Those of our readers who wish to pursue this subject will find ample material in “Observations on Trance or Human Hibernation,” 1850, by James Braid, M.R.C.S.; Dr. Kuhn’s report of his investigations of the Indian fakirs to the Anthropological Society of Munich, in 1895; the researches of Dr. J. M. Honigberger, a German physician long resident in India; and in the India Journal of Medical and Physical Science, 1836, vol. i., p. 389, etc.
CHAPTER IV.
PREMATURE BURIAL.
At the sitting of the Paris Academy of Medicine, on April 10, 1827, a paper was read by M. Chantourelle, on the danger of hasty burial. This led to a discussion, in which M. Desgenettes stated that he had been told by Dr. Thouret, who presided at the destruction of the vaults of Les Innocens, that many skeletons had been found in positions seeming to show that they had turned in their coffins. Dr. Thouret was so much impressed by the circumstance that he had a special clause inserted in his will relating to his own burial.[4]
Similar revelations, according to Kempner, have followed the examinations of grave-yards in Holland, and in New York and other parts of the United States.
On July 2, 1896, the author visited the grave of Madam Blunden, in the Cemetery, Basingstoke, Hants, who, according to the inscription (now obliterated), was buried alive. The following narrative appears in “The Uncertainty of the Signs of Death,” by Surgeon M. Cooper, London, 1746, pp. 78, 79:—
“At Basingstoke, in Hampshire, not many years ago, a gentlewoman of character and fortune was taken ill, and, to all appearance, died, while her husband was on a journey to London. A messenger was forthwith despatched to the gentleman, who returned immediately, and ordered everything for her decent interment. Accordingly, on the third day after her supposed decease, she was buried in Holy Ghost Chapel, at the outside of the town, in a vault belonging to the family, over which there is a school for poor children endowed by a charitable gentleman in the reign of Edward VI. It happened the next day that the boys, while they were at play, heard a noise in the vault, and one of them ran and told his master, who, not crediting what he said, gave him a box on the ear and sent him about his business; but, upon the other boys coming with the same story, his curiosity was awakened, so that he sent immediately for the sexton, and opened the vault and the lady’s coffin, where they found her just expiring. All possible means were used to recover her to life, but to no purpose, for she, in her agony, had bit the nails off her fingers, and tore her face and head to that degree, that, notwithstanding all the care that was taken of her, she died in a few hours in inexpressible torment.”
The Sunday Times, London, December 30, 1838, contains the following:—