Intramural interments in populous cities, and their influence upon health and epidemics / by John H. Rauch.

  • Rauch, John H. (John Henry), 1828-1894.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Intramural interments in populous cities, and their influence upon health and epidemics / by John H. Rauch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    their contents are as various as the people who have occupied the globe, or the different circumstances by which they have been distinguished. The pyramids of Egypt are but sepulchral mounds of a more solid material and stupendous size; and the church-yard hillock of the present day is but a relic of their univer- sal prevalence. Among so many customs — the result of necessity, caprice, or the love of change under different circum- stances— the instinctive sense of man, his religious doc- trines, and his laws, all have agreed in removing the dead from the living. Among the Egyptians, the body having been em- balmed by persons legally appointed to the exercise of the profession, was returned to the relations, who enclosed it in a case of wood made to resemble a human figure, and placed it against the wall in the repository of their dead. Contagious diseases breaking out after this practice had been continued for some time, and baffling all remedies, they were led to remove all the embalmed to a distance; and hence we have the origin of the catacombs and pyramids. Gliddon says, that before this period the Necropoli were situated from ten to fifteen miles from the cities or towns. After the entrance of the Jews into the Promised Land, with the establishment of the Judaic law, and the inauguration of their religious ceremonies, they found that the com- mands of God forbade them to allow the dangerous vicinage of the dead. According to these laws, those who touched a corpse contracted a legal impurity, to efface which their clothes must undergo the cleansing of water. If the dead were buried in their houses, it ren- dered the latter unclean. This rule made them atten- tive to the removal of the dead from their dwellings, and caves and fields were appropriated for interment.