CHAPTER VII.
PROBABLE CASES OF PREMATURE BURIAL.
There is a great and natural reluctance on the part of medical practitioners to admit that they have made mistakes in death-certification, particularly in any one of the various forms of death counterfeits, or suspended animation. It should be noted that amongst the lectures delivered on special occasions, such as the opening of the medical schools, the subjects of trance and the danger of premature burial are conspicuous for their absence; allusion to these subjects is of rare occurrence, nor does the study of this abstruse branch of medicine, so far as can be ascertained, form part of any medical curriculum. In the bibliography at the end of this volume, extensive as it is, I can hardly refer to a single instance. Dr. Franz Hartmann, whose work on “Buried Alive” has passed through two English and one German edition, informs me that the same reticence is observable in the medical schools of Germany. Many medical men do not believe in death-trance. They declare that they have never seen such a case, and in their judgment when a sick patient ceases to breathe, when volition is suspended, and the stethoscope reveals no signs of cardiac action, the death is real, and the case beyond recovery. The evidence disclosed in this volume is the result of inquiry in many countries.
From the Medical Times, London, 1860, vol. i., p. 65.
“A lady entering upon the ninth month of pregnancy died of pneumonia. All the other phenomena of death ensued, except that the colour of the face was unusually life-like. On the fifteenth day from that of death there was not the least cadaveric odour from the corpse, nor had its appearance much altered, and it was only on the sixteenth day that the lips darkened. The temperature of the atmosphere had undergone many changes during the time mentioned, but although there had been frost for a short period, the weather was in general damp and cold.”
This lady might not have been dead. The burial laws should have been such as to make it certain that she was dead before interment, by the appearance of general decomposition.NEIGHBOURS’ INTERFERENCE. The examination of facts collected by well-known physicians at home leads to the conclusion that cases of narrow escapes from premature burial are by no means of rare occurrence. And it must be obvious to the least reflective reader that in countries where burial follows quickly upon supposed death (as in Turkey and France, some parts of Ireland, and throughout India), or where there is no compulsory examination of the dead (as in the United States or the United Kingdom), and amongst people like the Jews (since the Jewish Law enjoins speedy interment), and especially in cases of sudden death (where attempts at resuscitation are rare), the number of premature burials may be considerable.
In the United States, while there is no law, as in France, enforcing burial within a prescribed number of days, it is the custom of civil authorities, under regulations made by the Boards of Health, to compel interments if delayed by reason of doubt as to actual death beyond a few days.
Particulars of the following case were sent me by a physician, January 17, 1894:—
“WAS SHE ALIVE?
“Mrs. John Emmons, of North Judson, Ind., was taken suddenly ill and apparently died, a week ago. Her husband desired to keep the body for a few days, to make sure of death. It seems that her mother went into a trance for four days, rallied, and lived five years; also that her grandfather on her mother’s side, after having been pronounced dead for six days, awoke, and lived for twenty-three years. Mrs. Emmons’s body was kept until Saturday, when, on the demand of the physician and numerous residents, it was interred. During the time between Monday and Saturday the body did not become rigid. Mortification did not set in, and she was laid to rest without waiting for that, the surest of all tests, to take place. Many are of the opinion that the woman has been buried alive.”
There are many cases like the above on record, in which, although there is no absolute proof of premature burial, there is strong presumptive evidence of it. The following from Truth (London) of May 23, 1895, is an example, and the writer has heard of many others:—
“The other day I gave a story showing the difficulty of obtaining a post-mortem examination after a doctor has once certified the cause of death. One of my readers caps it with a gruesome narrative, of which this is the outline: A man lately died in London. The coffin had to be removed by rail, and was to be closed on the fourth day after the death. My informant, taking a last look at the deceased, was struck by the complete absence of all the ordinary signs of death at such a period. In particular, he states that there was no rigidity in any part of the body, and there was a perceptible tinge of colour in the forehead. He went over to the doctor who had attended the deceased, described all the signs that he had observed, and begged the doctor to come and look at the body before the coffin was closed. The doctor absolutely refused, saying that he had given his certificate, and had no doubt as to the man’s death. The friend then suggested that he might himself open a vein and see if blood flowed, to which the doctor replied that, if he did so without the authority of the widow, he would be indictable for felony. Whereupon, says my informant, who was only a friend of the family, ‘I had to retire baffled, and let matters take their course.’ Why on earth he did not take the widow into his confidence, or risk an indictment for felony by opening a vein on his own account, or even summon another doctor, he does not say. I trust that, should any friend of mine see my coffin about to be screwed down under similar circumstances, and find equal cause to doubt whether I am dead, he will summon up courage to stick a pin into me, and chance the consequences. This, however, has nothing to do with the doctor’s responsibilities. It would seem that the medico in this case was either so confident in his own opinion as to decline even to walk across the road to investigate the extraordinary symptoms described to him, or else that he preferred the chance of the man being buried alive to the chance of having to admit he had made a mistake. Which alternative is the worst I do not know.”
