376 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



|;2-id s. No 45., Nov. 8. '56. 



Walter having married Dorothy, daughter of 

 Thomas Barlow ; but I am not aware that Lucy 

 Walter ever went by the latter name. There are, 

 I believe, descendants of the Walter family still 

 to be found in the county of Pembroke, and to 

 some of them the gift of beauty seems to have 

 come down as an heir-loom. 



John Pavin Phillips. 

 Haverfordwest.^ 



HBSUSdlTATION OF THE DEAD. 



(2°'> S. ii. 248.) 



If Dr. Lotskt will refer to p. 1103. of the 

 fourth edition of Dr. Carpenter's Principles of 

 Human Physiology, he will see that notice is there 

 taken of the perlbrmances of the Indian Fakeers 

 to which his inquiry is directed ; and in a note 

 will find that Mr. Braid in his Ohsei'vations on 

 Trance, or Human Hybernation (1850), has pub- 

 lished a collection of well-authenticated cases of 

 the interment and resuscitation of Fakeers. Lieut. 

 A. Boileau, in his Narrative of a Journey in Raj- 

 warra in 1835, also relates a case, lleference 

 may also be made to the Medical Times, No. 281., 

 Feb. 8, 1845, pp. 399. and 439. 



The most remarkable case on record is, I be- 

 lieve, that mentioned in Mr. Braid's case, from an 

 account afforded by an eye-witness. Sir Claude 

 M. Wade, C.B., formerly political agent at the 

 Court of Runjeet Singh, which occurred during 

 the period he occupied that position. I have re- 

 cently had an opportunity of conversing with Sir 

 C. M. Wade on this case, and believe the follow- 

 ing particulars connected with the preparation of 

 the Fakeer for interment are not contained in 

 Mr. Braid's work. 



For some time previous to interment the Fa- 

 keer sustained himself on rice only, subsequently 

 exchanged for rice water ; after having been thus 

 dieted, he rolled up a piece of cotton into the form 

 of a small ball, which he swallowed ; this was 

 passed per anum ; afterwards he took milk, which, 

 it is stated, passed in an unchanged condition. 

 This appeared to be the test of his being in a fit 

 state to undergo interment. 



The natural apertures of the body, with the ex- 

 ception of the mouth, were stopped with wax ; 

 the Fakeer then squatted down, opened his mouth, 

 and with his fingers turned the point of his tongue 

 backwards, and closed the mouth. Almost imme- 

 diately after this he seemed to fall into a state of 

 collapse. He was then placed in a bag, put into 

 a box in the position he had assumed, and let 

 down into a cell and buried. After he had been 

 interred for six weeks, the cell was opened in the 

 presence of Bunjeet Singh and Sir C. M. Wade. 

 He was removed from the box, and the bag opened 

 by Dr. Macgregor, who was also present ; no 



beating of the heart could be detected, nor pulsa- 

 tion at the wrists. The general appearance of the 

 body was corpse-like ; the face was swollen, and 

 the head, which reclined on one side, was warm 

 to the touch. Resuscitation was commenced by 

 pouring warm water on the head, and the suc- 

 cessive application, also to the head, of three or 

 four fresh half-baked wheaten cakes. The wax 

 was removed from the nostrils, its removal being 

 followed by a convulsive movement of the whole 

 body ; the wax from the other apertures was then 

 removed ; next the mouth was opened with some 

 little force, the jaws being clenched, and the 

 tongue drawn forward ; some difficulty, however, 

 was at first experienced in retaining the tongue in 

 its natural position, as it returned once or twice 

 to that in which it had been previously placed. 

 The eyelids were separated, moved up and down, 

 and rubbed ;* general friction completed the means 

 employed for resuscitation. In the course of 

 thirty or forty minutes the Fakeer recovered the 

 power of articulation, and his first remark, made 

 to Runjeet Singh, in the language of his country, 

 was, " You believe me now." On being asked 

 whether he retained any consciousness during in- 

 terment, he replied that he had been in a dreamy 

 state. Some three or foiir months after this oc- 

 currence he died, but his death was not attributed 

 to his previous protracted interment. 



" It is impossible," sa3's Dr. Carpenter in reference to 

 the above, and .somewhat similar instances of apparent 

 death, " in the present state of our linowledge, to give 

 any satisfactory account of these states ; but some light 

 appears to be thrown upon them by certain phenomena of 

 artificial somnambulism, 'hypnotic* or 'mesmeric;' for 

 in this condition there is sometimes an extraardinar3'' re- 

 tardation of the respiratory movements and of the pulsa- 

 tions of the heart, which, if carried further, would produce 

 a state of complete collapse ; and its self-induction is sus- 

 pected by Mr. Braid to be the secret of the performance of 

 the Indian fakeers just referred to." 



R. WiLBBAHAM FaLCONEB, M.D. 



Bath. 



John Cleland (2'>'' S. ii. 351.) —Mb. Riley has 

 touched upon the history of a remarkable man, 

 the author of the infamous novel often referred to 

 and seldom named. That Johft Cleland wrote 

 that work (published anonymously, the first part 

 in 1748, the second in 1749) is undoubted, and 

 that Griffiths admitted a favourable notice of it 

 in the Monthly Review is also undoubted. (See 

 Mr. Forster's Life of Goldsmith, vol. i. p. xxx. se- 

 cond edition.) But the difficulty is, who was 

 John Cleland's father ? Was it Pope's friend J 

 Major W. Cleland, or Colonel W. Cleland, men- ^ 

 tioned in Swift's Journal to Stella? In the 

 Gentleman's Magazine for 1789 is an account of 

 John Cleland, but inaccurate in several points. 



