The danger of premature burial of still-born (apparently dead) infants is clearly shown by the following quotation from Tidy’s “Legal Medicine,” part ii., page 253, from tables given on the authority of the British and Foreign Medical Review, No. ii., p. 235, based on eight millions of births. “It would appear that from one in eighteen to one in twenty births are still-born. Dr. Lever found that the proportion in his three thousand cases was one in eighteen. So notorious is it that a large number of these deaths could be averted, that some legislation is urgently needed, requiring that still-borns, whose bodies weigh, say, not less than two pounds (the average weight about the sixth and seventh months at which children are viable), should not be buried without registration and a medical examination.”
Many instances can be found in current medical literature of still-born infants that have been revived by artificial respiration. Such cases not infrequently revive without any means being employed for their resuscitation; but among the poor, who dispose of the new-born apparently dead in a hasty manner, they might be buried alive through carelessness. The use of mortuaries, where the seeming dead would be kept under observation until decomposition appears, would of course prevent such disasters.
Struve, in the Essay cited in the Bibliography (1802), says:—
“All still-born children should be considered as only apparently dead, and the resuscitative process ought never to be neglected. Sometimes two hours or more will elapse before reanimation can be effected. An ingenious man-midwife, says Bruhier, was employed for several hours in the revival of an apparently still-born child, and as his endeavours proved unavailing, he considered the subject really dead. Being, however, accidentally detained, he again turned his attention to the child, and by continuing the resuscitative method for some time it was unexpectedly restored to life” (p. 150).
The following is one of Struve’s most striking cases:—
A Mr. E.—— called in 18—— to obtain a certificate of death for a still-born child of seven months’ gestation. Arriving at the house, the doctor found the child laid upon a little straw and covered with a slight black shawl; this was one p.m., and the child had been there since five a.m. It was icy cold, and there was no heart sound nor respiration, but there was a slight muscular twitching over the region of the heart. The child was immersed in a hot bath and artificial respiration employed, but for twenty minutes the case seemed hopeless; then the eyes opened and after continued effort the respirations began, laborious and interrupted at first, then normal by degrees. The child was saved, and became an accomplished violinist.
The mortality and waste of infant life, particularly in large cities like Paris, London, Berlin, Vienna, and New York, is admitted by all investigators to be enormous. In France medical writers, in view of the small percentage of births to population, are waking up to the realisation that the State cannot afford the loss, and that, among other things, steps should be taken to resuscitate the still-born, so that none should be buried before unequivocal signs of death are manifested.[21] The premature abandonment of the still-born among the poorer classes in crowded cities is only too probable. There are also cases recorded which show a corresponding risk to infants who have survived their birth:—
The British Medical Journal, January 21, 1871, p. 71, gives the following case, under the heading, “Alive in a Coffin”:—“Stories of this kind are generally very apocryphal; but the following reaches us from an authentic source. A child narrowly escaped being buried alive last week in Manchester. The infant’s father had died, and was to be buried in Ardwick Cemetery. The day before the burial the infant was taken ill, and apparently died. A certificate of death was procured from a surgeon’s assistant who had seen the child, and, to save expense, it was decided to place it in the same coffin with the father. This was done, and the next morning the bearers set off to the cemetery with their double burden; but before reaching the grave-yard a cry was heard to issue from the coffin. The lid being removed, the infant was discovered alive and kicking. It was at once removed to a neighbour’s house, but died eight hours afterwards.
The British Medical Journal, 1885, ii., p. 841, gives the following case, under the heading, “Death or Coma?”