Waterbury evening Democrat., 1890-09-10
NO euRIALs ALIVE.
A Medical Journal Says Such Stories Are
 Unfounded.

A Medical Journal Says Such Stories Are
 Unfounded.
 Very comforting news is brought to those who stand in daily dread of being buried alive. The current number of tho Medical and Surgical Reporter says:
 '"The fear of being buried alive haunts the minds o2 so many of our fellow men that 1t may hardly be regarded as strange, in some respects, that it was re- cently reported that number of physi- cians in city near Philadelphia had banded themselves together to devise means to prevent such Q catastrophe in their own case. And, when physicians could take such measures in view of a supposed danger. it is not remarkable that the community should have a nocial and exaggerated horror of being
 lried alive But this horror is as with
 tt reason as is the timidity of the phy- .nans referred to- There seems to be
 good ground whatever for supposing
 at it is possible in this enlightened
 O for any person to be committed to .o grave while yet living. Stories re-
 ting such occurrences are by no
 ans rare; but my one who examines
 ,"m closely will certainly remark that '"y are wholly l'v; ng in originality,
 Il that there iS .n fact so strong a re
 mblance between them as to excite
 suspicion that one has been copict 'nm another. Investigation will show
 that this susp c on is a well-foundr,
 Q; at least such has been the exper.
 .ra of the editor of the Medica
 Surgical Reporter, who has f., ,,me years followed up every stor
 purial alive which came to his notic'
 l always with the resalt Of learnin
 vt they were false or of failing |,
 .rn aCy thing about their origin.
 The most FecCn' experience of tn,
 rt occurred in con cctian with a storl
 ,blished in the dasly papers on Jun" ,J. 1890, of a man w.o was said to have ted and to hay, Urcp buried alive in Chicago. After trarang the story from one point of the ncwspapss world to an other it was found to have originated in Chicago paper which said the man had beon sent a" uead from a hospital in that city on february 29, and that afterward he had been buried; that the huriers had hear sounds like knocking on the coffin lid, but went ahead with the burial, and that after an interval the grave was opened and the coffin lld lClhONCu bO NloSAOHt NlA0N bA0 lnhh udu turned over, torn his hair out buried his fingers in his flesh, and so on. At the end of our investigation we received letter from the hospital stating that it never had patent of the name given, that no person died in the hospital on the date given, and treating the story as hoax. The Associated Press agent in Chicago, who started tue story round the country, on being asked if he thought there was any truth in it, re- piled to our representative: I am not supposed to believe every thing these fellows (meaning the reporters) write
 This is the latest story. and it illus. trates the unreliability of all that we know any thing about and the utter lack of principle which usually lies at the bottom of them. As physicians we may, by publishing the falseness of such stories, do some thing to allay the awful fears which they excite in the minds of many of our fellow-beings; and we may hope that those who man. age the daily newspapers will some day properly punish reporters who furnish them With such cruel inYentions.r