Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 May 1889 — Sim ulating Death. [ARTICLE]

Sim ulating Death.

Pittsburg Dispatch. Dr. Tanner, who some years ago created a sensation by his forty days’ fast, now asserts that the ontward signs of death, as accepted and depended upon by physicians, are all deceptive, save one—and that alone is infallible. He says; “I have so disciplined my mind and body that I can take upon myself, at volition, a trance state, and while condition I propose to be buried, iustaa a dead person is ordinarily buried, in a secure, regularly made coffin, placed in a grave 5 feet deep, which will be filled np and the earth compactly put in and mounded over. I shall remain there four weeks, theu be disinterred, resuscitated and fully restored to the fail vigor and strength of my normal condition. This is not impossible; it is no new thing.” Dr. Tanner expects to have all his arrangements perfected by May IS, which is the day he mentions for the carrying out of his stated intention. It is wMT known that the fakirs of India have the power of suspending animation, and the Journal de Medicine, Paris, of February T, 1839, gives a very interesting account of i]be p reparations which the (akin make before “hiber-

nating,” and it proceeds to describe causes so well authenticated as to be beyond question where fakirs have been buried for periods varying from six weeks to four months. Similar cases have been reported from time to time, and it is impossible to doubt their genniner cases, we can find a host of analogous facts in the lower animal life, as, for infstance, the hibernation of dormice and other apimals, the revivification of fish and frogs after a winter passed in ice; the vital resistance of toads and other living beings inelosed without nourishment for many years in small, hollow places, etc.