The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2Poe, Edgar Allan
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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2
Poe, Edgar Allan
American fiction -- 19th century; Fantasy fiction; Horror tales, American; Short stories
He was forthwith conveyed to the nearest hospital, and there
pronounced to be still living, although in an asphytic condition.
After some hours he revived, recognized individuals of his
acquaintance, and, in broken sentences spoke of his agonies in
the grave.
From what he related, it was clear that he must have been
conscious of life for more than an hour, while inhumed, before
lapsing into insensibility. The grave was carelessly and loosely
filled with an exceedingly porous soil; and thus some air was
necessarily admitted. He heard the footsteps of the crowd
overhead, and endeavored to make himself heard in turn. It was
the tumult within the grounds of the cemetery, he said, which
appeared to awaken him from a deep sleep, but no sooner was he
awake than he became fully aware of the awful horrors of his
position.
This patient, it is recorded, was doing well and seemed to be in
a fair way of ultimate recovery, but fell a victim to the
quackeries of medical experiment. The galvanic battery was
applied, and he suddenly expired in one of those ecstatic
paroxysms which, occasionally, it superinduces.
The mention of the galvanic battery, nevertheless, recalls to my
memory a well known and very extraordinary case in point, where
its action proved the means of restoring to animation a young
attorney of London, who had been interred for two days. This
occurred in 1831, and created, at the time, a very profound
sensation wherever it was made the subject of converse.
The patient, Mr. Edward Stapleton, had died, apparently of typhus
fever, accompanied with some anomalous symptoms which had excited
the curiosity of his medical attendants. Upon his seeming
decease, his friends were requested to sanction a post-mortem
examination, but declined to permit it. As often happens, when
such refusals are made, the practitioners resolved to disinter
the body and dissect it at leisure, in private. Arrangements were
easily effected with some of the numerous corps of
body-snatchers, with which London abounds; and, upon the third
night after the funeral, the supposed corpse was unearthed from a
grave eight feet deep, and deposited in the opening chamber of
one of the private hospitals.
An incision of some extent had been actually made in the abdomen,
when the fresh and undecayed appearance of the subject suggested
an application of the battery. One experiment succeeded another,
and the customary effects supervened, with nothing to
characterize them in any respect, except, upon one or two
occasions, a more than ordinary degree of life-likeness in the
convulsive action.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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