Premature Burial and How It May Be Prevented

by William Tebb; Edward Perry Vollum

CITY OF VIENNA.

Every death to be inquired into by the municipal physician. The first of five objects is to ascertain whether the person be really dead. In examining whether there are any remaining indications of life, he will rely not upon any one sign, nor even upon putrefaction, but upon the totality of the signs of death. If there are any indications of life remaining, he must at once institute the means of resuscitation approved by science, and continue them until such time as the family medical attendant is assured of their uselessness. If there be any doubt as to the reality of the death, a second inspection of the body is to be made by the municipal physician within twenty-four hours. Burial, as a rule, is not to be until forty-eight hours after death; but the interval may be shortened in cases of infectious diseases or of unusually rapid decomposition.

PROVINCE OF DALMATIA.
Vice-Governor’s Order of 29th April, 1894.

Every death to be inquired into by the parish physician, or a deputy appointed by the mayor. The first of six objects of the inquest is to ascertain whether the person be really dead. In the event of a non-medical examiner discovering signs of life, he is to send for a doctor. Inasmuch as decomposition, the only sure sign of death, is, as a rule, a phenomenon of later occurrence than the time appointed for the inquest (within twelve hours of the notification of death), the examining person must base his certainty of the extinction of life, not upon one sign, but upon the totality of the signs of death.

KINGDOM OF SAXONY.
Law of 20th July, 1850.

The burial of a corpse must not take place until seventy-two hours after death, and the signs of decomposition are clearly visible. Any proposed departure from this rule, in the event of earlier putrefaction, or the absence of decomposition at the end of seventy-two hours, requires the authority of a physician called in. By the above Law, the following Orders are suspended: (1) the Order of 11th February, 1792, concerning the treatment of the dead, and the precautions necessary to prevent the apparently dead from being buried prematurely; (2) the General Order of 13th February, 1801, concerning precautionary measures in the burial of those dead of infectious diseases; (3) the Law of 22nd June, 1841, together with the Administrative Orders, concerning the examination of corpses and the establishment of mortuaries.

CITY OF MUNICH.
Order of 30th October, 1848.

The ordinance hitherto in force, as to making an incision in the sole of the foot in cases of patients who die in the hospitals, is abolished; the hospital physicians to use their discretion whether or not the incision should be made; but, in cases for which is demanded an earlier burial than is usually prescribed, whether they have been hospital or private patients, the incision is to be made in the sole of the foot at the end of the second inspection, and every other means taken to ascertain whether the death be apparent or real.

CALCUTTA.

1. The prevailing custom for Christians and Mahomedans is to bury the dead. The Hindoos burn them as a rule, but many prefer to throw them into a sacred river, particularly the Ganges or its tributaries, if they can do so unmolested by the authorities.