“The close similarity which is occasionally seen to connect the appearance of death with that of exhaustion following disease, was lately illustrated in a somewhat striking manner. An infant seized with convulsions was supposed to have died about three weeks ago at Stamford Hill. After five days’ interval, preparations were being made for its interment, when, at the grave’s mouth, a cry was heard to come from the coffin. The lid was taken off, and the child was found to be alive; it was taken home, and is recovering.”
The following is from Tidy’s “Legal Medicine,” pt. i., p. 29:—
“In a communication to the French Academy, Professor Fort mentions a child (ætat. three) having been resuscitated by artificial respiration continued for four hours, and not commenced until three and a half hours after its apparent decease.
“Ogston records one case of a child alive for seven hours, and a second case of a young woman alive for four hours, after they had been left as dead.”
From the Lancet, April 22, 1882, p. 675:—
“PREMATURE INTERMENT.
“A daily contemporary states that at the gates of the Avignon cemetery the parents of a child certified to have died of croup insisted on having the coffin opened to take a last look. The child was found breathing, and is expected to be saved.”
The following letter to the editor of the Lancet, March 31, 1866, p. 360, illustrates the danger to which infants supposed to be dead are exposed, under one of our traditional customs:—
“LAYING-OUT OF DEAD INFANTS.
“Sir,—In your journal of last Saturday, among the ‘Medical Annotations,’ you notice the inquiry into the circumstances under which an infant, being still living and moving, was ‘bandaged’ beneath the chin, and ‘laid-out’ at St. Pancras Workhouse. Allow me to state that in the Lancet, vol. ii., 1850, a contribution from me ‘On the Danger of Tying-up the Lower Jaw immediately after Supposed Death’ was published. An infant, aged two months, was brought to me on a Friday with the lower jaw tied up by its mother, who asked for a certificate of death; but on my removing the bandage, the child began to show symptoms of vitality, and it lived until the following Monday.