Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1875 — A Remarkable Case of Catalepsy. [ARTICLE]

A Remarkable Case of Catalepsy.

Our neighboring town of Newburg, which represents Warrick County ’on the Ohio, don’t often have an occurrence attractive to one tussling with the columns of a morning paper, but occasionally the denizens manage to get up something on the remarkable order. Some weeks since, Elizabeth Lippert, the wife of a firmer hamed Gottleib Lippert, was taken very ill with inflammatory rheumatism, and, the disease continuing, her life was despaired of. She continued to grow weaker and weaker, and a few days since died, or expired to all appearances. The grief of the family was very great, but at the death-bed there was also a number of neighbors. In the hour of distress they turned in to make themselves useful, and proceeded to prepare the corpse for burial. The body was placed in a convenient position, and was noticed to be still warm, but not more so than they are after dying of fevers. The neighbors, about a half an hour after Mrs. Lippert’s death, commenced towash the body. As soon, however, as water was placed on the face the corpse seemed to become inspired with life, and after the ablutions had continued for nearly fifteen minutes she opened her eyes, much to the astonishment of the attendants, who were not a little frightened, for they thought they were dealing with a corpse instead of one still on this side of the celestial world. The women continued their however until Mrs. Lippert was able to speak. She said that just before she “died" everything about her became dark and soon she went to sleep. When she awoke it was bright, and, as she tells it, she was in a strange place, feeling an ecstacy of pleasure, and was devoid of all the racking pains with which she was afflicted during her illness. She gives no definite idea of the land into which - she had in spirit wandered, or the people sfie met, but is certain she was in heaven, and in her simple way described the place as being an elysium of bliss. While enjoying all this it became dark suddenly, and she awoke as from a pleasant dream to find that she had been q corpse for nearly an hour, and that the neighbors were washing her face. Since then Mrs. Lippert has entirely recovered, and is now able to be about attending to her household duties, and in her leisure moments relates to the open-mouthed Newbdrgers the story of her death. Thjs is the tale related by a gentleman who arrived from Newburg yesterday, and who resides near the lady who was the..subject of the catalepsy.— Evansville (Ind.} Courier, March 31.