“In October, 1837, M. Deschamps, an inhabitant of la Guillotière, at Lyons, died at the end of a short indisposition. His obsequies were ordered for the next day. On the next day the priests and the vergers, the corpse-bearers and conductors of funerals, attended. At the moment when they were about to nail down the lid of the coffin, the corpse rose in its shroud, sat upright, and asked for something to eat. The persons present were about to run away in terror, as from a phantom, but they were re-assured by M. Deschamps himself, who happily recovered from a lethargic sleep, which had been mistaken for death. Due cares were bestowed upon him, and he lived. After his recovery he stated that in his state of lethargy he had heard all that had passed around him, without being able to make any movement, or to give any expression to his sensations. * * * It is fortunate for M. Deschamps that the funeral, which was to have taken place in the evening, was deferred until the morning, when the lethargic access terminated, otherwise he would have been interred alive.” * * In the last number of the Annales d’Hygiene, the following recent instances are cited, as proving the necessity of a regular verification throughout the kingdom of the fact of death:— A midwife of the commune of Paulhan (Hérault) was believed to be dead and was put in a coffin. At the expiration of twenty-four hours she was carried to the church and from thence to the cemetery. But during its progress the bearers felt some movement in the coffin, and were surprised and frightened. They stopped and opened the coffin, when they found the unfortunate woman alive! she had merely fallen into a lethargy. She was carried back to her home, but in consequence of the shock she received she only survived a few days the horrible accident. It is stated from Bergerac (Dordogne), of the date of the 27th of December, 1842, that— An individual of the Commune d’Eymet, who suffered from the continued want of sleep, having consulted a medical practitioner, took on his prescription a potion which certainly caused sleep; but the patient slept always, and the prolongation of the repose created great anxiety, and occasioned his being bled. The blood flowed feebly, drop by drop. Then he was declared to be dead. At the expiration of a few days, however, the potion given to the patient was remembered, and an uneasy sensation that it might have been the cause of an apparent death, caused the exhumation of the body. When the coffin was opened the horrible fact was apparent to all present that the unfortunate man had really been buried alive; he had turned round in the coffin! His distorted limbs showed that he had long struggled against death.