PREDISPOSING CAUSES AND CONDITIONS OF DEATH-COUNTERFEITS.

Those who are most subject to the various forms of death-counterfeit are persons whose vocations exhaust the nervous force faster than the natural powers of recuperation, and who resort to narcotics and stimulants to counteract the consequent physical depression. Dr. Alex. Wilder, in his “Perils of Premature Burial,” London, E. W. Allen, p. 19, says:—“We exhaust our energies by overwork, by excitement, too much fatigue of the brain, the use of tobacco, and sedatives or anÆsthetics, and by habits and practices which hasten the Three Sisters in spinning the fatal thread. Apoplexy, palsy, epilepsy, are likely to prostrate any of us at any moment, and catalepsy, perhaps, is not very far from any of us.” Equally, if not even more likely, to be overtaken by these simulacra of death are the poor—the ill-fed, ill-conditioned, and overworked classes.

With regard to the causation of catalepsy, Dr. W. R. Gowers, in Quain’s “Dictionary of Medicine,” p. 216, says:—“Nervous exhaustion is the common predisponent; and emotional disturbance, especially religious excitement, or sudden alarm, and blows on the head and back, are frequent immediate causes. It occasionally occurs in the course of mental affections, and especially melancholia, and as an early symptom of epilepsy.”

FAINTING FITS.

Dr. James Curry, F.A.S., in his “Observations on Apparent Death,” pp. 81, 82, referring to those conditions and diseases which predispose to death-counterfeits, to which women are more liable than men, says:—“The faintings which most require assistance, and to which, therefore, I wish particularly to direct the attention of my readers and the public, are those that take place from loss of blood, violent and long-continued fits of coughing, excessive vomiting or purging, great fatigue or want of food, and likewise after convulsions, and in the advanced stage of low fevers. It is but seldom, however, that any attempt at recovery is made in such cases; and several reasons may be assigned for this, particularly the great resemblance that fainting fits of any duration bear to actual death, and the firm belief of the bystanders that the circumstances which preceded were sufficient to destroy life entirely.”

The author continues, pp. 106, 107:—“Nervous and highly hysterical females, who are subject to fainting fits, are the most frequent subjects of this kind of apparent death; in which the person seems in a state very nearly resembling that of hibernating animals, such as the dormouse, bat, toad, frog, etc., which annually become insensible, motionless, and apparently dead, on the setting in of the winter’s cold, but spontaneously revive on the returning warmth of spring. Here, by some peculiar and yet unknown circumstance, the vital principle has its action suspended, but neither its existence destroyed, nor its organs injured, so as absolutely to prevent recovery, if not too long neglected.”

Dr. Franz Hartmann reports a case which occurred within half a mile of his residence near Hallein, Austria:—“At Oberalm, near Hallein, there died the widow of a Dr. Ettenberger, a lawyer. It was known that she had previously been affected with fits of catalepsy, and therefore all possible means were taken for the purpose of restoring her to life. All, however, were in vain, and her death appeared to be certain. On the third day, just before the hour appointed for the funeral, the family physician, Dr. Leber, bethought himself of trying some fresh experiments on the corpse, when the woman revived. She had been fully conscious all the time, and aware of all the preparations that were made for her funeral, although unable to make it known to others that she was still alive.”

Dr. Hartmann says:—“In 1866, in Kronstadt, a young and strong man, Orrendo by name, had a fit and died. He was put into a coffin and deposited in the family vault in a church. Fourteen years afterwards, in 1880, the same vault was opened again for the purpose of admitting another corpse. A horrible sight met those who entered. Orrendo’s coffin was empty, and his skeleton lying upon the floor. But the rest of the coffins were also broken open and emptied of their contents. It seemed to show that the man after awakening had burst his coffin open, and, becoming insane, had smashed the others, after which he had been starved to death.”—Premature Burial, p. 7.

Bouchut, in “Signes de la Mort,” p. 40, relates that “A lawyer at Vesoul was subject to fits of fainting, but kept the matter secret, so that the knowledge of it might not spread and interfere with his prospects of marriage; he only spoke confidentially of it to one of his friends. The marriage took place, and he lived for some time in good health, then suddenly fell into one of his fits, and his wife and the doctors, believing him dead, had him placed in a coffin, and got everything ready for the funeral. His friend was absent, but fortunately returned just in time to prevent the burial. The lawyer recovered, and lived for sixteen years after this event.”

INTENSE COLD.

M. Charles Londe, in “La Mort Apparente,” p. 16, says:—“Intense cold, coincident with privations and fatigue, will produce all the phenomena of apparent death—phenomena susceptible of prolongation during several days without producing actual death, and consequently exposing the individual who could be restored to life to living burial;” and he further maintains it as an indisputable fact that every day people are thus interred alive.

