Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-06-26
SUSPENDED ANIMATION.
BURIAL ALIVE Is BECOMING ALTO
GETHER TOO FREQUENT.

Interesting Paper Read Before a Medical
Society-Cases of Premature Interment
Cited-Only Sign of Real Death the Com
mencement of Putrefaction.
The general public seems to incline to the
belief that burial alive is getting to be of alto
gether too frequent occurrence. Cases Of
suspended animation are frequent certainly,
and unless great care is exercised death may
follow IN them and burial occur, while II
proper care had been exercised life might
have been preserved. There is a growing i'm
preston that the veTification OF death is not
carefully enough attended to by majority
of doctors This whole matter was made the
subject of a paper read before the Indiana
State Homeopathic Medical society at its an
nual meeting in Indianapolis, by the secre-
tary of the society, DR.. William B. Clarke,
of Indianapolis. The society gave its author
a vote Of thanks for the paper, and urged its
general publication The paper was entitled
The Verification Of Death, and was written
in a style easily understood by the general
public, for which 1t possesses interest and for
these reasons we publish portion Of it:
TIE vxRIF7OATIoa OF DEATH
1t would be next to impossible for one Of US
to imaginea more dreadful experience than
to awake to the realization of the fact that be
had been buried allve Occasionally the pub
lie is Mortified by newspaper reports of the
discovery of case Of premature burial One
such discovery was made at Syracuse, n. Y,
by Edward Raeh, who, guided by some in
def1nable but irresistible impulse, uncovered
and opened the coffin Of his recently buried
17-yeer-oh daughter, Emma, and found the
body turned, with the hands up and filed
with hair which she had torn from her head
in her agony of mind and body. Mr. Ran
dali had a friend IN Memphis who was buried
alive during yellow fever scare. How many
cases of the kind, from the peculiar nature
of things, are never discovered we can never
know; but, reasoning from the developments
that are constantly being made along the line
Of suspended animation, it is fair TO presume
that they are many compared to those that
are discovered And l suppose that much of
the. growing and commendable popularity of
cremation really has its origin in the fear of
being buried alive
A Chicago physician is keeping record of
the cases Of suspended animation reported in
the newspapers of the country, and says that
they average one week. As the condition
called suspended animation may deceive the
very elect, and may last many days before
death or recovery takes place, physicians who
have to do with sudden DEATH real or sup
posed, and in some cases following sickness,
cannot be too careful in rendering the final
opinion relative thereto, and before making
up that opinion it may be necessary to put
the body through the various tests for the
absolute signs of death, a procedure, in my
opinion, not often enough resorted to-
Rigor morris, or cadaveric rigidity (which
Is due to the thickish fluid called myosine,
the principal contractile substance Of the
striped muscular fberst is usually considered
proof of death, especially il a stringy coagula
be present in the veins. But your opinion
may be called for before rigor mortis is pres
ent, or after its supposed or inferred disap-
pearance, or rigidity may be present from
other causes, for instance, catalepsy, and a
cursory examination might fail to show the
difference. Then, too, it may never occur, as
in those occasional cases where warmth, color
and contour remain for days after he spirit
has, as far as we know, fed as occurred in
Chicago in the case of Miss Wilhelmina Stahl,
20 years old, pronounced dead by the physi-
cians of rheumatism of the heart, and who
lay nine days without signs Of decomposition
and without the in lection of embalming
fluids. Rigor morris may occur Immediately
after death, but usually comes in few hours,
and is more delayed the more muscular the
subject and the more sudden the death after
apparent health.
CATALEPsY AND REAL DEATH
That most classical and standard work,
''Da Costa' Diagnosis" says that "catalepsy
may be mistaken for death, ;" and this mistake
occurred in ST. Louis, In relation TO mar
RED woman, q years old, but a slight sign of
life was accidentally discovered just before
the coffin was to be closed, and tho full con-
sequences of the mistake did not follow. Thu
woman knew all that was going on about her,
but could give no voluntary or involuntary
sign of life. Another case Of narroy escape
was reported from Danville, Ills; this time
of tho son of Frank Myers, an infant, 9 or 1e
months old Both of the reoOveries occurred !
entirely independently of the astuteness or
attention of the physicians in charge, and, in |
fact, after they had declared life to be ex-
tinct. AMI | can refer you to a case of re-
covery in Steubenville, O., where no less than
six physicians had declared life to be extinct, I
and animation returned fourteen days after
the supposed death.
A well known lady of this city (Nfrs. Hib- !
benz similarly recovered, and her death had
been referred 10 in the principal Episcopal .
pulpit here, ReE. DR.. Bradley's. A little in
vestigation of this subject, independent of /
these cases, will show that we cannot be too .
careful, as will quotation from our highest .
authority, "Dulglisons Medical Dictionary" .
under the head of Death" 1.-The only sign !
of real death is the commencement of putre-
faction" This may seem like overstating the
case, but it will do to bear Il Lind.
If it be true that 1.-The only sign of real
death is the commencement of putrefaction,"
as Dunglison says, and the first sign of putre-
faction does not come until the third day
after death, are we justified in allowing,
without protest, the burial Of person one
day who died, or was supposed to have died.
on the preceding day, as is occasionally donei
The cooling OF the body after death should
be critically considered 1t comes gradually
through the radiation of internal heat, and
from this cause the external surface may be-
come warmer than before death, and after
death the internal temperature may be higher
than before death, due to the generation of
gases. The GOODNESS produced by the rapid
evaporation of moisture should not be mis-
taken for cadaveric GOODNESS Cincinnati En-
oui-er.