CEMETERY DANGER

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 January 1928, Page 11

CEMETERY DANGER

SPREAD OF DISEASE GERMS.

When burials take place on the eastern slope of Rookwood Cemetery, Sydney, “all the germs in the world,” aiderman fear, will be washed down through Strathfield. Though laymen and have long suspected cemeteries of breeding disease, surprisingly little evidence is available that they do. In Burlington, lowa, U.S.A., however, during a cholera epidemic, it was noticed that there were no deaths hear the city cemetery until about 20 victims had been buried. Then cases began to occur, and always in the direction from the cemetery in which the wind blew. That was in 1850, and a doctor making researches 25 years later, remarked on the fewness of more modern examples. In Britain, animals dead of anthrax are cremated or destroyed by corrosive chemicals, because where such animals are buried, the ground swarms with anthrax germs. A British Parliamentary committee in 1893 advocated compulsory cremation of human victims of contagious disease, and civilised peoples , now avoid having crowded cemeteiies in the midst of cities. To have a new “Rookwood further away would be the Strathfield aidermen’s remedy. To stop all buiials would be the cremationists.’ “Disease germs” wrote a medical man lately, “breed freely in the earth, and every human body contains those germs. Therefore every corpse buried in our midst constitutes a menace to ( 'public health.” TEven if the menace can t be measured, say cremationists, it’s better to be sure than sorry. And cremation certainly leaves nothing to chance.