Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1868-05-27

WHOLE NO. 1886.
from the Cincinnati Chronicle ]
Premature Burial.

ed IN the haOIiments OF the grave,
and placed in the casket for burial,
discovered after all to be only in sem
blance Of death-eatalepsy, and on the
very eve of impending burial, rescued
from living grave The press Of the
country during the last twenty-five
years has some repeated evidence Of
such terrible occurrences, shown Of
which, written by the suffers them
selves, or under their directions, have
shown that while all the sad scenes of
supposed death and preparation for
burial were going on around, the un-
happy subject of the proposed obse-
quies was IN the full possession of ac-
tive consciousness Of all that was trans
piring, though wholly incapable of
moving muscle. We may we'll I'M
agine that the horrors of such q posi-
ton could be but family described;
but more CHASTITY is the statement
which reaches the public sometimes,
when the bodies in an old graveyard
ha7e been exhumed, Of persons found
in their graves in positions indicating
that premature burial had been con-
sumated. The grave is not cheerful
subject Of discourse to average mortals,
in any aspect, much as the soul may
rise above it under the eleTating in
huence of christian faith in an immOr-
tality Of the freed spirit beyond the
tomb. The very souls that rise in &c
static strains of song over the time
when they "shall lay their armor by
often shudder at the thought of the
burial of the body, so rare is it that
men are able to seperats from the body
the idea of sentence. The intellect
comprehends, but the feelings ignore
the fact that the body can experience
no terror in the grave when Geath has
made its captive; and so we often hear
people express more terror of the grave
than Of death itself. But who shall
depict the horror with which the mind
revolts at the idea Of living burial.
If it has any parallel it must be in the
modern railroad fashion of riHing souls
from bodies by cremation. Yet there ls
reason to fear that such burials are more
frequent in this country, where we do
everything in haste, than is generally
believed. In times Of raging pestilenes
especially, premature interments are
often hszarded through fearof contagion
and the haste of persons charged by
the public authorities with the duty
of providing with sepulture the victims
of epidemic. A distinguished physi-
clan Of Cincinnati, now deceased, used
to bear witness to this truth by a per-
sonal experience Of his own. Happen
ing to be on visit to Montreal, with
his wife, in the time when the cholera
was first epidemic in that city, 1882,
perhaps, he left her at the hotel for
short time and on returning to their
room after an absence Of about two
hours, he was sstonished and horror
struck at meeting men bearing a coffin
from the room. To his inquiry, the
bearers answered that they were remoY-
ing q lady who had died of cholera.
He required the coffin to be opened,
and there beheid his own wife, not
dead, but in q rigid comatose state of
inse visibility. Restoratives were ap-
piled, and the lady revived and was
saved.
The practice of burials within few
hours after 6esth obtained in warm
Eastern countries because of the rapid
ity there Of decomposition. In this
climate no such reason exists, and the
haste with which men rush to fulfill
the Injunction Of the patriarch, 'bury
my dead out OF my sight, is unseemlY,
and in cases of sudden deaths, especi-
ally hazards, the commission of an act
which would follow the living with an
guish all their days if brought to their
knOwledge-the consigning to living
sepulcher of those not dead, but suffer
ing suspended animation. The I'M
utterable horror to the buried under
such circumstances must have been
vividly pictured to the sections who, a
few years since, in removing the re-
/ mains of q woman who had been buried
sometime previous, found the traces of
a terrible struggle, wherein the reani-
mated victim had torn the hair from
her head, and rent in shreds the burial
cerements.
We find in the Lsrasrts some WeIl-ex-
pressed thoughts by correspondent,
on this subject, which We give as fol-
lows:
The present practice of our people
to bury their dead within some
tWenty-four or thirty-six hours of their
decease-seems reprehensible IN many
respects. The peril of premature buri-
/ al is obvious. We know so little of the
theory and condition of death, even in
our present state of medical science,
that we cannot even be sure that life
has actually fled when the ordinary
signs of life has ceased. We cannot be
sure that the spirit has passed irrevoea-
bly,, materially speaking, from the
mortal clay, even when the heart
| ceases to beat, the lips to breathe, the
pulse to thro5. We know that per
sons apparently dead by drowning,
have been brought back to life long
after the ordinary signs of life have
ceased to be apparent. We know that
skilful treatment has, under ProVi-
dence, restored respiration and anima.
ton sometime after all apparent action
had left the respiratory organs and the
animated organism. Hence it IS clear
that death does not immediately sue
ceed the apparent cessation of life. A
man my be drowned and vet nos i'm
medistely die. If this be the case in
this cause of death, may it not be true
in other causes producing death? May
not the vital power be only suspended
and not absolutely extinct when it aD-
pears to those around patients pill
low that the signs of life have departed?
Is it possible that We can, in the
name of religion, eonsign our loved
ones to g condition in Which-if one
spark of life remain or could be reani-
mated in them-it must be extin-
guished utterly, irretrieEeablY2 l be-
lieTe that decomposition, or the begin
ming Of decomposition, is the only
really reliable sign CT death. When q
physical change of this character com
mences to affect the inner frame, it is
probably palpable that the mystery
which we call life has left it-left ituntiI
it be recalled in the unknown hour
when, as we believe, the dead shall
wake again.
Strange to say, we do not give to our
supposed dead the last chance which
would be afforded by our ancient Gus
toms, and probably prescribed rites.
We do not, as believe our fathers did
reopen the coffin at the burial ground,
before finally parting with it in the
cold sods. Why have we abandoned
this practice-possibly a wise precau-
ton?
The objection to burial, on the
ground of the desire to remove the
dead rapidly from the house of mourn
ing, so that the latter may be purified
from its presence, may be met by the
establishment of a mortuarV house in