Premature Burial and How It May Be PreventedTebb, William
Science
Premature Burial and How It May Be Prevented
Tebb, William
Burial, Premature
Dr. J. B. Vigné, in his “Memoire sur les Inhumations Précipitées,”
Paris, 1839, narrates the following:-- “Mr. B., an inhabitant of
Poitiers, fell suddenly into a state resembling death; every means
for bringing him back to life were used without interruption; from
continued dragging, his two little fingers were dislocated, and the
soles of his feet were burnt; but, all these having produced no
sensation in him, he was thought decidedly dead. As they were on the
point of placing him in his coffin, some one recommended that he should
be bled in both arms and feet at the same time, which was immediately
done, and with such success that, to the astonishment of all, he
recovered from his apparent state of death. When he had entirely
recovered his senses, he declared that he had heard every word that had
been said, and that his only fear was that he would be buried alive.”
APPARENT DEATH IN PREGNANCY.
Hufeland (one of the greatest authorities on the subject in Germany),
in his essay upon the uncertainty of the signs of death, tells of a
case of the wife of Professor Camerer, of Tübingen, who was hysterical,
and had a fright in the sixth month of her pregnancy, which brought
on convulsions (eclampsia), which continued for four hours, when she
seemed to die completely. Two celebrated physicians, besides three
others of less note, regarded the case as ended in death, as all the
recognised signs of death were present. However, attempts to revive
her were at once resorted to, and were continued for five hours, when
all the medical attendants, except one, gave the case up, and left.
The physician who remained pulled off a blister-plaster that had
been put on one of the feet, when the lady gave feeble signs of life
by twitchings about the mouth. The doctor then renewed his efforts
to revive her, by various stimulating means, and by burning, and by
pricking the spine; but all in vain, for after her slight evidences of
revival, she seemed to die unmistakably. She lay in a state of apparent
death for six days, but there was a small space over the heart where a
little warmth could be detected by the hand, and on this account the
burial was put off. On the seventh day she opened her eyes, and slowly
revived, but was completely unconscious of all that had happened. She
then gave birth to a dead child, and soon thereafter recovered her
health completely.
* * * * *
[MORE CAREFUL EXAMINATION REQUIRED.]
From the _Lancet_, November 27, 1858, p. 561.
“THE DEAD ALIVE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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