequate cause. From the external circumstances of a class of the population, a confident expectation may be formed of the sum of vitality of the class, though nothing could be separately predicated of a single individual of it. If the former vulgar notions were correct as to the salubrity of the stenches which prevail in towns, the separate as well as the combined results of these several supposed causes of salubrity must be to expel fevers and epidemics from the most crowded manufacturing districts, and to advance the general health of the inhabitants above that of the poorer rural population; but all such fallacies are dissipated by the dreadful facts on the face of the mortuary records showing a frequency of deaths, and a reduction of the mean duration of life, in proportion to the constancy and the intensity of the combined operation of these same causes.[6]

§ 6. The observations of the effects of such emanations on the general health of classes of human beings have been corroborated by experiments on animals.