The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1879-01-16
were block of ice, and after consider
able delay was carried to Alma and given
aChristian burial.
Alive Underground.
New York Commercially


"It is all nonsense to say that Miss
Fancher is humbug," observed a
prominent New York physician yester-
day, "when there are well-established
cases that are even more remarkable
than hers"
Being inquired of what cases these
were, he went on thus:
will give you one in my own ex-
perience. In 1S49, the cholera year, a
man in the last stages of the disease was
put ashore from an Ohio river stea nboat
at Cincinnati, and taken to the hospital
in which was then engaged. He died.
He was not identified, and was buried
with the bedclothes wrapped around
him. Four days afterward, the body
was exhumed and brought into the hos
pital for dissection purposes. The de-
monstrator of anatomy went into the
dead-room to prepare the subject-but
perhaps, not being doctor, you don't
know exactly how we prepare body
for dissection. Do your
Ignorance on this interesting teehni,
cal question being candidly confessed,
the Doctor described the process, and SO
got to the marrow of his story.
You see the first thing to be done is
to cut the carotid artery, SO as to inject
the coloring fluids into the body-red
and blue, to mark the courses of the ar
teries and the veins. Well, sir, the as
tonishing part of this case was that
when the carotid was cut (after the body
had been underground four days, re-
member, the blood spurted out. 1t ,oas
too late hen-but up to that time the
man had been alive" rs
Chow do you explain it ?'
i can't. Nobody can. But if this
man had been in a state of suspended
animation while actually buried, so that
it was impossible to detect any sign of
life in him, where can you fix the limit
of such cases? Miss Fancher's case is
not so extreme as the one / have de-
scribed, and which saw; but the par
tial suspension of the functions of life
in her is not particularly surprising. 1t
certainly isn't impossible. Only, we
can't explain it."
"But Miss Fancher has not accepted
DIR. Hammond's one thousand dollar
challenge, nor have her friends accepted
it for her." Ha
i" 1t was not fair challenge. Miss
Fancher is not a clairvoyant, as under
stand her case. The test proposed re-
quires high clairvoyant powers. I think
she and her friends were right in declin-
ing it."
"Now fyllow your facts about such
cases to their legitimate conclusions.
If a man can live four days under
ground, like your cholera patient, or a
woman go on for years half alive and
half dead, with little or no nutriment,
when will it be safe to bury person
supposed to be dead, and where will you
fix the limit of human life? Why may
not this sort of thing 20 on forever, and
mankind get its immortality in this
worldf" .--a.
"That is hard question:" said the
Doctor; I'VE don't know yet that there
is any limit. If life can be suspen ded
for four days, why not for four years,
or ten, any number of years, and then
come back7 Or if its functions can ap-
parently cease, as in the Brooklyn case,
and the patient still lives, how can you
know the term of years that that con-
dition may last? Medical science can
not explain these phenomena. All it
knows is that they exist"