he heard the undertaker say, “Would anyone like to see the corpse before I screw him down?” The undertaker at the same time moved the head a little and struck it against the coffin, on which he aroused and sat up. On reading this aloud a visible smile passed over the face of my patient, and she returned to obvious consciousness soon after. She has not come under observation since she left the hospital.’ “Although this case is probably only one among many, I mention it here because the receipt of the letter just given led me to investigate more particularly the state of the hearing in Mrs. M’I.’s case, and also to try the experiment of reading aloud Dr. Down’s letter in her presence and that of the class. I had often remarked to bystanders that, although the subjects of these apparently unconscious states appeared inaccessible to the ordinary tests of sensibility, it was on record as regards some, even of those regarded as cases of ‘apparent death,’ that after recovery they affirm to have heard everything that passed, although unable to lift hand or foot to save themselves from premature burial. Neither the reading of the letter nor a violent shout into her ear produced any visible effects.” [DEATH’S COUNTERFEIT.] Thomas More Madden, M.D., F.R.C.S. (Edin.), in an article on “Death’s Counterfeit,” in the _Medical Press and Circular_, vol. i., April 27, 1887, pp. 386-8, relates the following case “of so-called hysteric trance”:-- “A young lady, Miss R----, apparently in perfect health, went to her room after luncheon to make some change in her dress. A few minutes afterwards she was found lying on her bed in a profound sleep, from which she could not be awakened. When I first saw her, twenty-four hours later, she was sleeping tranquilly; the decubitus being dorsal, respiration scarcely perceptible, pulse seventy, and extremely small; her face was pallid, lips motionless, and the extremities very cold. At this moment, so death-like was her aspect, that a casual observer might have doubted the possibility of the vital spark still lingering in that apparently inanimate frame, on which no external stimulus seemed to produce any sensorial impression, with the exception that the pupils were normal and responded to light. Sinapisms were applied over the heart and to the legs, where they were left on until vesication was occasioned without causing any evidence of pain. Faradisation was also resorted to without effect. In this state she remained from the evening of December 31 until the afternoon of January 3, when the pulse became completely imperceptible; the surface of the body was icy cold, the respiratory movements apparently ceased, and her condition was to all outward appearance undistinguishable from death. Under the influence of repeated hypodermic injections of sulphuric ether and other remedies, however, she rallied somewhat, and her pulse and temperature improved. But she still slept on until