The Gaulois (Paris) of May 16, 1894, contains the following:—
“DEATH OR CATALEPSY?
“The funeral of the Comtesse de Jarnac, whose death was reported to have taken place on Saturday, was fixed for to-morrow, but it will probably be postponed. None of the usual signs of dissolution have appeared; the face still retains its colour, and rigor mortis has not yet set in. Some hope is even entertained that the Comtesse may be simply in a state of catalepsy, and that the embolus, to which death was attributed, may have lodged in the lungs, not in the heart, in which case it may merely have caused a stoppage of the circulation (sic). The body had not been placed in the coffin up to a late hour last night.”
STRANGULATION BY A SCARF.
One of the authors was present on May 14, 1894, with a company of ladies and gentlemen gathered at a country mansion in the Austrian Tyrol for afternoon tea, when the conversation turned upon the subject of premature burial.CASE IN THE AUSTRIAN TYROL. Among other cases related, the host described that of one of his servants, a woman, who went to bed with toothache, a long scarf being wrapped around her face and neck. As she did not appear the following morning, our host entered her room, and found her, as he supposed, strangled to death by the scarf tightly wound about her neck. A doctor was summoned, when he found that the woman was warm and limp, her face soft and coloured as in life; yet, as there was no respiration or perceptible wrist-pulse, nor beating of the heart, he regarded her as dead, and thought it would be proper to bury her. The host had doubts, however, about the case, and, having decided to observe it further, he had the woman removed to an outhouse, where she remained three days longer without any change in her appearance or condition in any way. But, as there was considerable impatience felt at the delay of the burial by the people on the estate, the host sent for two doctors to make a final examination of the woman, and decide as to the existence of life or death. The doctors found that no change had taken place—there was softness of the skin, colour in the face, limpness of the muscles, and an unmistakable warmth of the body; but, as there was an absence of apparent respiration and beating of the heart, they decided that the woman was dead, and urged her burial, which was done. They attributed the high temperature to the process of decomposition which they assumed was going on, though there was no odour of putrefaction noticed by anyone.
The probabilities are that this woman was buried alive. And in the present state of medical education on the subject of apparent death and the causes that bring it about, many physicians would have come to a like conclusion; and, as physicians know but little about it, they are not on their guard concerning its dangers.
A number of cases of apparent death that have survived—where there was strangulation from a scarf, as in this case—have been reported. The explanation in such cases is, that the pressure of the scarf around the neck keeps the venous blood from flowing down from the brain through the jugular veins, and the brain, in consequence, becomes saturated with carbonic acid gas from the detained venous blood, and a death-like stupor caused by carbonic acid poisoning ensues. Artificial respiration would, it is believed, restore such persons to consciousness.
A leading West End undertaker, whose letter is before me, writes under date of June 26, 1896, as follows:—“In my experience I have had but one case come under my personal observation where I had real uncertainty as to death being actually present, and that was an instance of the kind in which this calamity is only likely, in my opinion, to occur. A girl who had been to work in Borwick’s factory apparently fainted and died, and within a few days the friends buried her. When we came to close the coffin, there was no evidence of death, and we did not close it without having a doctor sent for, and receiving his assurance that she was dead. When reading the fatal cases which have come to light upon this subject, I must confess to looking back upon that instance with much fear, and it is but a poor consolation to me that the responsibility was not mine, but the medical man’s.”
The foregoing cases are recorded because they are types of a class that nearly every physician, undertaker, clergyman, or other observer has met with or heard of, and the probabilities, having regard to the existing confusion and uncertainty of opinion on the signs of death, are on the side of apparent rather than real death. On the other hand, a medical correspondent informs the author that he is sceptical as to the reported cases of narrow escapes, as on more than one occasion his efforts to verify the facts have proved abortive. It must be admitted that there are difficulties in the way of such inquiries. If the subject of trance, or narrow escape from burial, is a lady, publicity injures her prospects of marriage, and, if a young man, his reputation for business stability is endangered or prejudiced, so that this reticence on the part of relatives is hardly surprising. Such persons do not like their gruesome and unpleasant experiences to be talked about.
