Several writers, besides Dr. Winslow, whose views on premature burial are cited in this volume, have themselves been the victims of hasty and erroneous medical diagnosis; and, having had narrow escapes of premature burial, their experience has prompted them to take a deep interest in the subject, with the determination to do what they could to enlighten and safeguard the public from so terrible a danger. In other cases, members of their families have been the unhappy victims of mistaken certificates. Mr. George T. Angell, the editor of “_Dumb Animals_,” Boston, U.S., whose father was pronounced by his physician dead, and returned to consciousness after preparations for the funeral had been made, has repeatedly alluded to the subject in his paper, and published preventive suggestions at various times, including the following from a physician:-- “When I arrived, the man had been dead twenty-four hours. I empanelled a jury; the family of the deceased testified to the extent of their knowledge; but I was unable to find he had any disease sufficient to kill him. I looked at the body and examined it carefully. Then I lighted a match, and applied it to the end of one of the fingers of the corpse. Immediately a blister formed. I had the man put back into his bed, applied various restoratives, and to-day he is alive and well. “That is the test. Do you see the philosophy of it? If you are alive, you cannot burn your hand without raising a blister. Nature, in the effort to protect the inner tissues, throws a covering of water, a non-conductor of heat, between the fire and the flesh. If you were dead, and flames should come in contact with any part of your body, no blister would appear, and the flesh would be burned. “All you have to do is to apply a match to any part of the supposed corpse. If life remains, however little, a blister will at once form.” The test, like the following one, is deceptive, because life may be so torpid and inactive as to be unable to respond to the irritation of heat, or even to the application of red hot irons. THE BLISTER TEST. The _British Medical Journal_, January 18, 1896, p. 180, under the head of “Living or Dead?” prints the following communication concerning this test:-- [THE BLISTER TEST.]