In 1792, Rev. Johann Moritz Schwager stated that he had preached for twenty years against precipitate burials, and that he had been requested to do so by a number of corporate bodies who had evidence of the danger of hasty interments.
About 1800 great excitement prevailed in Germany on account of some narrow escapes from living burial that happened in high quarters, many books and pamphlets having been issued, and sermons preached by the clergy on the subject. The key-note of all of these was the fallaciousness of the appearances of death, and that none was reliable but decomposition.
About this period Dr. Herachborg, of Königsberg, Prussia, wrote that, for forty years, as a doctor, he had always been disgusted with the practice of hasty burials; and, to show the ignorance of the times, he mentions the case of a woman he kept under observation in bed for three days, when her relations took her out and placed her on the floor, insisting that she was dead. He resisted her burial, and had her covered with blankets; so that by being kept warm she recovered completely. He insisted that no sign of death could be relied upon.
HASTY BURIAL IN TURKEY.
From the British Medical Journal, April 12, 1862, p. 390. “The Gaz. Méd. d’Orient tells us that people in Constantinople are, in all probability, not unfrequently buried alive, in consequence of the precipitancy with which their burial is performed. If the person dies during the night, he has some chance of escaping premature sepulture; but if he dies during the day, he is sure to be in his tomb in two hours after he has drawn his last breath. Facts of daily occurrence in this country, we are told, prove that persons who were thought to have died during the night have recovered before morning, and thus, thanks to the intervention of night, have been saved from being interred alive. Other facts of not unfrequent occurrence show that persons have recovered while on their road to the grave. In other rarer cases, again, the cries of the revivified half-buried ones have been heard by the passers-by, and thus saved from a horrible conclusion.”
In all countries it is the custom amongst the Jews to bury their dead, and apparently dead, quickly, without taking the slightest steps for restoration, and many are the catastrophes recorded.
“The Report of the Royal Humane Society” of 1802 states:—“At the funeral of a Jewess, one of the bearers thought he heard repeatedly some motion in the coffin, and informed his friends. Medical assistance being obtained, she returned to her home in a few hours completely restored.”
From the British Medical Journal, March 8, 1879, p. 356.
“SUSPENDED ANIMATION.