PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT,          
30th January, 1896.
 

ON INTRAMURAL INTERMENTS.
PURSUANT to the resolution of the Health Committee of 26th September, 1895, that "The Medical Officer report generally on the question of intramural burials, and that the consideration of the matter be postponed until such report has been submitted,"
The Medical Officer begs to report that he has examined, as fully as circumstances have allowed, into the subject of intramural burials in Liverpool.
     There can be no doubt that methods of disposal of the dead have been in the main dependent upon custom and upon convenience. The subject is one to which little, if any, unbiassed consideration is given by the public, as it is forced upon the attention at a time when the judgement is clouded by sentiments of sorrow and affection, and as a consequence the sanitary features involved are thrust out of sight. It is owing to this that public opinion has done nothing to help sanitary authorities in their endeavours to ensure that the disposal of the dead shall be effected without the probability of injury to the living.
     Interments under certain conditions are still permitted in eleven burial grounds in Liverpool, viz : -
St James' Cemetery, St  James' Road,
Ancient Chapel, Park Road,
St Mary's Cemetery, Walton Road,
Necropolis, West Derby Road,
St George's Church, Heyworth Street,
St Mary's Church, Edgehill,
St Anne's, Overbury Street,
Jewish Cemetery, Deane Road,
Unitarian Chapel, Renshaw Street,
St Michael's, Upper Pitt Street,
St James' Church, St James' Place,
The Home Office places certain restrictions upon the use of these.
     The numbers of applications to the Medical Officer for permission to inter in City Graveyards, where such application is necessary, have during the last five years been as follows : -
1891 ... ... ... 64
1892 ... ... ... 69
1893 ... ... ... 42
1894 ... ... ... 58
1895 ... ... ... 56

THE NECROPOLIS
     The largest number of interments appear to take place at the Necropolis. No notice is required to be sent to the Sanitary Department when these interments take place, but occasional visits are made to this burial ground.
     Here there is an arrangement of tiers, separated by a course of flagging, and with brickwork between each coffin. The walls between the vaults are 4� inches in thickness, and a stone flag covers over the top course of coffins, about 2 feet 6 inches below the surface of the ground.
     The vaults contain about 36 coffins, and it is probable that within 100 square yards there will be over 300 bodies of adults and children.
     Interment not only take place in family graves and vaults, but new graves are also being opened in this burial ground. The approximate number of interments (not including stillborns) which have taken place in the cemetery since it was opened is 82,341.
     The number of interments during each of the last five years is : -
1891 ... ... ... 591
1892 ... ... ... 487
1893 ... ... ... 482
1894 ... ... ... 343
1895 ... ... ... 352
     There is said to be accommodation for 2,160 more bodies, besides graves already sold, but which have not yet been fully utilised.
     The inhabitants of the houses abutting on the Necropolis have, as a whole, occupied them but a short time. Many of them complain of offensive smells, which they believe come from the cemetery.
     In many instances the occupiers also state that their houses are infested with mice of a peculiar light fawn colour, which they believe come from the Cemetery.
     Some light may be thrown upon the probable condition of the subsoil in this city graveyard, from the following extract from a report by Inspector Beck, of the City Engineer's Department, who has been 35 years on that district. It will be noticed from this report that the offensive condition described was in that part to which material from the burial grounds would be most likely to gravitate. It was not found in the sewer nearer the surface. The Inspector says : -
     "The sewer in West Derby Road is what is known as a rock sewer, and is cut in the sandstone. It is about 14 or  15 feet below the surface, and is between two and three feet in width. This sewer was undergoing reconstruction in 1889. The bottom was very much worn, and 'liners' were to be put in. The top is arched over with brick, and the sides were to be cased.
     When opposite to the Necropolis in West Derby Road, a large quantity of black jelly was found adhering to the side of the sewer nearest the Necropolis, the other side was the natural colour of the rock. When this material was touched or pricked, it emitted a frightful stench. The opinion of the other men and myself was that it came from the burial ground. One of the men at work was taken seriously ill, and died while the work was in progress. the other men objected to work there. The jelly was scraped off, and several coats of cement put on to try and keep the stuff from oozing through.
     There is also another sewer in West Derby Road, which runs above the preceding one at a slight angle. This sewer is only about 9 feet below the surface, and is supposed to drain the burial ground. The vaults in the burial ground are about 14 or 15 feet deep. This sewer is of similar construction to the other one and was reconstructed at the same time. None of the jelly material was found in this sewer. None of the material was found in the Everton Road sewer, which is about 9 feet below the surface.
     The jelly was only found in that particular length of the sewer outside the Necropolis.
 
