Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 December 1884 — Story of a Death Certificate. [ARTICLE]

Story of a Death Certificate.

Daring a quarrel a peasant in the province of Novgorod was struck in the chest with an axe, fracturing several ribs and wounding the lungs. He was in an extremely critical condition, and a doctor from the nearest town, sixty miles distant, was sent for. The surgeon. as is customary in Russia, took his time, and reached his patient by the slowest stages. The man by this time had nearly succumbed to his injuries and stood very little chance of recovery. The doctor made an examination and pronounced the wound as fatal. He waited several hours thiuking that the man in the Meantime would die; but things did not turn out as be expected, so, in order to facilitate matters and save him the trouble of again visiting his patient, he made out a death certificate and started home. For some reason or other the man took it into his head to get well, and he began to get better until lie recovered entirely. The authorities, learning of the strange proceeding, demanded the return of the death certificate, whioh was refused, and now the man walks about in full possession of the consolation that he is legally dead, and that his body lies buried in the village churchyard, according to*his death certificate. — London Echo.