Premature Burial and How It May Be Prevented

CHAPTER III.

ANIMAL AND SO-CALLED HUMAN HIBERNATION.

The following case of the jerboa, or jumping mouse, recorded last century by Major-General Thomas Davies, F.R.S., in the “Transactions of the LinnÆan Society,”[3] will show how far a torpid mammal may be removed from the opportunity of breathing, and how imperceptibly, to the eyes of an observer, its torpid life passed into actual death:—

“With respect to the figure given of it in its dormant state (plate viii., fig. 6), I have to observe that the specimen was found by some workmen in digging the foundation for a summer house in a gentleman’s garden, about two miles from Quebec, in the latter end of May, 1787. It was discovered enclosed in a ball of clay, about the size of a cricket ball, nearly an inch in thickness, perfectly smooth within, and about twenty inches under ground. The man who first discovered it, not knowing what it was, struck the ball with his spade, by which means it was broken to pieces, or the ball also would have been presented to me. The drawing will perfectly show how the animal is laid during its dormant state [a tawny mouse, with long hind legs and long tail, coiled up into a perfect ovoid, of which the two poles are the crown of the head and the rump.] How long it had been under ground it is impossible to say; but as I never could observe these animals in any parts of the country after the beginning of September, I conceive that they lay themselves up some time in that month, or beginning of October, when the frost becomes sharp; nor did I ever see them again before the last week of May, or beginning of June. From their being enveloped in balls of clay, without any appearance of food, I conceive they sleep during the winter, and remain for that time without sustenance. As soon as I conveyed this specimen to my house, I deposited it, as it was, in a small chip box, in some cotton, waiting with great anxiety for its waking; but that not taking place at the season they generally appear, I kept it until I found it began to smell: I then stuffed it, and preserved it in its torpid position. I am led to believe its not recovering from that state arose from the heat of my room during the time it was in the box, a fire having been constantly burning in the stove, and which in all probability was too great for respiration....”

INSTANCES OF ANIMAL HIBERNATION.

Mr. Braid, after citing facts as to higher animals, proceeds:—“There are other creatures which have not the power of migrating from climes too intensely hot for the normal exercise of their physical functions, and the lives of these animals are preserved through a state of torpor superinduced by the want of sufficient moisture, their bodies being dried up from excessive heat. This is the case with snails, which are said to have been revived by a little cold water being thrown on them, after having remained in a dry and torpid state for fifteen years. The vibrio tritici has also been restored, after perfect torpidity and apparent death for five years and eight months, by merely soaking it in water. Some small, microscopic animals have been apparently killed and revived again a dozen times by drying and then applying moisture to them. This is remarkably verified in the case of the wheel-animalcule. And Spallanzani states that some animalcules have been recovered by moisture after a torpor of twenty-seven years. According to Humboldt, again, some large animals are thrown into a similar state from want of moisture. Such he states to be the case with the alligator and boa-constrictor during the dry season in the plains of Venezuela, and with other animals elsewhere.”—On Trance and Human Hibernation, p. 47.

Dr. Moore Russell Fletcher, in his treatise on “Suspended Animation,” pp. 7, 8, observes:—“Snakes and toads live for a long time without air or food. The following experiment was made by a Mr. Tower, of Gardiner (Maine). An adder, upwards of two feet in length, was got into a glass jar, which was tightly sealed. He was kept there for sixteen months without any apparent change, and when let out, looked as well as when put in, and crawled away.

“The common pond trout, when thrown into snow, will soon freeze, remain so for days, and when put into cold water to remove the frost become lively as ever.

“When residing in New Brunswick, in 1842, we went to a lake to secure some trout, which were frozen in the snow and kept for use. While there we saw men with long wooden tongs catching frost fish from the salt water at the entrance of a brook. The fish were thrown upon the ice in great quantities. We had a barrel of them put up with snow and kept frozen, and in a cool place. For six or seven weeks they were taken out and used as wanted, and might be kept frozen for an indefinite time, and be alive when thawed in cold water. The two pieces of a fish, cut in two when frozen, would move and try to swim when thawed in cold water.”

SO-CALLED HUMAN HIBERNATION.

Dr. George Moore observes that “A state of the body is certainly sometimes produced (in man) which is nearly analogous to the torpor of the lower animals—a condition utterly inexplicable to any principle taught in the schools. Who, for instance, can inform us how it happens that certain fishes may be suddenly frozen in the Polar Sea, and so remain during the long winter and yet be requickened into full activity by returning summer?”—Use of the Body in Relation to the Mind, p. 31.

UNCERTAINTY OF DEATH.

Hufeland, in his “Uncertainty of Death,” 1824, p. 12, observes that it is easier for mankind to fall into a state of trance than the lower creatures, on account of their complicated anatomy. It is a transitory state between life and death, into which anyone may pass and return from. Trance was common among the Greeks and Romans, who, just before cremation, had the custom of cutting off a finger-joint, most probably to discover if there was any trace of life. Death does not come suddenly; it is a gradual process from actual life into apparent death, and from that to actual death. It is a mistake to take outward appearances for inner death.

