“Any cases of apparent death that did occur (in former days) were burnt, or buried, or otherwise put out of the way, and were never more heard of. But after the establishment of Christianity, tenderness, sometimes excessive, for the remains of departed friends took the place of the hard, heathen selfishness. The dead were kept closer to the congregations of the living, as if to represent in material form the dogma of the Communion of Saints. This led to the discovery that some persons, indeed some persons of note (amongst others, Duns Scotus the theologian, at Cologne), had got out of their coffins, and died in a vain attempt to open the doors of their vaults.” [CASES FROM THE MEDICAL JOURNALS.] The author relates several other remarkable cases. Here is one:-- “I lighted accidently on another case, communicated to the same scientific body (Acad. Royale des Sciences), by M. Imbert in 1713. It is that of the driver of the Rouen diligence, aged forty-five, who fell into a kind of soporific catalepsy on hearing of the sudden death of a man he had quarrelled with. It appears that ‘M. Burette, under whose care he was at La Charité, made use of the most powerful assistances of art--bleeding in the arms, the foot, the neck, emetics, purgatives, blisters, leeches,’ etc. At last somebody ‘threw him naked into cold water to surprise him.’ The effect surprised the doctors as much as the patient. It is related with evident wonder how that ‘he opened his eyes, looked steadfastly, but did not speak.’ His wife seems to have been a prudent woman, for a week afterwards she ‘carried him home, where he is at present: they gave him no medicine; he speaks sensibly enough, and mends every day.’” The _Lancet_, 1870, vol. i., p. 1044, in its Paris correspondence says:-- “The following curious case is related as having occurred at Dunkirk, on April 14, and as ‘showing the utility of catalepsy.’ A young girl of seventeen years was seized with a violent attack of epilepsy, and fell, on the above date, into a canal. A boatman immediately jumped into the water to save her, and brought her to the shore after twenty minutes. The most singular circumstance connected with the accident is that, when the young girl was taken out of the water, she presented all the symptoms of catalepsy. Notwithstanding this long immersion, she was resuscitated, and nothing afterwards transpired to cause any anxiety.” Mr. James Braid, M.R.C.S., in the _Medical Times_, 1850, vol. xxi., p. 402, narrates a case of a cataleptic woman in the Manchester Royal Infirmary under the care of Dr. John Mitchell, and writes:--