M. Gaubert continues:—“We have collected in Germany fourteen cases of apparent death followed by return to life in mortuaries, in spite of all that has been done for the prevention of such occurrences.” (P. 182.)
CASSEL.
“Dr. E. Bouchut, in ‘Signes de la Mort,’ 3rd edition, p. 50, relates that an apothecary’s assistant had an attack of syncope, which continued for eight days, when he was apparently dead, and was removed to the mortuary of the Military Hospital, Cassel, where he was covered with a coarse wrapper and left amongst the dead. The following night he awoke from his lethargy, and, on recognising the horrible place where he was, dragged himself to the door and kicked against it. The noise was heard by the sentinel, aid arrived, and the patient was put in a warm bed, where he recovered. Dr. Bouchut says that, if he had been swathed in tight bandages, his efforts at release would have been futile, and he would have been buried alive.”
LILLE.
The Paris Figaro, March 31, 1894, on the authority of the Progrés du Nord, April 2, 1894, reports that:—
“M. Vangiesen, aged eighty-one years, awakened from supposed death on the flagstones of the mortuary at the Charité Hospital at Lille.”
The Undertakers’ Review, January 22, 1894, reports that Lena Fellows, aged twenty-two years, a servant in the employ of A. R. Knox, of Buffalo, fell dead, as was thought, while at work on December 8. The remains were taken to the morgue in a coffin, but next morning when morgue-keeper McShane began to lift the supposed corpse into the refrigerator he found that the woman was alive. It was a case of catalepsy.
The case of a child found apparently dead in Regents’ Park, London, and carried to the Marylebone Mortuary, where it subsequently revived, has already been noticed. The incident caused a good deal of comment, and suggested, doubtless, to the reflective reader that other cases of suspended animation might have a less fortunate issue.
NEED OF CAREFUL SUPERVISION.