390 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



builders and contractors, coffins have been opened with the pickaxe, 

 in the act of converting cemeteries into streets and gardens. Here a 

 grave has been discovered whose inmate has turned in its shroud ; here 

 a corpse clutching its hair in a strained and unnatural position : dead 

 men and dead women lying in their graves as dead men never lie in a 

 Christian land at the moment of burial. The presumption is, that these 

 people have been legally murdered. 



A few months ago a young and beautiful woman, on the eve of her 

 marriage with the man she loved, was buried in the neighborhood of 

 Lodi, in Piedmont, in accordance with the doctor's certificate. The 

 doctor was of opinion that the girl had died from excitement— over- 

 joy, it is said, at the prospect of being married, but the legal name for 

 the catastrophe was disease of the heart, and with this verdict her 

 place in society was declared vacant. When the first shovelful of 

 earth was thrown down on the coffin, strange noises were heard pro- 

 ceeding therefrom, " as of evil spirits disputing over the body of the 

 dead." The grave-diggers took to flight, and the mourners began 

 praying ; but the bridegroom, less superstitious than the others, in- 

 sisted on the coffin being unnailed. This was done ; but too late : the 

 girl was found in an attitude of horror and pain impossible to describe; 

 her eyes wide open, her teeth clinched, her hands clutching her hair. 

 Life was extinct ; but, when laid in her shroud the day before, her eyes 

 were closed, her hands were folded on her breast as if in prayer. 



The " Medical Academy " of Milan, in one of its weekly reports, 

 published on Wednesday, March 22, 1848, quotes a case of trance 

 which occurred to an ex-nun of the suppressed convent of St. Orsola, 

 named Lucia Marini. The lady was taken ill, and, to all outward ap- 

 pearance, died : she was known to be subject to a peculiar kind of fit, 

 which required peculiar treatment, and was staying at the time of the 

 catastrophe in the house of a friend, who had been a nun. The hec- 

 chini (grave-diggers, who in this case were the undertakers) insisted 

 on burying the body before night ; the surviving ex-nun remonstrated, 

 urging that she must first try the effect of friction and mustard-plasters 

 applied to feet and stomach. Fearing to lose their fee, the men of death 

 waxed wroth in their contention, and, seizing the body by the shoul- 

 ders, were about to drag it out of its bed, when the " dead lady," moan- 

 ing and muttering inarticulate sounds, turned restlessly on her pillow. 

 The friend of Lucia Marini broke out into prayers, inten-upted by 

 tears ; the men let go their hold, and one of them (the elder of the 

 two) crossed himself devoutly. The other, with a great oath, declared 

 it was " spasms " ; the dead, in his opinion, being liable to convulsive 

 movements if not properly straightened. But humanity prevailed 

 over ignorance, and cupidity gave way to medical skill. The lady was 

 thoroughly revived by a medical practitioner of the neighborhood, and 

 lived for many a long day to tell the story of her escape from the 

 tomb. 



