Popular Superstitions, and the Truths Contained Therein: With an Account of MesmerismMayo, Herbert
History
Popular Superstitions, and the Truths Contained Therein: With an Account of Mesmerism
Mayo, Herbert
Mesmerism; Parapsychology and medicine; Superstition
A young man of the name of Caspar Kreite, from Berne, died in the
hospital of Paderborn, but his body could not be interred for three
weeks, for the following reasons. During the first twenty-four hours
after drawing its last breath, the corpse opened its eyes, and the
pulse could be felt, for a few minutes, beating feebly and irregularly.
On the third and fourth day, points of the skin, which had been burned
to test the reality of his death, suppurated. On the fifth day the
corpse changed the position of one hand: on the ninth day a vesicular
eruption appeared on the back. For nine days there was a vertical
fold of the skin of the forehead—a sort of frown—and the features had
not the character of death. The lips remained red till the eighteenth
day; and the joints preserved their flexibility from first to last.
He lay in this state in a warm room for nineteen days, without any
farther alteration than a sensible wasting in flesh. Till after the
nineteenth day no discoloration of the body, or odour of putrefaction,
was observed. He had been cured of ague, and laboured under a slight
chest affection; but there had been no adequate cause for his death. It
is evident that this person was much more alive than many are in the
death-trance; and one half suspects that stimulants and nourishment,
properly introduced, might have entirely reanimated him.
I might exemplify death-trance by many a well authenticated romantic
story.—A noise heard in a vault; the people, instead of breaking open
the door, go for the keys, and for authority to act, and return too
late; the unfortunate person is found dead, having previously gnawn her
hand and arm in agony.—A lady is buried with a jewel of value on her
finger; thieves open the vault to possess themselves of the treasure;
the ring cannot be drawn from the finger, and the thieves proceed to
cut the finger off; the lady, wakening from her trance, scares the
thieves away, and recovers.—A young married lady dies and is buried; a
former admirer, to whom her parents had refused her hand, bribes the
sexton to let him see once more the form he loved. The body opportunely
comes to life at this moment, and flies from Paris with its first lover
to England, where they are married. Venturing to return to France, the
lady is recognised, and is reclaimed by her previous husband through
a suit at law; her counsel demurs, on the ground of the desertion and
burial; but the law not admitting this plea, she flies again to England
with her preserver, to avoid the judgment of the parliament of Paris,
in the acts of which the case stands recorded. There are one or two
other cases that I dare not cite, the particulars of which transcend
the wildest flights of imagination.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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