Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1871 — Perils of Premature Burials. [ARTICLE]

Perils of Premature Burials.

We remember vividly the horror produced, while yet in our boyhood, when an elder sister read from the Utica Observer a story entitled “ Buried Alive.” The person had fallen into a cataleptic condition, becoming cold and rigid while yet conscious, and was duly coffined ana buried. He was exhumed by resurrectionists," carried to a medical college, and placed on the table of the demonstrator of anatomy ; a few shocks of the galvanic battery partially aroused him, and on the wounding of his breast by the knife, he gave signs of life, snd by proper treatment was tolly resuscitated. Ten of twelve years afterwards, a relative, where we were visiting, told us of having been present when the body of her son-in-law was made ready for the coffin, and perceiving, as she imagined, a warm spot on the left breast, a daughter who was sitting by M this was told, cried out with horror, "Do not talk anymore of it; the idea is too dread Oil to think of.” But we Aid think over and over again of the horror of interring a living person. It was hardly probable, in the case in question, that such a thing did occur, for the body remained unbuned long enough to allow a return to consciousness. But in this country the peril of interment, before death has actually taken place, is often very great. For years past it has been very common for persons in supposed' health to fall down suddenly, with every appearance of having died. We do not regard sudden death with horror, as it is often painless, and exempts the pereon from the auxiety and other unpleasant experiences which so often accompany a lingering dissolution. But there is a fearful liability of being prostrated by catfilepsy—the counterfeit of death — under such circumstances that the persons having the body in charge’frill not hesitate about a prompt burial. We could wish that the old Oriental practice of cremation was in fashion among us. There would be at least the comfortable reflectioq of-no suffocation in a coffin; besides the application of fire would generally arouse the cataleptic person to a manifestation of life. Bome years ago a story was copied into the Rochester Democrat , purporting to be the experience of a man in low state of health, who was compelled to seek shelter in a deserted house in Illinois, where he fell asleep. He was found there in a cataleptic trance, and supposed to have died. In this condition he was removed and prepared for burial, conscious all the time of what was going on, but unable to utter" a sound or make a sigu of life. His condition was fortunately discovered before it was too late. , The story may be a fiction, but it did, not read like one. We have several times repeated the story, although it is too serious for a jest, except when regarded entirely on tho ludicrous side, of a woman who, while borne to the place of interment, was aroused to consciousness by the jostling of her coffin against the walls of a house, as the bearers clumsily turn. d the corm r. She was speedily released from her cerements and conveyed home, where she lived several years longer. She fell into a decline and died; the toneral again took place, and the procession set out for the grave. As it drew near the house at the corner, the husband wiped his eyes hastily, and cried out to the bearers, “Be careful as you turn the corner.”— Alexander Wilder, M. D., in the Eclectic.