CHAPTER VIII.
PREDISPOSING CAUSES AND CONDITIONS OF DEATH-COUNTERFEITS.
Those who are most subject to the various forms of death-counterfeit are persons whose vocations exhaust the nervous force faster than the natural powers of recuperation, and who resort to narcotics and stimulants to counteract the consequent physical depression. Dr. Alex. Wilder, in his “Perils of Premature Burial,” London, E. W. Allen, p. 19, says:—“We exhaust our energies by overwork, by excitement, too much fatigue of the brain, the use of tobacco, and sedatives or anæsthetics, and by habits and practices which hasten the Three Sisters in spinning the fatal thread. Apoplexy, palsy, epilepsy, are likely to prostrate any of us at any moment, and catalepsy, perhaps, is not very far from any of us.” Equally, if not even more likely, to be overtaken by these simulacra of death are the poor—the ill-fed, ill-conditioned, and overworked classes.
With regard to the causation of catalepsy, Dr. W. R. Gowers, in Quain’s “Dictionary of Medicine,” p. 216, says:—“Nervous exhaustion is the common predisponent; and emotional disturbance, especially religious excitement, or sudden alarm, and blows on the head and back, are frequent immediate causes. It occasionally occurs in the course of mental affections, and especially melancholia, and as an early symptom of epilepsy.”
FAINTING FITS.
Dr. James Curry, F.A.S., in his “Observations on Apparent Death,” pp. 81, 82, referring to those conditions and diseases which predispose to death-counterfeits, to which women are more liable than men, says:—“The faintings which most require assistance, and to which, therefore, I wish particularly to direct the attention of my readers and the public, are those that take place from loss of blood, violent and long-continued fits of coughing, excessive vomiting or purging, great fatigue or want of food, and likewise after convulsions, and in the advanced stage of low fevers. It is but seldom, however, that any attempt at recovery is made in such cases; and several reasons may be assigned for this, particularly the great resemblance that fainting fits of any duration bear to actual death, and the firm belief of the bystanders that the circumstances which preceded were sufficient to destroy life entirely.”
The author continues, pp. 106, 107:—“Nervous and highly hysterical females, who are subject to fainting fits, are the most frequent subjects of this kind of apparent death; in which the person seems in a state very nearly resembling that of hibernating animals, such as the dormouse, bat, toad, frog, etc., which annually become insensible, motionless, and apparently dead, on the setting in of the winter’s cold, but spontaneously revive on the returning warmth of spring. Here, by some peculiar and yet unknown circumstance, the vital principle has its action suspended, but neither its existence destroyed, nor its organs injured, so as absolutely to prevent recovery, if not too long neglected.”
Dr. Franz Hartmann reports a case which occurred within half a mile of his residence near Hallein, Austria:—“At Oberalm, near Hallein, there died the widow of a Dr. Ettenberger, a lawyer. It was known that she had previously been affected with fits of catalepsy, and therefore all possible means were taken for the purpose of restoring her to life. All, however, were in vain, and her death appeared to be certain. On the third day, just before the hour appointed for the funeral, the family physician, Dr. Leber, bethought himself of trying some fresh experiments on the corpse, when the woman revived. She had been fully conscious all the time, and aware of all the preparations that were made for her funeral, although unable to make it known to others that she was still alive.”
Dr. Hartmann says:—“In 1866, in Kronstadt, a young and strong man, Orrendo by name, had a fit and died. He was put into a coffin and deposited in the family vault in a church. Fourteen years afterwards, in 1880, the same vault was opened again for the purpose of admitting another corpse. A horrible sight met those who entered. Orrendo’s coffin was empty, and his skeleton lying upon the floor. But the rest of the coffins were also broken open and emptied of their contents. It seemed to show that the man after awakening had burst his coffin open, and, becoming insane, had smashed the others, after which he had been starved to death.”—Premature Burial, p. 7.
Bouchut, in “Signes de la Mort,” p. 40, relates that “A lawyer at Vesoul was subject to fits of fainting, but kept the matter secret, so that the knowledge of it might not spread and interfere with his prospects of marriage; he only spoke confidentially of it to one of his friends. The marriage took place, and he lived for some time in good health, then suddenly fell into one of his fits, and his wife and the doctors, believing him dead, had him placed in a coffin, and got everything ready for the funeral. His friend was absent, but fortunately returned just in time to prevent the burial. The lawyer recovered, and lived for sixteen years after this event.”
