Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1890-03-12
a TEST OF DEATH.

q les Or DEA RI.
n Physician Tells of a Sure Way of AS
pertaining If Life Is Extinct.
About once in so often the newspapers
ars filled with accounts of premature
burials, and journalists with abnormal
Imaginations are in demand to paint in
vivid colors the agonies that must have
been endured by the helpless wretches
who woke up and found themselves
dead. A few days ago such case was
reported in South Carolina. When the
coffin of a young girl who had recently
been buried was eXhumed the body was
contorted in a horrible manner, the
finger nails were deeply buried in the
palms of the hands, the face was LAGER
ated, and the appearance of the corpse
indicated that death had not finally
come without fearful struggle. 1t was
good story, and whether or not it was
. fake" it will probably start the
takers of the newspapers to work, and
there will be no lack of similar blood
curdling tales for a month or two.
A well-known Chicago physician read
the yarn referred to, and he was SO
much wrought up over it that he came
to the Office of the Herald to learn
whether the case was duly authenti-
Gated.
There are plenty of people molder-
ing under the Sod" he said, ''who were
buried before life became extinct, but
they were never made aware of the fact.
Collins nowadays are Theoretically
sealed, and there is not enough air in
one of them to bring person to life out
of trance. The lungs must have a
certain amount of oxygen before the
heart will begin to act and one full in
halation would exhaust all of the oxygen
I'm modern casket, and the lungs
would, of course, be unable to take an
other. Ali these stories of fearful suf-
ferings endured by persons buried alive
are false; there's nothing to them.
mo doubt bodies are frequently in
tered while life is yet existent. but
this would not be the case if every body
knew of certain infallible and abso-
lutely certain test of death. Such a
test / have. 1t has never, so far as [
am aware, been in print, and the Herald
could do no better service to humanity
than to publish it. was coroner once
upon time in one of the Southern
States. An old darky had died sud-
denly, and l was called to sit upon the
body and determine the cause of DEATH
When I arrived the man had been dead
twenty-four hours, and the negroes of
the neighborhood were preparing to
hold the funeral. | impaneled jury;
the family of the deceased testified to
the extent of their knowledge, but
was unable to find that the old fellow
had any disease sufficient to kill him.
/ looked at the body and examined it
carefully. Then a thought struck me,
and | lighted match and applied it to
the end of one of the fingers of the
corpse. Immediately a blister formed.
had the dead man put back into his
bed, applied various reservations, and
to-day the same old darky is alive and
well
'That is the test. Do you see the
philosophy of it? If you are alive you
can not burn your hand without raising
q blister. Nature, in the effort to pro-
tect the inner tissues, throws q covering
of water, non-conductor of heat, be-
tween the fire and the flesh. If you
were dead, and fame should come in
contact with any part of your body, no
blister would appear, and the flesh
would be burned. The blood has been
withdrawn from the arteries, and your
body is like so much beefsteak.
'tAll you have to do is to apply a
match to any part of the supposed
corpse. If life remains, however little,
blister will at once form. Simple,
isn't it? Why, it is so simple that the
most ignorant person in the world can
apply it, and no expert physician could
settle the question Of life or death any
more certainly. Chicago Herald.