[Cremation. A public health chapter in Mexico]

Cremation was a part of the funeral ceremony in prehispanic Mexico. When the Spanish conquerors came, this practice was prohibited. In 1877, the Uppu Health Council authorized animal incineration to avoid consumption by indigents or transformation in putrid emanation. Creamation was welcome in Mexico because of the knowledge of hygienic at the time, whose adepts had evaluated toxic exhalations of cadavers and the cemeteries of Mexico City, with incomplete destruction of the cadaver and filtration of contaminants into the subsoil. Three were the reasons against cremation; religious beliefs, lawmaker medical preoccupation with the disappearance of legal evidence, and the newly born science of anthropology, with loss of material for laboratory. The first crematorium was inaugurated by Dr. Eduardo Liceaga in February 1909 in the Dolores Cemetery.