INTENSE COLD.
M. Charles Londe, in “La Mort Apparente,” p. 16, says:—“Intense cold, coincident with privations and fatigue, will produce all the phenomena of apparent death—phenomena susceptible of prolongation during several days without producing actual death, and consequently exposing the individual who could be restored to life to living burial;” and he further maintains it as an indisputable fact that every day people are thus interred alive.
Struve, in his essay on “Suspended Animation,” p. 140, says:—“In no case whatever is the danger of committing homicide greater than in the treatment of persons who have suffered by severe cold. Their death-like state may deceive our judgment, not only because such persons continue longest apparently dead, but because the want of susceptibility of irritation is in many cases not distinguishable from real death. A man benumbed with cold burnt his feet, and had continued insensible to pain, nor did he feel this sensation till he warmed them at a fire. In this case it is evident that the susceptibility of irritation was destroyed, while vital power remained.”
INFLUENZA.
This is a malady that has been enormously rife all over the world during the past few years, and has baffled the efforts of physicians and sanitarians to arrest its progress: it is sometimes accompanied by conditions which can hardly be distinguished from catalepsy.
The Lancet, May 31, 1890, page 1215, gives the following:—
“CATALEPSY AS A SEQUELA OF INFLUENZA.
“The neurotic sequelæ of influenza seem engaging more attention abroad than at home, probably from their symptoms being more pronounced than on this side the Channel. ‘Nonna,’ as it is called, if something more than the somnolence succeeding the exhaustion of influenza, has been thought in Upper Italy to have much in common with catalepsy—one case, indeed, amounting to the ‘apparent death’ of Pacini. This is reported from Como. The patient, Pasquale Ossola by name, had to all appearance died, and a certificate to that effect, after due consultation, was drawn up and signed. Already it wanted but an hour or so to the interment, when the ‘corpse’ began to move spontaneously and to exhibit signs of returning life. The relatives of the supposed dead man at once called in assistance, and though animation and consciousness, even to recognition, were restored, the resuscitation was not maintained, and the patient died. Fortunately, the funeral had been arranged on the traditional lines, and the faint chance of return to life was not extinguished by cremation.”
NARCOTICS.
Referring to the supposed death of a girl, Sarola, aged eleven years, to whom chloroform had been administered in September, 1894, under peculiar circumstances, and the body hurried off to cremation, Dr. Roger S. Chew, of Calcutta, writes:—“That bottle of medicine was charged with having caused the death of little Sarola, who, I firmly believe, was burned alive while in a cataleptic condition induced by the hysterical convulsions, and rendered profound by the administration of the chloroform.CHLOROFORM DEATHS PREVENTABLE. Surgeon Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Lawrie agrees with me that at least ninety per cent. of the chloroform deaths are preventable if proper measures are adopted to resuscitate the body, and it is quite possible for a chloroform narcotic to be launched into eternity on the funeral pyre or in the suffocating earth. What a mournful vista Sarola’s case opens up, and who can say how many hundreds have been similarly disposed of!”—Communicated to the Author.
Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, in “The Absolute Signs and Proofs of Death,” in the Asclepiad, first quarter, 1889, p. 9, says:—“In the first experiments made in this country with chloral, after the discovery of its effects by Liebriech, we learned that such a deep narcotism could be induced by this narcotic that it might be impossible to say whether an animal under its influence were alive or dead.” And referring to cataleptic trance due to shock, he observes, p. 11, “True traumatic catalepsy is equally remarkable, and equally embarrassing. It has been witnessed in the most destructive form after shock by lightning, and it may also have been met with after severe blows and contusions of the head.”
CHOLERA.
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.
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.”
Dr. Hartmann observes: “The cases in which persons apparently dead have been restored to health by appropriate means are innumerable, and such accounts may be added to without end, as they are of daily occurrence, while it is also self-evident that, if they had not thus been saved, premature burial and death in the coffin would have taken place. But it also often happens that cases of apparent death recover spontaneously, and even after all possible means taken for the restoration of life have failed. This is specially the case in catalepsy, due to nervous exhaustion, which requires no other remedy than sufficient rest for the recuperation of the life-power, which no kind of medicine can supply.”