There is in the latter no sentiment or illusion. Who could idealise a quick roast in a reverberatory furnace !

From a somewhat careful study of this subject, I believe the following conclusions are justified:

1. Cremation is not necessary as a sanitary measure, under conditions prevalent in this country.

2. Cremation has no advantage on the score of economy over in

terment.

3. Cremation fails to meet the requirements of epidemics or wars, as well as burial.

4. Cremation is objectionable from a legal point of view, as criminal poisoning would often pass undetected if incineration were general. 5. It fails to comply with the emotional demands of our nature, by substituting a harsh and unseemly procedure for the more poetic and sentimental slow dissolution going on in the grave.

Nothing in this paper is, however, intended to approve of violations of sanitary laws so frequently met in cemeteries. These places should always be kept under strict supervision, guided by a proper code of sanitary regulations, and all infractions of these should be promptly punished. It is conceded that intramural cemeteries are objectionable in many respects, but when bodies are properly buried in suitable soil, their decay goes on rapidly and without giving rise to offensive or deleterious emanations.

DISCUSSION ON DR. ROHE'S PAPER.

DR. JOHN MORRIS said that Dr. Rohé's views are not new. They are similar to those which are opposed to every new thing. Dr. Rohé, he thought, was unusually dogmatic for him he had said that there was no testimony produced to show the spread of epidemics from graveyards. This statement has been amply refuted by Dr. Formento. As to the testimony of workmen that their trade is healthful, that amounts to nothing. The workmen in the most disgusting trades all claim that their trade is healthy. Dr. Rohé stated that there was no proof that water near cemeteries was unfit for use. Only two weeks ago the health commissioner, Dr. Stewart, had water near Greenmount Cemetery analyzed by Prof. Tonry. It had yielded negative results when tried by the permanganate of potassium test; but on analysis it was found to be full of nitrates, and most

unwholesome. As to the expense, that is a secondary matter. The hygienic question is the true one. Cremation was the true method in

epidemics. In Norfolk during an epidemic of yellow fever, he had seen twenty-three corpses blistering in the sun-no coffins, no people to bury them, and there they lay spreading contagion. It was practised on the battle-fields around Metz in the Franco-Prussian war as a necessity.

DR. P. C. WILLIAMS said he would emphasize one point in Dr. Rohe's paper and that was in medico-legal questions. In cases of poisoning, if the body were cremated shortly after death the possibility of discovery would be lost.

DR. VAN BIBBER. If there be a suspicion let there be a post mortem before cremation, and let the medical profession cultivate their powers of observation and the clinical means of suspected poisoning, so as not to let the body be put away before examination.

DR. BOYLAND said he had been in Metz at the time of the fighting around it, and, while he would not say no bodies were cremated at that time, he certainly neither saw nor heard of any, and if this had been the practice, he was in a position to know as he was actively engaged.

DR. MORRIS answered that he had his authority from a surgeon on duty at the place.

DR. J. C. THOMAS thought that the method now used for embalming by injecting the vessels of the corpse with a secret fluid containing poisons was quite as inimical to the discovery of poisons as the system of cremation.

DR. WILLIAMS replied that this objection was only plausible, as analysis would show what poisons were in the injected fluid, and detection could only be eluded if the same poisons had been used to kill the patient.

DR. F. DONALDSON, SR., said that he thought that the objection to cremation on the score of sentiment was owing to ignorance of the facts. If people understood that the process was really the same in cremation and in burial, only that in one the cumbustion was rapid and the other it was slow, they would inevitably choose the rapid and cleanly method and discard the slower one, with its loathsomeness. In regard to expense, it was well known how costly funerals are. Most of this would be done away by cremation.

DR. ROHÉ in reply said that in regard to his statement that there is no reliable evidence to show that epidemics are worse near graveyards, he was well aware that Dr. Formento of New Orleans thought he had proved the contrary, but he had not. Dr. Formento ignored all negative evidence, and took as his authority Dr. Domingo Freire, of Brazil, who has since become notorious as a claimant to the discovery of the bacillus of yellow fever. This authority is questionable. Why did Dr. Formento not observe the cases in New Orleans? DR. MORRIS. "There are no graveyards in New Orleans."