ST MARY'S, KIRKDALE
     St Mary's Cemetery, Kirkdale, is a proprietary cemetery, in which interments are restricted by the proprietors to family graves. No new graves are opened. The area of the cemetery is a little over 2 acres, and a part of this area has been only used superficially, ie, for the interment of one body, whilst in other portions there are common graves in which large numbers of bodies have been placed. there is no memorial stone to indicate the number so interred, and the records have been lost.
     It is considered by the proprietors that about 200 square yards of unused ground, nearest to the roadway, is still available for burials.
     About 250 bodies have been interred during the last five years, all in sold graves, and in addition to these a large number of stillborn infants have also been buried. These amounted to 139 in 1893, and 136 in 1895.
     It would appear that the proprietors are not unwilling that this burial ground should, under certain conditions, be turned to other uses.
     New graves are still opened at St James' Cemetery; the Ancient Chapel Grounds, Park Road; St Mary's, Edgehill; The Jewish Cemetery, Deane Road, without notice being sent to the Sanitary Department.
     Interments also take place at St George's, Heyworth Street, and St Anne's, Overbury Street, without notice being given.
     At the Jewish Cemetery, Deane Road, the graves are opened to a depth of 5 feet 6 inches, and only one body placed in each grave.
     St James' Cemetery is 10 or 11 acres in area, the approximate number of bodies interred is 50,300, and the average of the last five years is 395. There is said to be room for 2,400 more bodies, distributed in raves throughout the cemetery, having depth for one to five interments.
     Many of the city graveyards have been appropriately dealt with by the Sanitary Authority, laid out into gardens, and converted into attractive and suitable recreation grounds. There can be no more striking contrast than between the graveyards so dealt with, and the city graveyards still in use. These latter are in appearance sufficiently dismal, consisting in the main of long rows of flat stones, often cracked and uneven by subsidence of the soil beneath, many with illegible inscriptions, others, recording the names of 16 persons under one slab, testify to the great amount of putrescible matter lying beneath. Many of the graves are sunken, and headstones cracked and leaning at all angles. In instances coming under his notice in which municipal necessities have led to absorption of parts of a city churchyard, the Medical Officer has observed that commonly the remains of more human beings are found beneath a single tombstone than the record on the tombstone indicates.
     Until comparatively recent years, bodies were placed not only in city burial grounds and in city churchyards, but in vaults beneath the churches themselves; their disposal (more especially in the city of London) was attended with what Sir John Simon describes as "disgusting incidents converting the extreme solemnity of religion into an occasion of sickness and horror. Cases of this nature are fresh in the recollection of the public; cases of extreme nuisance, and brutal desecration in place of decent and solemn interment, and it is necessary that I should revive the record of transactions inconsistent with even the dawn of civilization."
     Legislation terminated these abuses; but the accounts prove that the public conscience was quite tranquil in reference to conditions of such grossness, and it may be inferred that it is unlikely to be disturbed by matters comparatively much less objectionable.
     Initial action emanated at that time from the Sanitary Authority, and any further action which may be considered necessary must originate from the same source.
     The processes of decomposition in all accumulations of organic matter are alike, and the products prejudicial to health. the decay of human remains is identical in all particulars with the decay of other animal remains, and the products equally noxious and offensive. The human body, once destitute of life, furnishes no exception to the laws of organic decay; it dissolves itself into products neither less offensive, nor less obnoxious than those of any other animal. If buried in the soil, decay is modified by the influence of the soil, and where adequate space and distance from dwellings are allowed, no mischief need be apprehended. That misguided attempts to retard the processes of nature by the use of leaden coffins are followed by revolting consequences, is abundantly evidenced when municipal exigences require the removal of long-interred remains from the centre of cities to more suitable resting places.
     The time certainly comes, sooner or later, when every corpse, however encased, spreads the products of decomposition through the soil and into the air, contributing to the more injurious impurities of the atmosphere, and the system which permits the putrefaction of human remains within place of public resort, and in the midst of populous habitations, is one which should be limited as far as it possibly can. Where many circumstances combine, as in cities, to affect injuriously the public health, it may be difficult, or even impossible, to prove by statistics the precise influence exercised by each individually, but all conditions, which, as a matter of common knowledge are liable to be prejudicial, should be avoided.
     From the report of the Royal Commission appointed some years ago to enquire into the practice of intramural interments, the following may be quoted : -
     "As there appear to be no cases in which the emanations from human remains in an advanced stage of decomposition are not of a deleterious character, so there is no case in which the liability to danger should be incurred either by interment (or by entombment in vaults, which is the most dangerous) amidst the dwellings of the living, it being established as a general conclusion, from which no adequate grounds of exception have been proved - That all interments in towns, where bodies decompose, contribute to the mass of atmospheric impurity, which is injurious to the public health."
     It may be observed that one great object in paving courts and alleys and the poorer back streets with setts, or in some other impermeable way, is to prevent the pollution of the subsoil by materials which may be thrown upon the surface. The importance and utility of this no one questions, but in marked contrast to such an object, human remains, no less dangerous nor offensive, are placed underground, within a stone's throw of the habitations of the living - the living and the dead being practically tenants of the one locality.
     It remains to be added that, whilst the discontinuance of the practice of interments in burial grounds situated in populous parts of the city cannot be other than advantageous to the general public, it need not be attended with any hardship to those immediately interested.
                                                                                                                                    E W HOPE