A less experienced practitioner would probably have made out a death certificate, as in numerous similar cases.
After burial we hear no more of them; they may have been buried in a death-like trance, but the medical certificate, no matter how inconsiderately given, consigns them to perpetual silence beyond appeal or escape. Family remonstrance is then unavailing, for, except in cases of strong suspicion of poisoning, no Home Secretary or Coroner would grant an order for exhumation.
APATHY OF THE PUBLIC.
The existence of trance, catalepsy, and other death counterfeits, followed by hasty burial, has been alluded to by reputable writers from time immemorial; and while the veracity of these writers has remained unchallenged, and their narratives are confirmed by hundreds of cases of modern experience, the effect on the public mind has been only of a transitory character, and nothing has been done either in England or America to safeguard the people from such dreadful mistakes.
CHAPTER III.
ANIMAL AND SO-CALLED HUMAN HIBERNATION.
The following case of the jerboa, or jumping mouse, recorded last century by Major-General Thomas Davies, F.R.S., in the “Transactions of the Linnæan Society,”[3] will show how far a torpid mammal may be removed from the opportunity of breathing, and how imperceptibly, to the eyes of an observer, its torpid life passed into actual death:—
“With respect to the figure given of it in its dormant state (plate viii., fig. 6), I have to observe that the specimen was found by some workmen in digging the foundation for a summer house in a gentleman’s garden, about two miles from Quebec, in the latter end of May, 1787. It was discovered enclosed in a ball of clay, about the size of a cricket ball, nearly an inch in thickness, perfectly smooth within, and about twenty inches under ground. The man who first discovered it, not knowing what it was, struck the ball with his spade, by which means it was broken to pieces, or the ball also would have been presented to me. The drawing will perfectly show how the animal is laid during its dormant state long it had been under ground it is impossible to say; but as I never could observe these animals in any parts of the country after the beginning of September, I conceive that they lay themselves up some time in that month, or beginning of October, when the frost becomes sharp; nor did I ever see them again before the last week of May, or beginning of June. From their being enveloped in balls of clay, without any appearance of food, I conceive they sleep during the winter, and remain for that time without sustenance. As soon as I conveyed this specimen to my house, I deposited it, as it was, in a small chip box, in some cotton, waiting with great anxiety for its waking; but that not taking place at the season they generally appear, I kept it until I found it began to smell: I then stuffed it, and preserved it in its torpid position. I am led to believe its not recovering from that state arose from the heat of my room during the time it was in the box, a fire having been constantly burning in the stove, and which in all probability was too great for respiration....”