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In Japan, at the old ports of the whaling industry, at all 365 slaughterhouses of the country, at some of the more than 90 wholesale markets of marine products, and at most of the about 170 testing facilities using laboratory animals, there are memorial stones for the souls of the animals killed for human welfare. Except at the whaling ports, where the memorials often can be dated back to the 17. century, all stones have been erected in the 20. century, most of them during the last 2 decades. The roots of this Japanese folk custom are probably in the prehistoric times of Shintoism. With the introduction of Buddhism in the 6. century, the killing of animals was considered sinful. Following the opening of the country in 1860, slaughterhouses were established.

This article examines whether to be lawful a cremation must be carried out in accordance with the Cremation Acts. It argues that it need not be but points out that any lacuna in the Acts will be plugged if and when the new consolidated Cremation Regulations are passed. It then considers the implication of this reform for the disposal of babies born dead before the legal age of viability.

The representativeness of skeletal populations for characterization of the nature and frequency of disease could be questioned, as the bias of acquisition is often unclear. Examination of 2 proximate early 19th century cemetery populations, discordant for socioeconomic status, revealed indistinguishable character and frequency of spondyloarthropathy. Joint involvement, number and symmetry of joint erosions and fusion and skeletal distribution were indistinguishable in the 2 populations. It would appear that socioeconomic status does not bias skeletal populations, at least with respect to diseases for which no effective treatment was available.

The Norwegian provisional regulations from 1832 for the control of cholera included detailed directions for the burial of cholera victims. How these directions for graveyards were followed up has been studied in the context of the cholera epidemic in Western Norway in 1848-49. In Bergen an ordinary graveyard was used for burying cholera victims at the beginning of the epidemic, while all later burials took place in a graveyard for cholera victims only. 549 victims were buried here. On the island of Sotra the majority of the cholera victims were buried in three cholera graveyards, and further south in the county several small graveyards were planned or laid out. In general, the directions for cholera graveyards were followed. The cholera graveyard in Bergen was levelled over one hundred years ago, while several other cholera graveyards in Western Norway still exist as reminders of the epidemic.