San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-07-18
SUSPENDED ANIMATION.
BuRlAl- ALIVE Is BECOMING ALTO
GETHER TOO FREQUENT.

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 IL
proper care had been exercised life might
have been preserved. There is growing i'm
preston that the verification of death is not
carefully enough attended to by a 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
vote Of thanks for the paper, and urged its
general publication. The paper was entitled
1.-THE Verification of Death" and was written
in style easily understood by the general
public for which it possesses interest. and for
these reasons we publish portion of II:
TIE vBRIFIcAT7oN OF dealt
1t would be next to impossible for one of US
to imagine more dreadful experience than
to awake to the realization of the fact that he
had been buried alive. Occasionally the pub
lie is Mortified by newspaper reports of the
discovery of a case Of premature burial. Ono
such discovery was made at Syracuse, N. Y,
by Edward Rath, who, guided by some in
defnabe but irresistible impulse, uncovered
and opened the coffin of his recently buried
l7-year-old 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 | 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 a record OF
the cases of suspended animation reported in
the newspapers of the country, and says that
they average one a 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, procedure, in my
opinion, not often enough resorted to.
Rigor mOrtis, or cadaveric rigidity (which
| is due to the thickish fluid called myosine,
the principal contraatile substance of the
striped muscular fibersl, is usually considered
proof of death, especially if stringy ooagula
be present in the veins. But your opinion
may be called for before rigor morris is pres
ent, or after its supposed or inferred disap-
pearance, or rigidity may be present from
other causes, for instance, catalepsy, and q
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 the spirit
has, as far as we know, aed, as occurred in
Chicago in the case Of Miss Wilhelmina Stahl,
20 years old, pronounced dead by the physi-
clans Of rheumatism OF the heart, and who
lay nine days without signs Of decomposition
and without the injection of embalming
fluids, Rigor mortis may occur Immediately
after dSath, 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's Diagnosis" says that "catalepsy
may be mistaken for death, and this mistake
occurred In st. Louis III relation to a mar
ried woman, % years old, but a slight sign of
life was accidentally discovered Just before
the coffin was to be closed, and the full con-
sequences Of the mistake did not follow. This
woman knew all that was going on about her
but could give no voluntary or involuntary
sign of life Another case of narrow escape
was reported from Danville, His. this time
Of the son of Frank Myers an infant, 0 or 10
months old. Both Of the recoveries 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. And can refer you to case of re-
covery in Steubenville, O., where no less than
six physicians had declared life to be extinct.
and animation returned fourteen days after
the supposed death
A well known lady of this city CMrs. Hib-
benz similarly recovered, and her death had
been referred to in the principal Episcopal
pulpit here, Rev. DR.. Bradley's A little in
vestigation Of this subject independent Of
these cases, will show y cannot be too
careful, as viii quot from our highest
authority, 'Dungliso~ Medical Dictionary"
under the head of Death" '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 in mind
If it be true that ''the only sign of real
death Is the commencement of putrefaction."
as Dunglison says, and the first sign of putre-