Struve, in his essay on “Suspended Animation,” p. 140, says:—“In no case whatever is the danger of committing homicide greater than in the treatment of persons who have suffered by severe cold. Their death-like state may deceive our judgment, not only because such persons continue longest apparently dead, but because the want of susceptibility of irritation is in many cases not distinguishable from real death. A man benumbed with cold burnt his feet, and had continued insensible to pain, nor did he feel this sensation till he warmed them at a fire. In this case it is evident that the susceptibility of irritation was destroyed, while vital power remained.”

INFLUENZA.

This is a malady that has been enormously rife all over the world during the past few years, and has baffled the efforts of physicians and sanitarians to arrest its progress: it is sometimes accompanied by conditions which can hardly be distinguished from catalepsy.

The Lancet, May 31, 1890, page 1215, gives the following:—

NARCOTICS.

Referring to the supposed death of a girl, Sarola, aged eleven years, to whom chloroform had been administered in September, 1894, under peculiar circumstances, and the body hurried off to cremation, Dr. Roger S. Chew, of Calcutta, writes:—“That bottle of medicine was charged with having caused the death of little Sarola, who, I firmly believe, was burned alive while in a cataleptic condition induced by the hysterical convulsions, and rendered profound by the administration of the chloroform.CHLOROFORM DEATHS PREVENTABLE. Surgeon Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Lawrie agrees with me that at least ninety per cent. of the chloroform deaths are preventable if proper measures are adopted to resuscitate the body, and it is quite possible for a chloroform narcotic to be launched into eternity on the funeral pyre or in the suffocating earth. What a mournful vista Sarola’s case opens up, and who can say how many hundreds have been similarly disposed of!”—Communicated to the Author.

Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, in “The Absolute Signs and Proofs of Death,” in the Asclepiad, first quarter, 1889, p. 9, says:—“In the first experiments made in this country with chloral, after the discovery of its effects by Liebriech, we learned that such a deep narcotism could be induced by this narcotic that it might be impossible to say whether an animal under its influence were alive or dead.” And referring to cataleptic trance due to shock, he observes, p. 11, “True traumatic catalepsy is equally remarkable, and equally embarrassing. It has been witnessed in the most destructive form after shock by lightning, and it may also have been met with after severe blows and contusions of the head.”

CHOLERA.

Dr. Chew, referring to another of the predisposing causes of apparent death, and the danger of premature burial in India, says:—“In the cholera season there is a risk of a soldier being buried alive, as the custom is to get rid of the body as soon as possible, and it is very seldom indeed that a post-mortem is held on a cholera corpse. If the case be one of true cholera, decomposition sets in before the breath has entirely left the body, and, immediately life is extinct, putrefaction rushes forward so rapidly as to render a mistake impossible; but in choleraic diarrhoea or the lighter forms of cholera it is possible that coma resultant on extreme collapse may suspend animation so as to simulate real death without actual cessation of vital energy, and lead to live sepulture, except where, by some such lucky accident as the burial ground being a long journey off, the funeral is delayed sufficiently to give a chance of recovery. And this same accident may prove a salvation in syncope or coma from shock or protracted illness.

“With the civil population, save in very exceptional cases, there is very little chance of recovery from apparent death, as the time between alleged decease and sepulture is very short indeed; and unless there are unmistakable signs of trance, syncope, or coma, the victim must die after he (or she) has been buried alive.”

VARIOUS PREDISPOSING DISEASES.

Living burials take place because the general public are ignorant of the fact that there are many (some thirty) diseases, and some states of the body that cannot be called diseases, as well as a number of incidents and accidents, which produce all the appearances of death so closely as to deceive any one.

Excessive joy or excessive grief will often paralyse the nervous system, including the action of the heart and the respiratory functions, and occasion the appearance of sudden death as well as shocks, blows upon the head, fright, strokes of lightning, violent displays of temper; also certain drugs now in common medical use, such as Indian hemp, atropia, digitalis, tobacco, morphia, and veratrum. According to Dr. LÉonce LÉnormand, in “Des Inhumations PrÉcipitÉes,” pp. 85-104, the following diseases and conditions not infrequently produce the like symptoms, viz., apoplexy, asphyxia, catalepsy, epilepsy, nervous exhaustion, ecstasy, hÆmorrhage, hysteria, lethargy, syncope, tetanus, etc.

Dr. Herbert Mayo in his “Letters on Truths contained in Popular Superstitions,” p. 34, remarks “that death-trance belongs to diseases of the nervous system, but in any form of disease, when the body is brought to a certain state of debility, death-trance may supervene.”

Dr. Hartmann observes: “The cases in which persons apparently dead have been restored to health by appropriate means are innumerable, and such accounts may be added to without end, as they are of daily occurrence, while it is also self-evident that, if they had not thus been saved, premature burial and death in the coffin would have taken place. But it also often happens that cases of apparent death recover spontaneously, and even after all possible means taken for the restoration of life have failed. This is specially the case in catalepsy, due to nervous exhaustion, which requires no other remedy than sufficient rest for the recuperation of the life-power, which no kind of medicine can supply.”