(5) That the only safe and effective method of reform is the establishment of appropriately designed waiting mortuaries, such as are provided at Munich, Weimar, Stuttgart, and other German cities, with qualified attendants and appliances for resuscitation, and where doubtful cases of death (and all are doubtful in which decomposition has not clearly manifested itself) can be deposited until the fact of death is unequivocally established. (6) That premature burial in civilised countries is mainly possible owing to the fact that instruction in the phenomena of trance, catalepsy, syncope, and other forms of suspended animation is not systematic in the medical schools in any country, and the means of prevention are therefore practically unknown. This omission should be immediately remedied by the inclusion of the subject at the appropriate place in the medical curriculum, and in the examination for degrees. (7) That, inasmuch as a radical change in the methods of treating the dead or supposed dead is extremely urgent, and legislation with an overworked Parliament in England and apathetic State Legislatures in America will probably be delayed, the authors recommend, as a preliminary measure of protection, the formation of associations for the prevention of premature burial amongst their members, as in some cities in France, Austria, and the United States, or the alternative plan of engrafting such an obligation of prevention upon existing associations, clubs, and insurance companies established for other purposes. * * * * * If the foregoing conclusions are established, the need for immediate action is urgent and imperative, and the prompt intervention of Parliament should be at once invoked. May we hope for the cordial co-operation of all classes and of all sections on a question in which the whole community have a deep and vital interest, and on which procrastination will certainly be fatal to some of its members. It is not an academic question, but one of the gravest practical character, the earnest consideration and treatment of which cannot be neglected with impunity. APPENDICES. APPENDIX A. HISTORICAL CASES OF RESTORATION FROM APPARENT DEATH. FROM the time of Kornmann, Terilli, and Zacchia (see “Bibliography,” seventeenth century), certain notable instances, from old authors, of restoration from apparent death have been cited, with a good deal of uniformity, in essays or theses on this subject. One of the most convenient (to English readers) of these compilations is to be found in an anonymous essay, “The Uncertainty of the Signs of Death,” Dublin, 1748 (printed by George Faulkner), from which the following extracts are taken _verbatim_:-- Plutarch informs us that a certain person fell from an eminence, but did not show the least appearance of any wound, for, three days after, he suddenly resumed his strength, and returned to life as his friends were conveying him to the grave.