The above-mentioned facts have been authenticated for the author by Dr. Franz Hartmann, of Hallein, Austria.
NARROW ESCAPES OF SMALL-POX PATIENTS.
Many physicians who dispute the frequency of premature burials admit that the liability to such catastrophes is considerable during epidemics of small-pox, where extreme exhaustion, amounting to a suspension of life, is distinguishable from actual death only by patient and prolonged observation.
From the Lancet, June 21, 1884, p. 1150:—
“SUSPENDED ANIMATION AFTER SMALL-POX.
“Sir,—I send you privately names and addresses by means of which you can test, if you please, the accuracy of the following statements, which I forward for insertion in your journal:—
APPARENT DEATHS AFTER SMALL-POX.
“Some years since, a young man who had been attacked by small-pox was declared by the medical man to be dead, and was laid out for burial. The nurse, however, on paying a visit to the supposed corpse, thinking there was something uncorpse-like about its appearance, put a wine-glass over the mouth, and returning in a quarter of an hour, found it dimmed with breath. He was resuscitated, and, so far as I am aware, is still living. He would now be about forty-five. He is a farmer.
“A mother and her baby were ill of small-pox, and seemed likely to die. The grandmother, however, made the nurse promise that if death appeared to ensue, and even if the medical man pronounced either or both to be dead, she would put additional blankets on the one or both, and leave them so till her (the grandmother’s) return, which would not be till the next day. They both appeared to die, and were declared dead by the doctor; but the nurse did as she had promised, and the next day when the grandmother returned, they were both alive, and were both living not very long since.
“Some twenty years ago, I was told that about forty years previously a young man, in a parish where I was acquainted, was put in a coffin as a person dead of small-pox; but when the bell was tolling for his funeral, and he was about to be ‘screwed down,’ he got up and vacated the coffin, and lived several years afterwards.