A dozen years.”
--------------“Thou best knows’t
What torment I did find thee in: thy groans
Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts
Of ever-angry bears; it was a torment
To lay upon the damn’d.”
Tempest, Act i, s. 2.
The author of the present chapter had once an opportunity of witnessing a most striking manifestation of the popular feeling to which he has just alluded; a sailor, who had died suddenly on board a vessel in Mount’s Bay, was sent on shore for interment on the same evening: this indecent haste in consigning the yet warm corpse of a human being to the grave, excited a very strong and natural feeling in those to whom the fact was communicated; in a few hours the knowledge of the circumstance became general in the town of Penzance, and imagination which, in cases that interest the feelings, is always ready to colour each feature with the hue most congenial to the fancy, soon represented the case as one of living interment, and by midnight the impression had produced so strong an effect upon the credulity of the town, that many hundred persons assembled at the house of the mayor and insisted upon the disinterment of the body; the author, in his professional capacity, was called upon to accompany the magistrates in the investigation, which was accomplished by torch light, amidst an immense concourse of people; the body was disinterred, when, it is almost needless to add, that not the slightest mark was observed that could in the least sanction the popular belief so readily adopted, and enthusiastically maintained.
Within the last few years a singular and unphilosophical work[[7]] has appeared from the pen of a learned divine, which is well calculated to cherish the public credulity upon the subject under discussion, and to excite many groundless alarms, as well as unjust expectations, respecting the possibility of latent life; the reverend author, it must be confessed, has furnished a practical proof of his talents in his favourite art of resuscitation, by recalling into life the numerous idle tales, and superstitious histories, that we had hoped had long since been for ever consigned to the “tombs of all the Capulets.” The histories of persons having been buried alive, or recovered after apparent death, are not, however, confined to the annals of modern times; we are informed by Diogenes Laertius that Empedocles acquired great fame for restoring a woman, supposed to be dead, from a paroxysm of hysteria; and Pliny, in his Natural History, devotes a chapter to the subject, under the title of “De his qui elati revixerunt[[8]];” in which an interesting case is related of Avicola, whose body was brought out and placed on the funeral pile, the flames of which are said to have resuscitated the unhappy victim, but too late to allow it to be rescued from its powers; but such cases merely go to shew that the common observer may be deceived. We feel no hesitation in asserting that it is physiologically impossible for a human being to remain more than a few minutes in such a state of asphyxia, as not to betray some sign by which a medical observer can at once recognise the existence of vitality, for if the respiration be only suspended for a short interval, we may conclude that life has fled for ever; of all the acts of animal life this is by far the most essential and indispensable; breath and life are very properly considered in the scriptures as convertible terms, and the same synonym, as far as we know, prevails in every language.[[9]] However slow and feeble respiration may become by disease, yet it must always be perceptible, provided the naked breast and belly be exposed; for when the intercostal muscles act, the ribs are elevated, and the sternum is pushed forward; when the diaphragm acts, the abdomen swells; now this can never escape the attentive eye, and by looking at the chest and belly we shall form a safer conclusion than by the popular methods which have been usually adopted, such as the placing a vessel of water on the thorax, in order to judge by the stillness or agitation of the fluid; or holding the surface of a mirror before the mouth, which, by condensing the aqueous vapour of the breath, is supposed to denote the existence of respiration, although too feeble to be recognised in any other way.
----“Lend me a looking-glass;