CREMATION OUTDONE.

Evening Star, Issue 3651, 4 November 1874, Page 3

CREMATION OUTDONE.

We miss the customary humorous article from the ‘ Bruce Herald’ this week, but we recognise the same writre’s pen in the following article on “ The Disposal of our Dead,” to which some prominence is given ;—“ We are in a position to state that a medical man, for a long time resident in this district, who is much given to occupying his spare time with the most scientific details of the profession, lias made a discoveay which, -when fully perfected and p«4jßshed, will be likely to produce a complete revolution in our mode of disposing of the dead. The gentleman has just gone to Wellington to patent his discovery, and we are, therefore, precluded from giving exact particulars concerning it. But we may say this much, that it consists in the certainty, after long experiment, thatthe gentleman has found out a combination of chemicals perfectly innocuous in its effects upon the human body, but when taken habitually rendering that body completely soluble in ordinarily pure water. In other words, a person partaking of the chemicals will get his body into such a state that, on being immersed in water, it will disappear as quickly as would so much sugar or salt. Our doctor proposes that all persons, in the countries where his invention may be adopted, shall be compelled by law to keep their bodies in the state described, and that then, after death, they shall be taken to the sea and cast into it as quickly as possible. Salt water, it is affirmed, will act as even a better solvent than fresh. No doubt the objection to the practical adoption of our doctor’s discovery will arise from the fact that it will render washing in, or drinking water dangerous, and will also make all such accidents as fulling into water almost instantaneously fatal, theremains in the last case being irrecoverable, except, perhaps, by the very quick use of a spoon. But the discoverer lias a remedy for this state of things, because he has found that the presence of alcohol, even in minute quantities, in water will destroy its solvent effects upon the prepared bodies; although, strange to say, alcohol in those bodies will not prevent their solution. He therefore suggests that whenever his suggestion may be adopted, it will only be necessary to mix spirits in any water that may be required for domestic purposes, and to take every precaution against rain by means of waterproofs, and cork-soled boots. So fur as accidents from falling into water are concerned, he cannot provide against them ] but he puts forward the assumption that the increased danger under the new circumstances will make people more cautious, and that in all probability 7 there will be fewer and less fatal accidents than before. Of course in this somewhat imperfect sketch of the new pi’ocees, we am unable to present it in a form tliat will prevent its being objected to by many persons, but we may say that as it has been explained to us in all its details, it seems to possess large recommendations of simplicity and economy, and that when tho details which we have in confidence been favored with are published, we make no doubt but that numbers will view them as favorably as we do.