To doubt the fact of premature interment is quite as absurd, as to credit all the tales, in this connection, fabricated by French and German wonder-mongers. During the existence of that terrible epidemic, which has so recently passed away, the necessity, real or imagined, of removing the corpses, as speedily as possible, has, very probably, occasioned some instances of premature interment. On the 28th of June, 1849, a Mr. Schridieder was supposed to be dead of cholera, at St. Louis, and was carried to the grave; where a noise in the coffin was heard, and, upon opening it, he was found to be alive. In the month of July, 1849, a Chicago paper contained the following statement:-- "We know a gentleman now residing in this city, who was attacked by the cholera, in 1832, and after a short time, was supposed to have died. He was in the collapsed state, gave not the least sign of life, and when a glass was held over his mouth, there was no evidence that he still breathed. But, after his coffin was obtained, he revived, and is now living in Chicago, one of our most estimable citizens." "Another case, of a like character, occurred near this city, yesterday. A man who was in the collapsed state, and to all appearances dead, became reanimated after his coffin was procured. He revived slightly--again apparently died--again revived slightly--and finally died and was buried." I find the following, in the Boston Atlas of August 23, 1849:-- "A painful occurrence has come to light in Baltimore, which creates intense excitement. The remains of the venerable D. Evans Reese, who died suddenly on Friday evening, were conveyed to the Light Street burying-ground, and while they were placed in the vault, the hand of a human being was discovered protruding from one of the coffins deposited there. On a closer examination, those present were startled to find the hand was firmly clenched, the coffin burst open, and the body turned entirely over, leaving not a doubt that the unfortunate being had been buried alive. The corpse was that of a very respectable man, who died, apparently, very suddenly, and whose body was placed in the vault on Friday last." The _Recherches Medico-legales sur l'incertitude des risques de la mort, les dangers dés inhumations précipiteés, les moyens de constater les décès et de rappeler á la vie ceux qui sont en etat de mort apparente_, by I. de Fontenelle, is a very curious production. In a review of this work, and of the _Recherches Physiologiques, sur la vie et la mort_, by Bichat, in the London Quarterly, vol. lxxxv. page 369, the writer remarks--"_A gas is developed in the decaying body, which mimics, by its mechanical force, many of the movements of life. So powerful is this gas, in corpses, which have laid long in the water, that M. Devergie, the physician at the Morgue, at Paris, says that, unless secured to the table, they are often heaved up and thrown to the ground._"