The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1895-01-01
ALL SIGNS MAY FAIL
Decomposition the Only Absolute EVi-
denCo Of Death.
STRANGE, HORRIBLE FACTS
Prizes Offered In Vain for a Relia-
BILE Sign-Escapes From Pre-
mature BurIaI-Some Who
Did Not Escape.

is the decomposition of the body" said
physician of this city during a conversa-
ton with a reporter for the New York
Sun on the proposed method of revivng
criminals who have suffered in the cleo
trio chair. II have had cases of apparent
death in my own practice. An urgent
message from the physician in charge
called me one night to a young ladies'
seminary in this city. AS / assembled the
stairs to the patients room was met by
the housekeeper, who, between her sobs,
could only say: 1t is too late, DOCTOR she
is dead went up to tie room, never
theless. There upon the bed lay young
girl of about Is. Her face bore the mask
of death.
~ am sorry to have disturbed you at
this hour the doctor said; the heart
stopped beating about five minutes ago.
II bent over and listened at the chest:
no respiration, no beating of the heart
was to be heard. While l listened some
one said:
~ always thought she would 60 off in
one of those attacks
"These words were a revelation to me,
and hastily threw off my coat and began
artificial respiration. Little by little there
was change of expression in the face;
the features relaxed, the eyes appeared
eyelids moved, and after full hour of
constant work the life of youth returned.
The girl had had an attack of grave hys-
terra. She is now married and the
mother of three handsome children.
I'm another case / had seen my patient
at ii p. m, and after giving my instruc-
tions to the nurse in charge l had gone
away. AT o'clock the next morning
received the message: Father passed
away quietly this morning at :30.' This
was rather unexpected. l knew that |
had left the patient in danger, but did not
imagine that l was seeing him for the last
time. However, after hurried breakfast
went to the house, and found that the
night nurse had spread sheet over the
body. In removing it something, call it
intuition if you will, made me think that
the man was not dead. Nor was he, and
it was not until five days later that he
really died.
Doctors should See for Themselves
who knows how many times physi-
clan who has attended a patient and to
whom word is brought that the sick one
is dead fills out the blank which the I'M
dertaker presents him without taking the
trouble to see for himself that the death
is real? That probably happens every
day in this city, and what of the country,
where the doctor often lives miles away |
from his patient? The thought of the |
tortures of those who may have been |
buried alive, under false appearances of |
death, is so frightful that it fills the soul |
with grief. Do l think that people are |
often buried alive? Yes, l do; perhaps |
oftener than we imagine. Life may exist |
without being evident, but non-evidence |
of life is not proof of death. If ever we
are able to discover the poment when |
death substitutes itself certainly for life
we shall have solved problem which has
occupied the philosophers of all times and
all countries.
Zone of my professional friends tells
me of a providential escape from prema.
ture burial which occurred in his practice.
u attended a little girl of 81 he says, up
TO the time when in my own judgment
and that of the parents and all present
the child was dead. Being assured of
this, / went home; but two hours later, in
the evening, returned to the house. as
was concerned about the mother, to whom
the death of the child had been a great
blow. The father was busy writing, in
forming friends of their loss. On leaving
the room where the parents were passed
in front of the little ones bed. Ny look
Tell for an instant upon the little ones
face, when | thought that / noticed an
almost Imperceptible movement of the
sheet that covered the body. The checks
were hard and cold, the conjunctiya in
sensible. the pupils completely insensibIe
to light. | should not have dared affirm
that the slight movement that had seen
came from the body, and yet believed
that my little patient was not dead. |
have never been able to explain how the
phenomenon was produced: l do not at
So ~1,sv Il. |
is that the child was considered dead:
that she was enshrined for the tomb. and
that she is to-day in very good health
~ am not prepared to say the physi-
clan continued, that the proposed expert
ments as to the power of electricity to in
filct death will determine whether former
unfortunates died by the shock or the an |
topsy. But let me remind YOU that as far
back as 1888 Sir Benjamin Ward Richard
son read a paper before the medical So ,
ciety of London on The Absolute Signs of
DEATH in which he protested against the
production of death by electricity because ,
IT was altogether unreliable, and men,
toned a series of experiments he had
made upon sheep, showing that while il | |
was possible with very powerful current /
to XIII birds and small animals, il was
quite otherwise when large animals were S
experimental with. He showed concIu- a
sively that the supposed capital punish a
ment by electricity is very liable to error. /
sometimes producing mere scorching, and
at other times cataleptic state, from b
which the subject consequently RECEIVERS. @
However, this talk about real or apparent n
death may perhaps be productive of some a
good, for it may help to stir our legislature il
TO take steps to insure that people are h
really dead before they are buried. h
0ues'iOn Not sufficiently Diseased q
"Much as this subject is discussed in h
Europe. where many precautions are ?
taken, have known 1t 10 be brought IN :
prominently in this country only twice. |,
One occasion was at a meetin, of the
society ia March. 1879. and
The other was an article b. G.. Eric