From The Month.
BURIED ALIVE.
"It may be asserted without hesitation, that no event is so terribly well calculated to inspire the supremeness of bodily and mental distress as is burial before death. The unendurable oppression of the lungs; the stifling fumes of the damp earth; the clinging to the death-garments; the rigid embrace of the narrow house; the blackness of the absolute night; the silence like a sea that overwhelms; the unseen but palpable presence of the conqueror worm--these things, with thoughts of the air and grass above, with memory of dear friends who would fly to save us, if but informed of our fate, and with consciousness that of this fate they can never be informed; that our hopeless portion is that of the really dead--these considerations, I say, carry into the heart which still palpitates a degree of appalling and intolerable horror from which the most daring imagination must recoil." [Footnote 187]
[Footnote 187: E.A. Poe's "Premature Burial.">[
I have chosen this sentence from a writer whose forte is the terrible and mysterious for my introduction, because it sums up, in a few expressive words, the thoughts which arise in our minds on hearing or reading the words "Buried Alive." To avert so fearful a doom from a fellow-creature would surely be worth any trouble; and yet it is to be feared that the very horror which the thought inspires causes most of us to turn aside from it, and to accept the comfortable doctrine that such things are not done now, whatever may have formerly been the case. Were this true, I should not feel justified in bringing before the readers of the "Month" a ghastly subject, which could be acceptable only to a morbid curiosity; but it is unfortunately but too certain that persons are now and then buried alive, and that, therefore, this fate may be possibly our own. The subject is one which naturally excites more attention abroad; for in England the custom of keeping deceased relatives above ground for many days after their death, has long prevailed, and incurs the opposite danger of injuring the health of the survivors who thus indulge their grief. We believe no important work has ever been published in this country on the subject; for Dr. Hawe's pamphlet is not up to the present standard of medical information, and contains instances of very doubtful authenticity. The tales of premature interment which can be collected in conversation, or occasionally noticed in the public journals, are not very numerous; few of them are circumstantial enough to have any scientific interest; and some prove the supposed fact by the hair or nails having grown, and the body having moved when in its coffin-- things which are well known to happen now and then after death has undoubtedly taken place, and being therefore no proofs at all. After examination, I have, then, come to the conclusion that no estimate of the frequency of premature interment can be obtained. Indeed, the only statistics which we possess are from Germany, and they are not very reassuring. In some of the largest towns of that country, mortuary chambers (in which the dead are placed for some days before burial) have long been established; and we learn from a report of one in Berlin, that in the space of only thirty-months ten people, who had been supposed dead, were there found to be alive, and thus saved from true death [{806}] in its most horrible form. But in France and Italy, especially during the summer months, the dead are buried so very early that fears are frequently entertained. In France, indeed, the law prescribes a delay of twenty-four hours after death before interment, and also requires a certificate of death from an inspector, who in large towns is usually a physician with no other employment (le médecin des morts;) but so many instances of carelessness and of incapacity on the part of the country inspectors have been noticed, that the Chamber of Peers, during Louis Philippe's reign, and lately the Senate of the Empire, have received many petitions praying for an inquiry, and for further precautions. To these the answer has generally been, that the existing law provides sufficient safeguards; and in this the Senate only followed the prevailing opinion of men of science in France.
For, some years ago, Dr. Manni, a professor in the University of Rome, offered a prize of 15,000 francs, to be given by the French Academy of Sciences to the author of the best essay on the signs of death and the means to be taken to prevent premature interment. The prize was obtained in 1849 by M. Bouchut, an eminent physician in Paris, who, after a very detailed examination of the question, came to these two conclusions: first, that when the action of the heart could be no longer heard by means of the stethoscope, death was certain; and secondly, that not a single case of interment before death has ever been clearly and satisfactorily made out: and the learned body, who awarded the prize to him, entirely assented to these opinions. Since that time, however, cases have been quoted, by some French doctors of note, in which the action of the heart could not be detected, and yet life was in the end restored. Their observations have been summed up in a pamphlet by M. Jozat. This gave a fresh impulse to the subject; and on the 27th of February last, M. de Courvol presented a petition to the Senate of the same tenor as those mentioned above. This would have received the same answer as they did, and the matter would have been again shelved, if several of the senators present had not quoted instances which had fallen under their own observation, and in which death was escaped only by some happy accident. The most remarkable of these was narrated by Cardinal Donnet, as having happened to himself; and his story was copied into most English newspapers at the time. It is, however, so much to the purpose of this paper, that I make no apology for quoting it in his own words:
"In 1826, a young priest was suddenly struck down, unconscious, in the pulpit of a crowded cathedral where he was preaching. The funeral knell was soon after tolled, and a physician declared him to be certainly dead, and obtained leave for his burial next day. The bishop of the cathedral where this event had occurred, had recited the 'De Profundis' by the side of the bier; the coffin was being already prepared. Night was approaching; and the young priest, who heard all these preparations, suffered agonies. He was only twenty-eight years old, and in perfect health. At last he distinguished the voice of a friend of his childhood; this caused him to make a superhuman effort, and produced the wonderful result of enabling him to speak. The next day he was able to preach again."