“It often happens a person is buried in a trance knowing all the preparations for the interment, and this affects him so much that it prolongs the trance by its depressing influence. How long can a man exist in a state of trance? Is there no sign by which the remaining spark of life may be recognised? Do no means exist to prevent awakening in the grave? Nothing can be said as to its duration; but we do know that differences in the cause and circumstances will cause a difference in duration. The amount of strength of the person would have great effect in this. Weak persons, broken down by excesses, would die sooner than the strong. The nature of the disease would make a difference. Old age is less liable to trance than the young. Long sickness destroys the sources of life, and shortens the process of death. Sorrow and trouble, and numerous diseases, seem to bring on death; yet ofttimes the source of life in them exists to its full extent, and what seems in them to be death may be only a fainting fit, or cramp, which temporarily interrupts the action of life. Women are more liable to trance than men: most cases have happened in them. Trance may exist in the new-born; give them time, and many of them revive. The smell of the earth is at times sufficient to wake up a case of trance. Six or seven days, or longer, are often required to restore such cases.” (Extracted from pp. 10-24.)

Mr. Chunder Sen, municipal secretary to the Maharajah of Jeypore, introduced the author, during his visit to India, March 8, 1896, to a venerable and learned fakir, who was seated on a couch Buddhist fashion, the feet turned towards the stomach, in the attitude of meditation, in a small but comfortable house near the entrance to the beautiful public gardens of that city. The fakir possesses the power of self-induced trance, which really amounts to a suspension of life, being indistinguishable from death. In the month of December, 1895, he passed into and remained in this condition for twenty days. On several occasions the experiment has been conducted under test conditions. In 1889, Dr. Hem Chunder Sen, of Delhi, and his brother,SELF-INDUCED HIBERNATION. Mr. Chunder Sen, had the opportunity of examining the fakir while passing into a state of hibernation, and found that the pulse beat slower and slower until it ceased to beat at all. The stethoscope was applied to the heart by the doctor, who failed to detect the slightest motion. The fakir, covered with a white shroud, was placed in a small subterraneous cell built of masonry, measuring about six feet by six feet, of rotund structure. The door was closed and locked, and the lock sealed with Dr. Sen’s private seal and with that of Mr. Dhanna Tal, the magistrate of the city; the flap door leading to the vault was also carefully fastened. At the expiration of thirty-three days the cell was opened, and the fakir was found just where he was placed, but with a death-like appearance, the limbs having become stiff as in rigor mortis. He was brought from the vault, and the mouth was rubbed with honey and milk, and the body and joints massaged with oil. In the evening, manifestations of life were exhibited, and the fakir was fed with a spoonful of milk. The next day he was given a little juice of pulses known as dal, and in three days he was able to eat bread and milk, his normal diet. These cases are well known both at Delhi and at Jeypore, and the facts have never been disputed. The fakir is a Sanscrit scholar, and is said to be endowed with much wisdom, and is consulted by those who are interested in Hindu learning and religion. He has never received money from visitors, and the mention of it distresses him.

The Medical Times of May 11, 1850, contains a communication from Mr. Braid, who says he has “lost no opportunity of accumulating evidence on this subject, and that while many alleged feats of this kind are probably of a deceptive character, still there are others which admit of no such explanation; and that it becomes the duty of scientific men fairly to admit the difficulty.” He then refers to two documents by eye-witnesses of these feats, and which, he says, “with the previous evidence on the subject, must set the point at rest for ever, as to the fact of the feats referred to being genuine phenomena, deception being impossible.” In one of these instances, the fakir was buried in the ground for six weeks, and was, consequently, deprived not only of food and drink, but also of light and air; when he was disinterred, his legs and arms were shrivelled and stiff, but his face was full; no pulse could be discovered in the heart, temples, or arms. “About three years since I spent some time with a General C——, a highly respectable and intelligent man, who had been a long time in the Indian service, and who was himself an eye-witness of one of these feats. A fakir was buried several feet in the earth, under vigilant inspection, and a watch was set, so that no one could communicate with him; and to make the matter doubly sure, corn was sown upon the grave, and during the time the man was buried, it vegetated and grew to the height of several inches. He lay there forty-two days. The gentleman referred to passed the place many times during his burial, saw the growing corn, was also present at his disinterment, and when he questioned the man, and intimated to him that he thought deception had been practised, the fakir offered, for a sum of money, to be buried again, for the same length of time, by the General himself, and in his own garden. This challenge, of course, closed the argument.”

CASES REPORTED BY MR. BRAID.

