The Arizona champion., 1890-09-13
NO BURIACS ALIVE,
4 Medical Journal says Such Stories Are
 Unfounded.

4 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 the Medical and Surgical Reporter says:
 ''The fear of being buried alive haunts the minds of so many of our fellow men that it may hardly be regarded as strange, in some respects. that it was re- oently reported that a number of physi- clans in city near Philadelphia had banded themselves together to devise means to prevent such catastrophe in their own case. And, when physicians could take such measures in view of 8 supposed danger, it is not remarkable that the community should have a special and exaggerated horror of being buried alive. But this horror is as with out reason as is the timidity of the phy- slcians referred to. There seems to be no good ground whatever for supposing that it is possible in this enlightened age fer any person to be committed to the grave while yet living. Stories re- porting such occurrences are by no means rare; but any one who examines them closely will certainly remark that they are wholly lacking in originality, and that there Is in fact so strong a re- semblance between them as to excite the suspicion that one has been copied from another Investigation will show, too, that this suspicion is well-founded one; at least such has been the experi- ence of the editor of the Medical and Surgical Reporter, who has for some years followed up every story of burial alive which came to his notice, and always with the result of learning that they were false or of failing to learn any thing about their origin.
 ''The most recent experience of this sort occurred in connection with story published in the daily papers on June 10, 1890, of man who was said to have died and to have been buried alive in Chicago. After tracing the story from one point of the newspaper world to an- other it was found to have originated in 6 Chicago paper, which said the man had been sent as dead from hospital in that city on February g, and that atterward he had been buried; that the buriers had heard 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 lid removed to disclose that the man had 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 thati it never had 8 patient 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 the 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 something 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 inventions"