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AUTOGRAPH LETTERS. 

 MARAT'S REMARKS UPON THE UNCERTAINTY OF THE SIGNS OP DEATH. 



La mort est un sommeil eternel. 



This may, or may not, be true ; but this is tm? " JEquo pulsat pede 

 paupcrum tabernas regumque titrres" From the time of Pliny, the 

 naturalist, to the present hour, every body knows that men alive have 

 been deemed dead, and as such have been buried alive. I remember a 

 very particular case that occurred three years ago at Dijon, during the 

 pestilential fever which raged in that town, when a friend of mine 

 however, it is useless entering into details he was buried alive. After 

 all the kicking, knocking, and every kind of noise the pauvre diable 

 could make you must not forget that he was in his coffin at the time 

 the lid was taken off by the sexton, whom chance had brought to the 

 spot. The body was warm ; a few pulsations were felt : but my unfor- 

 tunate friend was now in a cold,, damp vault, no means of resuscitation 

 near, and they ceased for ever. In Frankfort, Ausburg, Cologne, and 

 many other places beyond the Rhine they I do not mean the doctors, 

 the nurses but the sextons (lesfossoyeurs}, are compelled, in the event 

 of a person having died of some malady which requires immediate in- 

 terment, to place the body, not in a frigid vault where other festering 

 corpses are lying, but in a boarded, warm room ; over his person, but 

 not his face, a blanket is placed, and from the cieling are suspended 

 various strings which touch his feet and hands ; any one of which, if 

 this prototype of Sinbad the sailor should touch, a tvaker, as you appro- 

 priately term such a class of persons, instantly comes to the ringer of 

 the bell. This brings to my recollection the Irish wakes I have seen in 

 London, and do not entertain a doubt but they owe their origin to the 

 fear entertained by this sensitive people, lest their friends should be sent 

 to the regions below before the time. The question is, at any time, and 

 under any circumstance, should an individual pronounced dead, be in- 

 terred within six or twelve hours ? Certainly not. I have not time to 

 tell you what, in my opinion, ought to be done ; but you must admit 

 that it is a subject of vital importance. In pulverem reverteris. This is 

 a sad thought. Let me tell you what ought to be done when a person 

 is thought to be dead ; yet, before I proceed, it must be stated that I 

 have made many observations upon dying and dearl persons. My 

 opinion is not yet quite made up ; but the springs of life * shall hence- 

 forward be my deepest study. Blood, and brain that is, life of the 

 former you may take away a great deal, of the latter little, if any. A 

 doubt exists here yet, I shall know that, before I have done with my 

 experiments. Blood is the oil in the lamp a few drops remaining will 

 cause it to glimmer ; the brain is almost the very wick itself. I will 

 now return to what I set out with, namely, the difficulty and uncer- 

 tainty of depending upon what are termed the signs of death. It would 

 be a dangerous doctrine to lay down (and therefore the German bell 

 plan might sometimes give a false alarm), that, because a limb or other 

 parts of the body should move, or that blood should flow after supposed 

 death, therefore it is certain the person is alive. Have you never seen 



* Les ressorts de la vie. 