This remarkable account, coming almost from the grave, produced a very great impression; and, as is not unusual in deliberative assemblies, the Senate yielded to striking individual cases what it had before refused to argument, forwarding the petition to the Minister of the Interior, and so implying that it considered the existing law insufficient. The plan which finds most favor in France is the establishment of "mortuary houses," like those in Germany. Although some of the highest authorities in [{807}] France are opposed to them, there can be no doubt, if the statistics quoted above are to be believed, that they would be the means of saving many lives, especially in cases where (as in hotels and lodging-houses) the funeral is now hurried as much as possible. The only precautions which need be taken in England are of a simple kind, and will be more evident after the description I shall now proceed to give of the two diseased states which most nearly simulate death.
In the first of these, called catalepsy, the patient lies immovable and apparently unconscious; the limbs are rigid and cold; the eyes are fixed, sometimes remaining open; and the jaw sometimes drops. But the resemblance to death goes no farther; the face has not a corpse-like expression; although the limbs are cold, the head continues to be warm, or is even warmer than when in the usual state; the pupils are never completely dilated, and are, sometimes at least, contracted by exposure to light. The pulse and breathing, although slow and irregular, can always be noticed; and the muscles are so far stiffened as to keep the limbs, during the whole course of the attack, in the position (however constrained and inconvenient) in which they chance to be at the time of seizure, or may be placed in by bystanders during the fit. This state of the muscular system is a decisive proof that the case is one of catalepsy.
Were this rare and curious disease the only cause of error, the physician called upon to discern in a given case between life and death would have a comparatively easy task; but there is a still rarer condition, which gives rise to most of the lamentable mistakes that are made; the state of trance or prolonged syncope, is a far more perfect counterfeit of death. The patient is motionless, and apparently unconscious, although he is usually aware of all that is passing around him; the pulsation of the heart and arteries, and the breathing gradually diminish in force and frequency, until they become at last quite imperceptible; the whole surface of the body grows cold; and all this may last even for many days. How is one in such a condition known not to be dead? In the first place, it is noticed that this disease is rare in a previously healthy person; it has been generally preceded by some cause producing great weakness, (especially long-continued fevers, great loss of blood, severe mental affliction, or bodily pain.) It almost invariably, too, occurs suddenly, without any preparation, and of course without the signs which immediately precede death.
Sometimes mere inspection will convince the physician that the person is still alive. Thus, the face, although fixed, may not have the look of death; the mouth may be firmly closed, the eye not glazed, and the pupil not entirely dilated. Supposing, however, that every one of these signs of life is absent, and that the pulse and breathing are imperceptible by the ordinary means of observation, careful examination of the chest with a stethoscope will detect the heart-sounds, if life be not quite extinct, in almost every case. I dare not, in view of the cases cited by M. Jozat, say that absence of the heart-sounds in this state never occurs; but all medical men will agree with me that it must be exceedingly rare. It also seems to me probable that, in the cases on which M. Jozat relies, the movements of the heart were so few and far between that the chest happened to be ausculted only during the intervals; at any rate, it would of course be advisable to make frequent and prolonged examinations before deciding that no sound could be heard. The late Dr. Hope suggested that the second sound of the heart might be detected, although the first was quite inaudible; but this is merely theoretical. Again, although the surface of the body be quite cold, it is probable that a thermometer introduced far into the mouth would show that some internal warmth [{808}] remained in every case of trance. At a variable time after death the muscles lose their "irritability," (that is, their power of contracting under galvanic stimulation;) and this change is speedily followed by another--the stiffness which is noticed all over the body. It is to be remembered that loss of muscular irritability, and rigidity of the whole body, may both be noticed and yet the person be alive; still, if these two symptoms are not present at first, and only appear soon after supposed death, they will afford strong presumption that the person is dead; which will be strengthened if the skin be slightly burned, and yet no bleb forms in consequence.