Cases of this kind might be multiplied on evidence which cannot be doubted, and, in Mr. Braid’s book, entitled “Human Hibernation,” there are cases fully stated. Sir Claude Wade, who was an eye-witness of these feats when acting as political agent at the Court of Runjeet Singh, at Lahore, and from whom Mr. Braid derived his information, makes the following observations:—“I share entirely in the apparent incredibility of the fact of a man being buried alive and surviving the trial for various periods of duration; but however incompatible with our knowledge of physiology, in the absence of any visible proof to the contrary, I am bound to declare my belief in the facts which I have represented, however impossible their existence may appear to others.” Upon this Mr. Braid observes:—“Such then is the narrative of Sir C. M. Wade, and when we consider the high character of the author as a gentleman of honour, talents, and attainments of the highest order, and the searching, painstaking efforts displayed by him throughout the whole investigation, and his close proximity to the body of the fakir, and opportunity of observing minutely every point for himself, as well as the facilities, by his personal intercourse with Runjeet Singh and the whole of his Court, of gaining the most accurate information on every point, I conceive it is impossible to have had a more valuable or conclusive document for determining the fact that no collusion or deception existed.”

A case of this kind was exhibited at the Westminster Aquarium in the autumn of 1895, which was carefully watched and tested by medical experts, without detection of any appearance of fraud or simulation. The hypnotised man, Walter Johnson, an ex-soldier, twenty-nine years of age, was in a trance which lasted thirty days, during which time he was absolutely unconscious, as shown by the various experiments to which he was subjected.

A case of induced trance and experimental burial, not unlike that of the Indian fakirs referred to, was reported in the London Daily Chronicle, March 14, 1896. The experiment was carried out under test conditions.

“‘BURIED ALIVE’ AT THE ROYAL AQUARIUM.

“After being entombed for six days in a hypnotic trance, Alfred Wootton was dug up and awakened at the Royal Aquarium (Westminster), on Saturday night in the presence of a crowd of interested spectators. Wootton was hypnotised on Monday by Professor Fricker, and consigned to his voluntary grave, nine feet deep, in view of the audience, who sealed the stout casket or coffin in which the subject was immured. Seven or eight feet of earth were then shovelled upon the body, a shaft being left open for the necessary respiration, and in order that the public might be able to see the man’s face during the week. The experiment was a novel one in this country, and was intended to illustrate the extraordinary effect produced by the Indian fakirs, and to demonstrate the connection between hypnotism and psychology, while also showing the value of the former art as a curative agent. Wootton is a man thirty-eight years of age; he is a lead-worker, and on Monday weighed 10st. 2-1/2 lbs. He had previously been in a trance for a week in Glasgow, under Professor Fricker’s experienced hands, so was not altogether new to the business; but he is the first to be ‘buried alive’ by way of amusement. To the uninitiated the whole thing was gruesome in the extreme, and this particular form of entertainment certainly cannot be commended. Before being covered in, Wootton’s nose and ears were stopped with wax, which was removed before he was revived on Saturday. The theory of the burial is to secure an equable temperature day and night—which is impossible when the subject is above ground in the ordinary way—and therefore to induce a deeper trance. Of course, too, the patient was out of reach of the operator, and no suspicion of continuous hypnotising could rest upon the professor. No nourishment could be supplied for the same reason, though the man’s lips were occasionally moistened by means of a damp sponge on the end of a rod, and no record of temperature or respiration could be kept. A good many people witnessed the digging up process, and the awakening took place in the concert room, whither the casket and its burden were conveyed. The professor was not long in arousing his subject, after electric and other tests had been applied to convince the audience that the man was perfectly insensible to pain and everything else. Indeed, a large needle was run through the flesh on the back of the hand without any effect whatever. The first thing on regaining consciousness that Wootton said was that he could not see, and then he asked for drink—milk, and subsequently a little brandy, being supplied. As soon as possible the patient was lifted out of his box, and with help was quickly able to walk about the platform. He complained of considerable stiffness of the limbs, and was undoubtedly weak, but otherwise seemed none the worse for his remarkable retirement from active life, and abstention from food for nearly a week. He was swathed in flannel, and soon found the heat of the room very oppressive, though at first he appeared to be particularly anxious to have his overcoat and his boots. It is anticipated that in a day or two at most Wootton will have regained his usual vigorous health.”

EXPERIMENTAL BURIAL.

Dr. Hartmann in “Premature Burial,” page 23, relates an account of a similar experiment with a fakir, differing from the above, however, in so far as it was made by some English residents, who did not put the coffin into the earth, but hung it up in the air, so as to protect it from the danger of being eaten up by white ants. There seems to be hardly any limitation in regard to the time during which such a body may be preserved and become reanimated again, provided that it is well protected, although modern ignorance may smile at this statement.

Those of our readers who wish to pursue this subject will find ample material in “Observations on Trance or Human Hibernation,” 1850, by James Braid, M.R.C.S.; Dr. Kuhn’s report of his investigations of the Indian fakirs to the Anthropological Society of Munich, in 1895; the researches of Dr. J. M. Honigberger, a German physician long resident in India; and in the India Journal of Medical and Physical Science, 1836, vol. i., p. 389, etc.

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