THE DANGER OF HASTY BURIALS.

Early burials are advocated and defended by certain writers on sanitary grounds; and there is, no doubt, something to be said for them, provided the body shows unmistakable signs of dissolution; but to impose a general rule upon Englishmen by Parliament, or upon Americans by State Legislature, as has been urged, would add to the existing evil of perfunctory and mistaken diagnosis of death, and greatly increase the number of premature interments. The Romans kept the bodies of the dead a week before burial, lest through haste they should inter them while life remained. Servius, in his commentary on Virgil, tells us—“That on the eighth day they burned the body, and on the ninth put its ashes in the grave.” Plato enjoined the bodies of the dead to be kept until the third day, in order (as he says) to be satisfied of the reality of the death. Quintilian explains why the Romans delayed burials as follows:—“For what purpose do ye imagine that long-delayed interments were invented? Or on what account is it that the mournful pomp of funeral solemnities is always interrupted by sorrowful groans and piercing cries? Why, for no other reason, but because we have seen persons return to life after they were about to be laid in the grave as dead.” “For this reason,” adds Lancisi, in “De Subita. Mort.,” lib. i., cap. 15, “the Legislature has wisely and prudently prohibited the immediate, or the too speedy, interment of all dead persons, and especially of such as have the misfortune to be cut off by a sudden death.”

Terilli, a celebrated physician of Venice, in a treatise of the “Causes of Sudden Death,” sect. vi., cap. 2, says:—“Since the body is sometimes so deprived of every vital function, and the principle of life reduced so low, that it cannot be distinguished from death, the laws both of natural comparison and revealed religion oblige us to wait a sufficient time for life manifesting itself by the usual signs, peradventure it should not be, as yet, totally extinguished; and if we should act a contrary part, we may possibly become murderers, by confining to the gloomy regions of the dead those who are actually alive.”

Mr. Cooper, surgeon, in his treatise on “The Uncertainty of the Signs of Death,” pp. 70, 71, had in his possession the following certificate, written and signed by Mr. Blau, a native of Auvergne, a man of untainted veracity:—“I hereto subscribe, and declare, that fifty-five years ago, happening to reside at Toulouse for the sake of my studies, and going to St. Stephen’s Church to hear a sermon, I saw a corpse brought thither for the sake of interment. The ceremony, however, was delayed till the sermon should be over; but the supposed dead person, being laid in a chapel and attended by all the mourners, about the middle of the sermon discovered manifest signs of life, for which reason he was quickly conveyed back to his own house. From a consideration of circumstances, it is sufficiently obvious that, without the intervention of the sermon, the man had been interred alive.”

Between 1780 and 1800 many pamphlets on the subject appeared in Germany and France. Opposite sides were taken, some advocating delay until putrefaction, others urging immediate burial.

In 1788, Marcus Hertz wrote strongly against the prevailing precipitate burials among the Jews. He asked “what motive could justify hasty burials;” and continued:—“The writings of learned men and doctors, of both early times and recent date, describe the dangers of precipitate burial; there is not a town in the world that has not its stories of revivals in the grave.”

In 1791, Rev. J. W. C. Wolff, in Germany, published numerous narratives of narrow escapes from the grave.

In 1792, Rev. Johann Moritz Schwager stated that he had preached for twenty years against precipitate burials, and that he had been requested to do so by a number of corporate bodies who had evidence of the danger of hasty interments.

About 1800 great excitement prevailed in Germany on account of some narrow escapes from living burial that happened in high quarters, many books and pamphlets having been issued, and sermons preached by the clergy on the subject. The key-note of all of these was the fallaciousness of the appearances of death, and that none was reliable but decomposition.

About this period Dr. Herachborg, of KÖnigsberg, Prussia, wrote that, for forty years, as a doctor, he had always been disgusted with the practice of hasty burials; and, to show the ignorance of the times, he mentions the case of a woman he kept under observation in bed for three days, when her relations took her out and placed her on the floor, insisting that she was dead. He resisted her burial, and had her covered with blankets; so that by being kept warm she recovered completely. He insisted that no sign of death could be relied upon.

From the British Medical Journal, April 12, 1862, p. 390. “The Gaz. MÉd. d’Orient tells us that people in Constantinople are, in all probability, not unfrequently buried alive, in consequence of the precipitancy with which their burial is performed. If the person dies during the night, he has some chance of escaping premature sepulture; but if he dies during the day, he is sure to be in his tomb in two hours after he has drawn his last breath. Facts of daily occurrence in this country, we are told, prove that persons who were thought to have died during the night have recovered before morning, and thus, thanks to the intervention of night, have been saved from being interred alive. Other facts of not unfrequent occurrence show that persons have recovered while on their road to the grave. In other rarer cases, again, the cries of the revivified half-buried ones have been heard by the passers-by, and thus saved from a horrible conclusion.”

In all countries it is the custom amongst the Jews to bury their dead, and apparently dead, quickly, without taking the slightest steps for restoration, and many are the catastrophes recorded.

“The Report of the Royal Humane Society” of 1802 states:—“At the funeral of a Jewess, one of the bearers thought he heard repeatedly some motion in the coffin, and informed his friends. Medical assistance being obtained, she returned to her home in a few hours completely restored.”

From the British Medical Journal, March 8, 1879, p. 356.

“SUSPENDED ANIMATION.