DR. ROHÉ. “Yes, I know that the usual mode of burial there is not in graves but in tombs above ground. But Dr. Morris' statement is only partly correct, as there is a graveyard in New Orleans in which the pauper dead are buried. What is most needed in the discussion of this subject is close observation and a strict adherence to facts. Trustworthy observations bearing upon this question are rare. The records of the past are of little value in settling the question. If cemeteries are so very deleterious in their influence upon health, it ought not be difficult to prove it. This proof has not yet been furnished."

DR. JOSEPH T. SMITH. Dr. Rohé's and Dr. Thomas' papers come admirably together, as the teaching of hygiene will tend to eradicate the sentimentality of the people which retards progress. There is too much mystery kept up about medical and hygienic questions, and it is most important that this should be done away by education. In regard to cremation, Dr. Smith thought that it was possible that the virulence of yellow fever epidemics may be traced in part, at least, to burial grounds. We all know what pains have been taken to disinfect a ship, and yet how virulent an epidemic has broken out after all efforts have been tried. The germs seem to live through every thing except fire.

III.—IMPORTANCE OF THE SPECIAL TEACHING OF

SANITARY SCIENCE AND PREVENTIVE

MEDICINE.

BY JAS. CAREY THOMAS, M.D.

Your section, in view of the increased impulse which of late years has been given to the investigation and determination of the causes of preventable disease, desire to call attention to the importance of all the medical schools of the State providing instruction on public health, by the institution of a chair of hygiene and its allied subjects. In our days, preventive medicine has taken the place it occupied in the older civilizations, in the foremost ranks of medical enquiry, and, as one of our own writers on hygiene (Dr. McSherry) suggests, preventive should have precedence over curative medicine. Hermippus of old dedicated a tablet to "Esculapius and health;" we are to reverse the terms and write "Sanitati et Æsculapio"-"To health and Esculapius."

It is of great importance that physicians should be able to advise the municipal and district authorities on matters relating to public health, as well as to so study the constitution, habits and surroundings of the families and individuals committed to their care, as to be able to hinder them from falling a prey to preventable sickness. The disastrous epidemic of typhoid fever at Plymouth, Pa., in consequence of the pollution of drinking water, is the most recent example of the fatal effects of the disregard of obvious sanitary precautions. There is a movement now inaugurated to introduce simple physiological and hygienic study into the public schools of this State, and it is important that the physicians educated in our medical colleges should be able to keep in advance of the growing public intelligence on this subject, so important to the health and happiness of our citizens. The schedule of the Illinois State Board of Health requires hygiene as among "the minimum requirements for a medical college to be held in good standing." In their report of 1883, they state that sanitary science and preventive medicine were then taught in 64 medical schools throughout the country.

Report of the Section on Anatomy, Physiology and Pathology.

BY WILMER BRINTON, M.D.

An account of the progress of pathology during the past year, must be restricted to a description of certain bacteriological researches. The ironical remark of Virchow: "Es gibt jetzt nichts als Pilze in der Pathologie," seems to be in a fair way of becoming accepted as the true doctrine by the large majority of pathologists and practitioners.

THE BACILLUS OF ASIATIC Cholera,

the "comma bacillus" of Koch has naturally demanded the largest share of attention. The early history of its discovery was told at length in the report of Dr. Joseph T. Smith, read at the last annual meeting of the Faculty.* On several occasions the importance of the discovery of Koch seemed on the point of being destroyed by winds of adverse doctrine, but the careful manner in which the great German experimenter had fortified his defenses, rendered them impreg

nable to all attacks.

The first serious attack made upon Koch's conclusions was contained in the report of the commission sent to Egypt by the French Government to study the epidemic. The facts in this controversy have already been laid before you in the report of Dr. Smith, above alluded to.

In July last an important conference was held in Berlin, under the auspices of the Imperial German Board of Health, to discuss the pathology, prevention and treatment of cholera. At this consultation Koch stated with the greatest positiveness that the organism described by him under the name of comma bacillus is the true, specific infecting agent in Asiatic cholera.

These conclusions were somewhat shaken by a report of observations made by Finkler and Prior upon the dejections in cholera * See transactions M. and Ch. Faculty for 1884, p. 166 et seq.