EXTREME RARITY OF PREMATURE BURIALS. 527 



satisfactory conclusion upon the signs of death, has led the writer 

 to brief in what follows the opinion of the medical jurists of the 

 present day upon this subject. That the trance state has been mis- 

 taken for death, and that premature burials have taken place, seem to 

 be fully recognized in the system of morgues or dead-houses in various 

 parts of Europe where bodies are so placed that the slightest move- 

 ments will be brought to the notice of attendants ; and in the laws 

 which in most countries require the lapse of twenty-four hours and 

 longer periods between death and burial. Yet competent authorities 

 tell us that such institutions (morgues) are superfluous when ordinary 

 care is taken by the relatives of a deceased person ; and Taylor says 

 that he has never met with any instance in which a body laid out in 

 them was resuscitated after there had been a proper verification of 

 death.* 



In discussing this subject, how far are we justified in taking the 

 statements of the earlier writers ? The credulity of the public in simi- 

 lar matters is sufficiently shown in such works as Carpenter on "Mes- 

 merism, Spiritualism," etc., and Hammond on " Fasting Girls," to in- 

 duce us to view general statements with much suspicion. M. Fonte- 

 nelle has published forty-six cases of premature burial from the time 

 of Plutarch downward. Taylor, from whose work on medical juris- 

 prudence this article draws freely, after a careful examination of all 

 these cases, rejects the greater number of them simply because they 

 are drawn from such sources as to render them perfectly inadmissible 

 as evidence. M. Carre, in 1845, published the assertion that forty-six 

 cases had occurred since 1833. Taylor examines his cases, and finds 

 that no particulars by which their accuracy can be tested have been 

 given. The whole subject, as taken from the tone of the article now 

 commented upon, and from public opinion in general, resolves itself 

 into two statements, viz. : that it is quite possible, and has been proved, 

 that a state of trance, prolonged and of a nature to simulate death, may 

 exist and deceive even those whose daily avocations make them famil- 

 iar with death itself ; and that many cases are on record where changes 

 in the position of the body, and even where the birth of children, have 

 taken place after interment. 



For the existence of a trance state sufficient to simulate death, all 

 appreciable movements of respiration and circulation must be suspend- 

 ed for a considerable length of time, and there is but one properly 

 authenticated case on record as accepted by physiologists ; even this 

 case will not bear too close discussion at the present day. We are told 

 in works on physiology that a Colonel Townshend was able at will to 

 suspend animation to the extent of obliterating any perception of the 

 heart- or pulse- beat, and of any respiratory movement, as a mirror held 

 over the mouth and nose showed no dimness of its surface ; and further, 



* Forty-six thousand bodies were deposited in the mortuary institutions of Germany 

 during a space of twenty years. 



