The danger of premature interment

by Joseph Taylor

Even in old age, when life seems to have been gradually drawing to a close, the appearances of death are often fallacious.

A Lady in Cornwall, more than eighty years of age, who had been a considerable time declining, took to her bed, and in a few days seemingly expired in the morning. As she had often desired not to be buried till she had been two days dead, her request was to have been regularly complied with by her relations. All that saw her looked upon her as dead, and the report was current through the whole place; nay, a gentleman of the town actually wrote to his friend in the island of Scilly, that she was deceased. But one of those who were paying the last kind office of humanity to her remains, perceived some warmth about the middle of the back; and acquainting her friends with it, they applied a mirror to her mouth; but, after repeated trials, could not observe it in the least stained; her under jaw was likewise fallen, as the common phrase is; and, in short, she had the appearance of a dead person. All this time she had not been stripped or dressed; but the windows were opened as is usual in the chambers of the deceased. In the evening the heat seemed to increase, and at length she was perceived to breathe.

XXXI.

Monsieur Janin, of the Royal College of Surgery at Paris, relates, that a Nurse having had the misfortune to overlay a child, he was called in, and found the infant without any signs of life; no pulsation in the arteries, no respiration, the face livid, the eyes open, dull, and tarnished, the nose full of snivel, the mouth gaping, in short, it was almost cold. Whilst some linen clothes and a parcel of ashes were warming, he had the boy unswathed, and laid him in a warm bed, and on the right side. He was there rubbed all over with fine linen, for fear of fretting his tender and delicate skin. As soon as the ashes had received their due degree of heat, Mr. Janin buried him in them, except the face, placed him on the side opposite to that on which he had been at first laid, and covered him with a blanket. He had a bottle of Eau de luce in his pocket, which he presented to his nose from time to time; and between whiles some puffs of tobacco were blown up his nostrils: to these succeeded the blowing into his mouth, and squeezing tight his nose. Animal heat began thus to be excited gradually: the pulsations of the temporal artery were soon felt, the breathing became more frequent and free, and the eyes closed and opened alternately. At length the child fetched some cries expressive of his want of the breast, which being applied to his mouth, he catched at it with avidity, and sucked, as if nothing had happened to him. Though the pulsations of the arteries were by this time very well re-established, and it was hot weather, yet Monsieur Janin thought it adviseable to leave his little patient three quarters of an hour longer under the ashes. He was afterwards taken out, cleaned and dressed as usual; to which a gentle sleep succeeded, and he continued perfectly well.

XXXII.

Mr. Glover, Surgeon in Doctor’s Commons, London, relates the case of a person who was restored to life after twenty nine minutes hanging, and continued in good health for many years after.

The principal means used to restore this man to life were opening the temporal artery and the external jugular; rubbing the back, mouth, and neck, with a quantity of volatile spirits and oil; administering the tobacco clyster by means of lighted pipes, and strong frictions of the legs and arms. This course had been continued for about four hours, when an incission was made into the wind pipe, and air blown strongly through a canula into the lungs. About twenty minutes after this the blood at the artery began to run down the face, and a slow pulse was just perceptible at the wrist. The frictions were continued for some time longer; his pulse became more frequent, and his mouth and nose being irritated with spirit of salammoniac, he opened his eyes. Warm cordials were then administered to him, and in two days he was so well as to be able to walk eight miles.

XXXIII.

In the parish of St. Clements in Colchester, a child of six months old, lying upon its mother’s lap, having had the breast, was seized with a strong convulsion fit, which lasted so long, and ended with so total a privation of motion in the body, lungs, and pulse, that it was deemed absolutely dead. It was accordingly stripped, laid out, the passing bell, ordered to be tolled, and a coffin to be made; but a neighbouring gentlewoman who used to admire the child, hearing of its sudden death, hastened to the house, and upon examining the child, found it not cold, its joints limber, and fancied that a glass she held to its mouth and nose was a little damped with the breath; upon which, she took the child in her lap, sat down before the fire, rubbed it, and kept it in gentle agitation. In a quarter of an hour she felt the heart begin to beat faintly; she then put a little of the mother’s milk into its mouth, continued to rub its palms and soles; found the child begin to move, and the milk was swallowed; and in another quarter of an hour, she had the satisfaction of restoring to its disconsolate mother the babe quite recovered, eager to lay hold of the breast, and able to suck again. The child throve, had no more fits, is grown up, and at present alive, i. e. 1803.

These means, which are certainly in the power of every person, were sufficient to restore to life an infant to all appearance dead, and who in all probability, but for the use of these simple endeavours would have remained so. There are however, many other things which might be done in case the above should not succeed; as rubbing the body with strong spirits, covering it with warm ashes or salt, blowing air into the lungs, throwing up warm stimulating clysters, or the smoke of tobacco into the intestines, and such like.