Bruhier in his work, “Dissertation sur l’Incertitude de la Mort et l’Abus des Enterrements,” records a number of cases of the supposed dead who, after burial, were revived at the dissecting table, together with fifty-three that awoke in their coffins before being buried, fifty-two persons actually buried alive, and seventy-two other cases of apparent death. This was at a time when body-snatching was in vogue, and it is a curious comment on our civilisation to be compelled to admit that a subject of trance or catalepsy during the last or the early part of the present century had a better chance of escape from so terrible a fate than now, when the vocation of the resurrection-man has become obsolete. CHAPTER XVIII. DEATH-CERTIFICATION. A SELECT COMMITTEE of the House of Commons, under the chairmanship of Sir Walter Foster, M.D., was appointed on March 27, 1893, to inquire into the subject of death-certification in the United Kingdom. Fourteen sittings were held, and thirty-two witnesses examined. All the witnesses practically agreed as to the serious defects in the law, and a number of recommendations were made. It was shown that in about four per cent. of the cases the cause of death was ill-defined and unspecified, many practitioners having forms specially printed for their own use, in which all mention of medical attendance is omitted, the object being to enable the doctor to give certificates in cases which he has never attended. Numerous deaths attended by unqualified practitioners were certified by qualified practitioners who had probably never seen the cases; and deaths were certified by medical practitioners who had not seen the patient for weeks or months prior to death, and who knew only by hearsay of the deaths having occurred. Deaths were also certified in which the true cause was suppressed in deference to the feelings of survivors; these last in particular are reported to be very numerous. [INADEQUATE RECOMMENDATIONS.] In Q. 2552-83, remarkable evidence was produced as to the reckless mode of death-certification. One medical witness testified that he saw a certificate of death, signed by a registered medical practitioner, giving both the fact and the cause of death of a man who was actually alive at the time, and who lived four days afterwards, with facts of even a more startling character described as “murder made easy.” It was pointed out that fraud and irregularity in giving false declarations of death are by no means infrequent. Various other matters are treated, and the following are some of their recommendations:-- 1. That in no case should a death be registered without the production of a certificate of the cause of death by a registered medical practitioner, or by a coroner after inquest, or, in Scotland, by a procurator-fiscal.