The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1893-11-10

Fatal aud Nonfatai Inflammation by Natives
of the Orient.

Fatal aud EcnfataI Inflammation by Natives
of the Orient.
The annals of eastern nations furnish
abundant examples of this custom, which
has been resorted to from variety Of mo-
tives and under very different circum-
stances. The practice may be employed Cor
the purpose Of extinguishing life or main
tanning life for long period without food
or drink. There Is therefore a fatal and
nonfstal kind of living inhumation. The
most common description OF burial alive
0aradh) is leper burial, which used to be
very frequently resorted to In India, often
at the request or urgent entreaty Of the
victims of this loathsome disease. A pit
was dug by the relatives of the leper or by
other lepers and the unfortunate cast into
the wretch was burned TO death before
being thrown into the pit. Opium water
was frequently drunk by executioners and
executed on such occasions.
This cruel rite fingered in Cashmere and
some parts of Rajpootana till within very
recent years. Indeed it is questionable
whether il is now altogether extinct. Lep-
ers have been known in the extremity OF
their distress and misery TO commit suicide
by jumping into pits Burial alive has also
I'm India constituted mode of suttee, or
voluntary sacrifice OF life by widows, who
have been cast by sympathizing and oblfg-
ing relatives, at their own earnest request,
into the same graves as th9t deceased hus-
bands. Homicidal burial alive has been
used as a means Of punishment of crime,
torture, revenge or murder and the burial
has been in such cases either complete or
incomplete.
The nonfatal form of living burial has
always excited more interest than the fatal,
which, however, supplies mategial for
strange and large chapter in the history
of human crime. The phenomenon of hi
bernation yields some sort of countenance
to the idea that the animal organism is
capable, under certain circumstances
namely, conservation of the body, heat,
perfect inaction and preservation from all
external stimuli-of living for weeks, if not
months, without food or drink, and rec
ords of prolonged fasting, with or without
sleep, are forthcoming with the regularity
OF the announcements Of gigantic goose
berries, sea serpents and eight legged
calves.
The alleged proceedings of Indian falirs
and Persian dervishes are cited in support
of the possibility Of human hibernation in
underground cells. The proceedings OF
these gentry must, however, be very liber-
ally discounted. They certainly achieve
some very extraordinary feats of endurance
and self abnegation. Their efforts to set at
defiance the laws and inelinations of the
body, and by contemplation, fasting and
neglect of the ordinary usages and require
ments of life TO mortify the flesh and be-
come absorbed into the divine soul. which
is, according to the tenets of pedantisn, the
spring and essence of existence, surpass the
physiological possibility and necessarily
engender imposture, which may be con-
scious or unconscious or both.
The element of imposture, involuntary
or designed, enters into all their proceed
ings, and is seldom either diligently looked
for or detected. The love of the marvellous
is strongly developed among Orientals, and
fakir stories must be taken with a liberal
grain of salt. Tales of prolonged living
burial are common enough in India, but in
no case has the proceeding been subjected
to scientific observation or systematic
watching, and In some instances the grave
in which the devotee has proposed to hi
5ernate has been uncovered after the lapse
of a few days and its occupant found dead.
British Medical Journal