Chapter 8 Filling The Grave.

M. Boutigny has published an account of some experiments which go to prove that we may dip our fingers into liquid metal with impunity.

Professor Plücker, of Bonn, has amply confirmed Boutigny's results, and in his report hints a conclusion that henceforth "certain minor operations in surgery may be performed with least pain by placing the foot in a bath of red-hot iron." Would you not like to see Professor Plücker, with his trowsers duly tucked up, washing his feet in a pailful of this very soothing fluid? And would it not be a fit martyrdom for sanitary doctors, if we could compel them also to sacrifice their legs in a cause, kin to their own, of theory and innovation? As Alderman Lawrence shrewdly remarked the other day, from his place in the Guildhall, the sanitary reform cry is "got up." That is the reason why, in his case, it does not go down. He, for his own part, did not disapprove the flavor of a church-yard, and appeared to see no reason why it should be cheated of its due. The sanitary partisans, he said, were paid for making certain statements. It would be well if we could cut off their supply of halfpence, and so silence them. Liwang, an ancient Emperor of China, fearing insurrection, forbade all conversation, even whispering, in his dominions. It would be well for us if Liwang lived now as our Secretary for the Home Department. There is too much talking-is there not, Mr. Carlyle? We want Liwang among us. However, as matters stand, it is bad enough for the sanitary reformers. "They drop their arms and tremble when they hear," they are despised by Alderman Lawrence.3

Let us uphold our city grave-yards; on that [pg 612] point we have already spoken out. Let us not cheat them of their pasturage; if any man fall sick, when, so to speak, his grave is dug, let us not lift him out of it by misdirected care. That topic now engages our attention.

There is a report among the hear-say stories of Herodotus, touching some tribe of Scythians, that when one of them gets out of health, or passes forty years of age, his friends proceed to slaughter him, lest he become diseased, tough, or unfit for table. These people took their ancestors into their stomachs, we take ours into our lungs-and herein we adopt the better plan, because it is the more unwholesome. We are content, also, now and then to let our friends grow old, although we may repress the tendency to age as much as possible. We do not absolutely kill our neighbors when they sicken; yet by judicious nursing we may frequently keep down a too great buoyancy of health, and check recovery. How to produce this last effect I will now tell you. Gentle mourners, do not chide me as irreverent-

"Auch ich war in Arkadien geboren,"

bear with me, then, and let me give my hints concerning ?gritudinary sick-room discipline.

Of the professional nurse I will say nothing. You, of course, have put down Mrs. Gamp's address.

A sick-room should, in the first place, be made dark. Light, I have said before, is, in most cases, curative. It is a direct swindling of the doctor when we allow blinds to be pulled up, and so admit into the patient's room medicine for which nobody (except the tax-gatherer) is paid.

A sick-room should, in the next place, be made sad, obtrusively sad. A smile upon the landing must become a sigh when it has passed the patient's door. Our hope is to depress, to dispirit invalids. Cheerful words and gentle laughter, more especially where there is admitted sunshine also, are a moral food much too nutritious for the sick.

The sick-room, in its furniture as well, must have an ominous appearance. The drawers, or a table should be decked with physic bottles. Some have a way of thrusting all the medicine into a cupboard, out of sight, leaving a glass of gayly-colored flowers for the wearied eyes to rest upon: this has arisen obviously from a sanitary crotchet, and is, on no account, to be adopted.

Then we must have the sick-room to be hot, and keep it close. A scentless air, at summer temperature, sanitary people want; a hot, close atmosphere is better suited to our view. Slops and all messes are to be left standing in the room-only put out of sight-and cleared away occasionally; they are not to be removed at once. The chamber also is to be made tidy once a day, and once a week well cleaned: it is not to be kept in order by incessant care, by hourly tidiness, permitting no dirt to collect.

There is an absurd sanitary dictum, which I will but name. It is, that a patient ought to have, if possible, two beds, one for the day, and one for night use; or else two sets of sheets, that, each set being used one day and aired the next, the bed may be kept fresh and wholesome. Suppose our friend were to catch cold in consequence of all this freshness!

No, we do better to avoid fresh air; nor should we vex our patient with much washing. We will not learn to feed the sick, but send their food away when they are unable to understand our clumsiness.

Yet, while we follow our own humor in this code of chamber practice, we will pay tithes of mint and cummin to the men of science. We will ask Monsieur Purgon how many grains of salt go to an egg; and if our patient require twelve turns up and down the room, we will inquire with Argan, whether they are to be measured by its length or breadth.

When we have added to our course some doses of religious horror, we shall have done as much as conscience can demand of us toward filling the grave.

I may append here the remark, that if ever we do resolve to eat our ancestors, there is the plan of a distinguished horticulturist apt for our purpose. Mr. Loudon, I believe it was, who proposed, some years ago, the conversion of the dead into rotation crops-that our grandfathers and grandmothers should be converted into corn and mangel-wurzel. His suggestion was to combine burial with farming operations. A field was to be, during forty years, a place of interment: then the field adjacent was to be taken for that purpose; and so on with others in rotation. A due time having been allowed for the manure in each field to rot, the dead were to be well worked up and gradually disinterred in the form of wheat, or carrots, or potatoes.

Nothing appears odd to which we are accustomed. We look abroad and wonder, but we look at home and are content. The Esquimaux believe that men dying in windy weather are unfortunate, because their souls, as they escape, risk being blown away. Some Negroes do not bury in the rainy season, for they believe that then the gods, being all busy up above, can not attend to any ceremonies. Dr. Hooker writes home from the Himalaya mountains, that about Lake Yarou the Lamas' bodies are exposed, and kites are summoned to devour them by the sound of a gong and of a trumpet made out of a human thigh-bone. Such notions from abroad arrest our notice, but we see nothing when we look at home. We might see how we fill our sick-rooms with a fatal gloom, and keep our dead five or six days within our houses, to bury them, side by side and one over another, thousands together, in the middle of our cities. However, when we do succeed in getting at a view of our own life ab extra, it is a pleasant thing to find that sanitary heresies at any rate have not struck deep root in the British soil. In an old book of emblems there is a picture of Cupid whipping a tortoise, to the motto that [pg 613] Love hates delay. If lovers of reform in sanitary matters hate delay, it is a pity; for our good old tortoise has a famous shell, and is not stimulated easily.