Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
The message
from contains these words:

/quicklime/

It was used in plague pits.

Not very recently, I would venture to suggest. In 'official
circles'
the myth that it had a caustic action on bodies lasted well into
the
last century.

O. Wilde, _The Ballad of Reading Gaol_ "We could tell the work they
had been at / By the quicklime on their boots."

I wonder, though, if the plague pit theory wasn't in fact quite a
good one: the stuff is, after all, caustic, and by reacting with soil
moisture and to some extent with exposed parts of the bodies might
have provided a sort of cordon sanitaire.

Mike.