The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-05-08
REMARKABLE CASE OF cATALEPsY.
A Young Married Woman Apparently Dies,
and the Funeral Was In Progress.

ST. LOUIS, May 3.-An afternoon paper prints
a sensational story of a remarkable case OF cat
alepsy reported from South ST. Louis, names
being suppressed for the alleged reason that
the victim is so weak that the excitement GER
tain TO be aroused by knowledge OF her ident-
ity and consequent calls by curious neighbors
would be fatal.
The story is to the effect that young mar
ried woman, twenty-five years OF age. was IN
her coffin and about to be taken out for burial,
when her husband saw her arm move, ordered
her taken out of the coffin at once, called in
two physicians, who, after examination,
pronounced life not extinct, and began
process of resuscitation. Their efforts were
successful, and the woman was in short time
brought back to consciousness. This story was
obtained from her sister, young married
woman, who lives at 721 S. Fourth-st. The
sister related the following facts in connection
with the strange case:
Last Monday my sister, who had been sick
but few days, died, as far as we could see,
and the attending physician pronounced her
dead, and her husband proceeded TO make ar
rangements for the funeral. coffin was Sc
cured and the supposed corpse was dressed
aud prepared for burial. The intention was to
have the funeral Tuesday afternoon. Friends
of the family visited the house and mourned
over the body from which the spirit had, it was
believed, departed. On Tuesday afternoon,
short time before the closing OF the coffin was
to have taken place, my brother-in-iaw was
standing beside the bier, looking on the lace or
his wife when his little boy came into the room
and said: L want to look at mamma. Just
then the arm of my sister moved Her hus-
band saw it and was naturally very much
startled.
"He informed those in the room in an excited
manner of what he had seen and nv sister
at once taken from the coffin and placed on
bed and two physicians summoned. They
placed glass in front of my sisters face and
all could at once perceive the signs OF breath
upon it. They then began to work with her
and after a short while more positive signs OF
life began to appear. She kept getting better
all the time until finally she became conscious.
THE most terrible feature about ii all is that
she knew perfectly everything that was going
on around her. When she was being dressed
for burial she realized what was being done
and tried her best to show signs OF life, but
could not do so. When she was placed in the
coffin an awful feeling of what was to be her
doom came over her, she says, and she tried to
stir and thought she succeeded, but of course
she did not. When she came to
and related to us an account
of the mental torture she had experienced dur
ing the time her trance lasted, she said: Where
were you all when ] screamed% We told her
that she had not screened or we surely would
have heard her. WELL she said, i tried to
scream often, and even thought that once had
succeeded in emitting a Shrek When she
was lying in the coffin she tried to move, but
failed, until her little child came running into
the room and asked to look at her. Then her
arm cramped, and her husband who was stand
ing by the coffin, fortunately happened TO see
it. Had he not, she would certainly have been
buried alive"
The story vas further corroborated by A.
Hartwig of S27 5. FOurth-st., who said he
the girl who told the story, dressed in black,
and crying, going by his store Monday and
when his wife asked her what the matter was,
she said her sister was dead and she was going
to the funeral She afterward told them the
story of her sister being brought back to