Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1886-01-07

anoes stone dead, she slept peacefully
on, with all the strange and linactount-
able weight about the body which
comes when death has frozen the veins
with an icy chill. The moments passed
rapidly by, but without apparent change
in the condition of things.
"'Hansel,' l said, sternly, turning
to the man who was standing at my
side, his teeth still chattering from his
paroxysm of fright, you have certainly
made some mistake. The signal must
have been turned by accident or care
lessness.'
"'No, Herr Doctor, that would be
impossible; nothing could touch the in
strument; see for yourself, pointing to
the one attached to the body, which, if
you have entered these rooms at Gott-
saker's, you know to be precisely SIM
liar to those in use in the regular
French morgues.
"The words had scarcely left his lips
before, with scream of the widest
terror, Hansel dropped upon his knees,
shuddering, half-crazed, and with one
shaking finger directing my attention
to the apparatus above us. Looking
up, saw that the arm of the instru-
ment was moving slowly, TREMENDOUSLY,
but unquestionably moving. l watched
it with almost the same amount of
wonderment that Hansel exhibited
while it rose, trembled, and fell upon
the gong, with stroke hardly stronger
than the blow of an infant, but, so deli
cately are these signaling instruments
arranged, instantly followed the warm
ing rattle. 1t was but the work of an
instant to follow with my finger the
course of the wire which attached the
instrument to the body. I found that
after leaving the battery this wire
passed down and around the neck of
the corpse, pressing closely like a tight
necklace upon the carotid artery, nat
urally the first place, from its connec-
ton with the heart, where reviving life
currents would be perceptible. The
mystery was no longer mystery. The
warning signal had undoubtedly been
sounded by the throbbing artery. Com
ing at long and irregular intervals the
pulsation either failed to occur while ]
was engaged in my efforts at resusci-
tation, or through some disarrange-
ment of the body itself, caused by
those efforts, had failed to be an
nounced.
"Thc Baronin Friesbach lived; the
throbbing artery proved it. Muscular
contraction, as any physician will tell
you, is entirely possible in the dead.
Arterial movements are totally different
in character and are susceptible of but
one explanation-that life is not dead
but sleeping.
"As this is record of plain facts, with
no necessity for dramatic climax, as
in fiction, formulated theories as to the
cause of such attacks would be useless
Whatever had been the cause, the re-
suit was a semblance of death thai
would deceive the closest scrutiny.
am not the only physician who has
been driven into labyrinth of indie.
cision by such experiences. Indeed
we are not in such cases justified in
using anything in the shape of rem
! e edSisf agents agents. except such drugs as ac'
as prompters to torpid organs, the sort
of position occupied by the man under
the baizc at the opera.
CATER dispatching a messenger fol
case of surgical instruments and ;
powerful galvanic battery l had the
Baronin Friesbach lifted from her rest.
ing place among these grim compan
ions, and, warmly wrapped in blankets
placed in the carriage. She was still
unconscious, but was evidently return
ing to a state which, if not exactly life
bordering too closely upon it to risl
the shock which the sight of her sur
roundings would inevitably produce
Having also instructed the messengel
who had gone for my instruments t
warn the family of my arrival with m,
sad burden, there was nothing to de
tain us. As we passed into the dew,
freshness of the early morn, the risins
sun was just beginning to throw loni
and slender fingers of light throug
the widely opened windows.
"Catalepsy," continued the doctor
after thoughtful pause, sis one of a
endless series of nervous disorders whic
science has never fully conquered o
comprehended. 1t unquestionably c,
lists, but not, as old women's tale
would have us believe, invariably &C
companied by the hellish torture {
whole or even semi-consciousness. l
the Baronin's case, whatever the caus
of the suspension of life's forces, sh
was the same as dead, and, most fol
tunately, had been Ignorant of every
thing going on about her from the me-