Dr. Chew, referring to another of the predisposing causes of apparent death, and the danger of premature burial in India, says:--“In the cholera season there is a risk of a soldier being buried alive, as the custom is to get rid of the body as soon as possible, and it is very seldom indeed that a _post-mortem_ is held on a cholera corpse. If the case be one of _true_ cholera, decomposition sets in before the breath has entirely left the body, and, immediately life is extinct, putrefaction rushes forward so rapidly as to render a mistake impossible; but in choleraic diarrhœa or the lighter forms of cholera it is possible that coma resultant on extreme collapse may suspend animation so as to simulate real death _without_ actual cessation of vital energy, and lead to live sepulture, except where, by some such lucky accident as the burial ground being a long journey off, the funeral is delayed sufficiently to give a chance of recovery. And this same accident may prove a salvation in syncope or coma from shock or protracted illness. “With the civil population, save in very exceptional cases, there is very little chance of recovery from apparent death, as the time between alleged decease and sepulture is very short indeed; and unless there are unmistakable signs of trance, syncope, or coma, the victim must die _after he_ (or she) _has been buried alive_.” VARIOUS PREDISPOSING DISEASES. [THEIR NUMBER AND VARIETY.] Living burials take place because the general public are ignorant of the fact that there are many (some thirty) diseases, and some states of the body that cannot be called diseases, as well as a number of incidents and accidents, which produce all the appearances of death so closely as to deceive any one. Excessive joy or excessive grief will often paralyse the nervous system, including the action of the heart and the respiratory functions, and occasion the appearance of sudden death as well as shocks, blows upon the head, fright, strokes of lightning, violent displays of temper; also certain drugs now in common medical use, such as Indian hemp, atropia, digitalis, tobacco, morphia, and veratrum. According to Dr. Léonce Lénormand, in “Des Inhumations Précipitées,” pp. 85-104, the following diseases and conditions not infrequently produce the like symptoms, viz., apoplexy, asphyxia, catalepsy, epilepsy, nervous exhaustion, ecstasy, hæmorrhage, hysteria, lethargy, syncope, tetanus, etc. Dr. Herbert Mayo in his “Letters on Truths contained in Popular Superstitions,” p. 34, remarks “that death-trance belongs to diseases of the nervous system, but in any form of disease, when the body is brought to a certain state of debility, death-trance may supervene.”