“A Jew, aged seventy, who had been ailing for some time, apparently died recently in Lemberg, on a Friday night, after severe convulsions. The deceased having been legally certified, the body was put on a bier, preparatory to the funeral, which had to be deferred, the next day being the Jewish Sabbath. Two pious brethren who had, according to their custom, been spending the night in prayer, watching the dead, were suddenly, on the morning of the Saturday, disturbed from their devotions by strange sounds proceeding from the bier, and, to their dismay, saw the dead man slowly rising, and preparing to descend from it, using at the same time very strong language. Both brethren fled very precipitately; and one of them has since died from the effects of the fright. It is hoped by the Wiener Medicinische Zeitung that this case will make the local government watch the Jewish funerals more carefully, as it is known that the Jews often bury their dead very quickly.”

The Undertakers’ Journal, January 22, 1887, says:—“The dangers that may arise from premature interment are illustrated by a sensational incident which recently occurred at Trencsin, in Hungary. The wife of the Rabbi of the Jewish Congregation apparently died suddenly without having been previously ill. The night before the funeral the female watcher, sitting in an adjoining room, heard a noise in the chamber of death, and, when, stricken with horror, she ventured to open the door, she found that the seemingly dead woman had risen from her bier, and had thrown off the shroud by which she was covered. By a fortunate accident the interment had been postponed in consequence of the intervening Sabbath, otherwise a horrible fate would have overtaken the Rabbi’s wife.”

The Lancet, August 23, 1884, vol. ii., p. 329, comments thus:—

“BURYING CHOLERA PATIENTS ALIVE.

“It is not so much undue haste as inexcusable carelessness that must be blamed for the premature burying of persons who are not really dead. Such heedlessness as alone can lead to the commission of this crime is not a shade less black than manslaughter. We speak strongly, because this is a matter in regard to which measures ought to be at once taken to render the horrible act impossible, and to dismiss all fear from the public mind. If it be a fact, as would seem to be indisputable, that during the last few weeks there have been cases—we will not attempt to say how many or how few—of burying alive, a scandal and a horror, wholly unpardonable in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, have to be faced; and the sooner the full truth is known and rules of safety established the better. Let it be once for all decided that measures shall be taken to ascertain the fact of death before burial. Why not revert to the old practice, and always open a vein in the arm after death, or pass a current of electricity through the body before the coffin is finally screwed down? It may be held that these unpleasant resorts are unnecessary. We do not think they are. In any case enough is known of the possibilities of ‘suspended animation’ to render it unsafe to bury until the evidences of an actual extinction of life are unmistakable; and, as it is impossible to wait until decomposition sets in in all cases of death from infectious diseases, it would be prudent to adopt what must certainly be the least of evils.”

If, as the Lancet maintains, it is not possible to wait until the only absolute sign of death is manifest, then, in a large majority of cases, there is no safety, and those who die fatally mutilated by horrible accidents may be considered fortunate. The difficulty, we admit, is of a serious nature, particularly for the poor, and can only be overcome by the erection of mortuaries, as discussed in another chapter. The expedient of applying the electric current, suggested by the Lancet, has been proved useless in cases of death-trance, where the patients are impervious to the most violent modes of cutaneous excitation.

The Jewish World, September 13, 1895, observes:—“Cases of trance and of the burial of persons who only seemed to be dead, and of narrow escapes of others from the most terrible of all imaginable fates, are not so uncommon as most people suppose; and while Jews adhere to the practice of interring their dead within a few hours after the supposed demise, there will always be a risk of such horrible catastrophes happening, even more frequently among us than among the general community. Here is, then, really a matter in which some reform is needed, and that without a day’s delay.

“To say nothing of the merely human aspect of this important question, to bury until decomposition has actually set in might possibly be shown to be a violation of Jewish Law. It is now commonly admitted that even expert medical men cannot be absolutely certain of death until some signs of decomposition have shown themselves. Now, so strict is the Jewish Law as regards the risk of destroying life, that it is prohibited to even move or touch a man or woman who is on the point of death, lest we hasten, by a moment, their dissolution. It is, therefore, no less than a violation of the Jewish laws against murder to preserve a custom that involves even the minutest scintilla of risk of premature burial. It is high time that this question was seriously taken up by the Jewish clergy and laity.”[8]

In the province of Quebec no interment is permitted within twenty-four hours, and the Jews reconcile themselves to this delay, which, however, is far too brief to ensure safety.

It will be said that the danger referred to is not so imminent in the United Kingdom as in France, Spain, Portugal, or even in the United States, owing to the existence of a more temperate climate, and the longer period allowed for burial. This may be so and yet the danger be considerable. It must be remembered that in the rural districts nothing in the shape of examination to establish the fact of death is practised; while in certain parts of Cornwall, throughout the greater part of agricultural Ireland, amongst the Jews in all cities and towns, as well as those who in all places are certified as dead of cholera, small-pox, and other infectious and epidemic diseases, burial often follows certified death quite as quickly as in the Continental States before mentioned. In all the public resorts on the Continent the hotel-keepers, through an insensate fear of death and the injury which the possession of “a corpse,” dead or alive, may do to their business, have them coffined and disposed of, particularly in the night, within a few hours of their supposed death. Dr. D. de LigniÈres, in “Pour ne pas Être EnterrÉ Vivant,” Paris, 1893, says he has known of burials under such circumstances six hours after death. This author says that these scandalous homicidal acts are of every-day occurrence, and that the rapacious landlords have no difficulty in obtaining certificates of death from the accommodating mort verificateurs. Every one who visits the hÔtels des villes d’eaux, des stations balnÉaires, may verify (he says) the truth of this statement for himself. In short, these are willing disciples of the “Latest Decalogue”:—

“Thou shalt not kill; but need’st not strive
Officiously to keep alive.”