“Dr. E. Bouchut, in ‘Signes de la Mort,’ 3rd edition, p. 50, relates that an apothecary’s assistant had an attack of syncope, which continued for eight days, when he was apparently dead, and was removed to the mortuary of the Military Hospital, Cassel, where he was covered with a coarse wrapper and left amongst the dead. The following night he awoke from his lethargy, and, on recognising the horrible place where he was, dragged himself to the door and kicked against it. The noise was heard by the sentinel, aid arrived, and the patient was put in a warm bed, where he recovered. Dr. Bouchut says that, if he had been swathed in tight bandages, his efforts at release would have been futile, and he would have been buried alive.” LILLE. The Paris _Figaro_, March 31, 1894, on the authority of the _Progrés du Nord_, April 2, 1894, reports that:-- “M. Vangiesen, aged eighty-one years, awakened from supposed death on the flagstones of the mortuary at the Charité Hospital at Lille.” The _Undertakers’ Review_, January 22, 1894, reports that Lena Fellows, aged twenty-two years, a servant in the employ of A. R. Knox, of Buffalo, fell dead, as was thought, while at work on December 8. The remains were taken to the morgue in a coffin, but next morning when morgue-keeper McShane began to lift the supposed corpse into the refrigerator he found that the woman was alive. It was a case of catalepsy. The case of a child found apparently dead in Regents’ Park, London, and carried to the Marylebone Mortuary, where it subsequently revived, has already been noticed. The incident caused a good deal of comment, and suggested, doubtless, to the reflective reader that other cases of suspended animation might have a less fortunate issue. [NEED OF CAREFUL SUPERVISION.] It is quite impossible on the Continent for an enquirer, as the author knows from experience, to obtain reliable information with regard to what takes place within the walls of mortuaries, because of the numerous officials and others who are interested in covering up any errors of previous death-certification that may come to light in them. These comprise the health authorities, and the police in places where the latter regulate funerals, as well as the physicians, whose credit is at stake, and the nurses and undertakers. In many districts in Germany the original object of the mortuaries--the prevention of premature burial--advocated by Hufeland and others, has not been kept in view, but the edifices have rather been used for the convenience of the undertakers and their assistants, the bodies in many cases being removed before actual dissolution was established by evidence of putrefaction. This will need to be guarded against by more careful supervision. CHAPTER XXII. CONCLUSION.