Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1877 — Not Buried Alive. [ARTICLE]

Not Buried Alive.

Fob Mme years past 1 have taken great pains to ascertain the truth in regard to the published statements of persons being buried alive, under the supposition that they were dead. In every instance the story has proved to be false. Yet there is not a year without the horrible narrative of somebody somewhere being consigned to the tomb, and, for some cause or other, the grave or vault being opened, the discovery was made that the buried individual had “come to," and had perished miserably in frantic efforts to obtain deliverance. It has been my habit, oa seeing in the newspapersone of these statements, to send a letter of inquiry to the minister or some other resident of the region, requesting the precise facts in the case. Invariably the story proves to be a fabrication, or a growth out of something that had nothing terrible in it. One persen heard somebody say that she had heard of a man who told another that he believed that a man had been buried before he was dead. And then it alntothe papers, and into the tradiof the neighborhood, and then into the books, and wit becomes a part of the graveyard literatuie of the world. The latest instance to which I have attested is that of Er. Green, of Hoosic

Falls, N. Y. Borne few years ago he lay two or three days in a trance. A few weeks ago he died. At the proper time be was laid in a vault When it came to be talked about that he was once in a trance state, there was some anxiety as to his condition, and the vault was visited, only to find the moot obvious evidence—the same that Lazarus gave—that he had been dead all the time he lay there. But this was bnough to start the story, and the telegraph—not from ZfoMie, N. Y., but from Bennington, VL—sent the startling intelligence that signs of life were discovered, the body was taken home, and the result was yet awaited with intense anxiety I I wrote to a friend in Hooeic and learned the facts, which are without any romance or sensation. The doctor died and was buried. That to all. Now, Ido not deny that such dreadful accidents as premature burials may and do happen. There are on record some instances of which there to no reason to doubt the truth. But even this to admitted with a mental reservation, for the books insist that no authentic cases are on record. The mother of the Scotch preachers, the Erskines, to traditionally held to have been placed in a vault when she was supposed to be dead. A ring on her finger tempted the sexton to undertake its abstraction, but when he used his knife she started from a trance; he left somewhat hastily; she followed him and went home, to the great surprise of her husband. This to the tradition, but if it were traced to its source it would be found as unfounded as all the rest. No better proof of the unreliability of these stories than the results of the system adopted in Germany, of placing the dead in houses prepared for their reception, where they are watched professionally until decay makes it obvious that life to extinct. At Mentz, a surgeon was forty-five rears attached to one of these houses, and, although it was rare for the house to be without an inmate, in all that time there was not an instance of a person being restored. When I was at Halle, and at the grave of Gesenius, I asked the sexton to show me the arrangements to prevent premature burials. He was an old man; sextons are often old men; he led me to a house near the gate of the cemetery; in one of its two rooms was a bed, on which the body of the one supposed to be dead to placed; it to covered up, as in sickness, and the air carefully kept in a state favorable to health. On each finger to placed a thimble, and from each one extends a thread, passing through the walLto a bell, so delicately hung that the least pulsation or movement of a finger would set the bell ringing, to the alarm of the attendant, who instantly flies to the reviving sufferer. “ And how many times, in your long service, have you rescued your customers from an untimely gravel” “ Not once,” he answered. " I have never had a case of recovery, nor of one who has given any signs of fife.” •' Have you heard of any cases in other places ?” “ It is said that one was saved in Erfurt, but it is only a report; may be true or may be not!” This is the testimony that comes uniformly from all the books and all the countries where the subject receives careful attention. While it goes to show that instances of premature burial are exceedingly rare, it does not show that such cases are impossible. In times of prevailing epidemic, when bodies are carried off by authority as rapidly as possible, to retard the progress of pestilence, it would not be strange if mistakes were made. Asiatic cholera sometimes brings the victim to a state of apparent death, from which he may recover, under careful and persevering treatment. But in the common course of human experience, the approach and advent of death are so clearly defined, and certainty to so easily had, that premature burial can be possible only from great carelessness or indecent haste. The ordinary tests of the breathing may fail, but the action of the heart can be detected by the ear, even when the most delicate hand fails to discover it by the sense of feeling. In new-born infants, it is difficult to detect the motion for some minutes together, but in the case of others, the interval between pulsations of the heart does not exceed six or eight seconds. And if this examination is made twentyfour hours after death is supposed to have taken place, the fact is made certain one way or the other. There are other tests which may be readily applied, but they are not needed in the case of persons dying under ordinary circumstances. The customs of civilization, the dictates of natural aflection, and the most rational judgment, require such an interval of time between death and burial as to make the case palpable to the senses, so that no possible doubt can exist. It is not likely that one case of doubt occurs in each million of persons buried, anjl the one case of doubt would prove to be a certain death in nine cases out of ten. From all which I infer that the nervous apprehension some people have that they will be buried alive, is just as unreasonable as it would be for a man to expect to be taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire. Such an event has occurred, and it to not impossible that it may again. But it to not probable.— Irwiaub, in N. Y. Obterver.