Baton Rouge tri-weekly gazette & comet. [volume] (Baton Rouge, La.) 1865-18??, 1866-05-03

THE DEAD ALivE.-There is q sort Of
feeling taking possession of the public
mind in Europe that there are innumera-
bic instances in which persons are buried
while yet alive, and although there is an
express law in France by which it is for
hidden to bury any person within twenty
four hours OF death, on purpose to prevent
all mistakes, yet that is now declared 80
insufficient that repeal Of it, or rather q
regulation requiring longer time, was re-
Gently debated with great earnestness in
the french Senate, and in part by Car
dinal who was able to describe the sensa-
tons of one thus about to be entom bed,
from his own experience. High and low.
rich and poor, it is all tho same.
In an English workhouse, not long since.
minister went to visit dying woman,
and had to pass through room whore an
infant was laid out for dead, its jaws all
bound up tightly. Looking at it closely,
he felt sure the child was not dead. The
jaws were then unbound, when 1t breathed
more freely. He cntreated that doctor
might be sent for, but it was against the
rules, The nurse dare not send, but only
the matron. He begged that she might be
sent for; but all were afraid, as she had
company, and at least appeared only with
wretchedly annoyed countenance. Then
doctor was sent for, but the child died.
its death questionably fastened by the
tying up Of it's Jaws.
In the last number of Blackwood, an
officer in the rebel army relates q case
about equally rare, In an engagement, a
hne young man, standing near him, was
hit, threw up his arms, and dropped to the
earth senseless, and seemingly dead He
rode up to him and found that ball had
penetrated his forehead. He was left for
dead, but after some hours moved, recov-
cred his senses, and in three days was at
his post again. The surgeon declared that
the ball had not penetrated the skull, but,
striking rather obliquely, had traversed
entirely round, between the scalp and the
skull, going out whore 1t had entered.
Aud yet, while it Is most necessary in
certain occasional cases that facts like
these should be known, and that proper
precautions should be used, we are almost
sorry to relate them, as there arc so many
hundreds and thousands Of survivors who
cleave to the false hope, after the death Of
beloved friends, that they are not and
cannot be dead really. Many live in
sort of terror of being buried alive, and
are ever tormented by the thought on
sick and dying bed.
dertaker that his rule was, never to screw
down coffin until he could discover
marks of decay. Then we can be quite
sure of death. 1t is only in some sudden
cases, where the patient has been in good |
pre- yious health, or where, at least, the
vital organs are not known to be seriously |
that there can be the least danger
OF mistake where the body is kept two or
three days. But in some of those cases, |
and at the crisis of low fevers, there may
be state of coma which should be care |
fully watched. AS for the cases of persons |
reported to have turned round in their
collins, etc., these have probably arisen |
net from life but death, the gases of de-
producing even more strange
effects than this. Still these early inter
ments, except in infectious cases, are not
good, not natural. Decay should be
waited for especially if there be the sight
ost reason for doubt. Yet with close OBJ