The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1897-10-14
GROUNDLESS FEAR.
Nobody Need be Anxious Less He be Buried
Alive---The Signs of Death Are Unmis-
taken.
New York SUM-

NEW 1OrK SuH.
Many persons live in fear of being
buried alive. This is pity, since it is
so easy to distinguish apparent death
from real death. At least that is the
case in this country. In Italy it seems to
be different. The doctors there declare
that up to the present time no infallible
test for distinguishing apparent from
real death has been discovered, in conse-
quence.of which horrifying cases of per-
sons buried sliye occur from time to
time.
Who told these doctors that these per
sons were buried alive? The victims
could not possibly live long enough in
if it has been found that few of them
nave turned over in their graves, it is nc
sign that they were alive when they did
50. There is such thing asypost NOR.
een contraotility in Italy as well as in
America. However, Italian physicians
and laymen are at present engaged in
preparing an exhaustive report, with ex-
hibits on the subject of Apparent Death
and Premature Burial" and this report
will be the main feature of the medical
department at the National Exposition
to be opened at Turin in April. 1898.
The italian government, through Ambas-
sailors and Ministers has extended an in
vitaiton to other nations to take part in
this branch of the Exposition.
When asked to talk about premature
burial. and more especially how to dis
tinguish apparent from real death, DR..
George F. Shrady of this city, said:
at is really astonishing how many per.
sons fear being buried alive, and more
astonishing the number who have their
dead disinterred to see If they have been
buried alive. This is done quietly and
does not reach the ears of the public. A
child takes notion that its mother has
been buried alive, or a husband con-
cludes in his hopeless grief that perhaps
after all his wife was not dead, and the
bodies are taken up to satisfy distorted
Imagination.
"There is. little, if any. danger of a
body being buried alive. All of these
horrible stories about premature burials
are on a par with the ghost stories told in
the nursery; the more improbable they
are the more readily are they believed
These stories are circulated usually in
times of an epidemic, when bodies have
to be disposed of quickly. Many of them
seem to have a foundation IN truth, be-
cause frequently after death bodies show
muscular action. Especially is this
true of victims of cholera. Sometimes
one would think that an epidemic of pre-
mature burials was in progress stories
OF them are told SO often, and retold and
told again, being added to with each tel
ling.
In almost all cases where burials are
said to have been premature they have
been investigated by unscientific persons.
Physlclans do not make any tests of
death ordinarily when patient dies. 1t
Is altogether unnecessary for them to do
so. scientific man is never in doubt in
his practice as to whether a patient is
really dead or no. [ don't think there
can be such thing as premature burial
when body can be examined by sci
enritic physician. The physiognony of
death is SO well known that it hardly
needs description. In truth it seems
almost absurd to talk about it, There is
the pallid lip, the dropped Jaw, the lus-
treless eye, and SO on. Besides any old
nurse can see the approach of death.
i ne poet speaks OF 1t as q gray veil, and
Tint describes it about as accurately as
anything.
''Of course death approaches different
y in different sets Of diseases; sometimes
It comes through the brain; sometimes
trough the heart, and again through
me lungs All signs in each are Wen
Understood by physicians, and death is
pgcted y them Death comes as a reg
atar logical conclusion and I have never
go heard OF scientific doctor pronounc-
ng q live patient dead.
Cases of apparent death are very rare.
20 of course cases of premature burial are
still rarer. There are conditions of
trance where patients are apparently dead
for days at a time, to the ordinary OBJ
server. And persons in such con dition
might be buried alive out on the plains
or in the woods, or we might say that a
miner could fall in cataleptio state
and he buried prematurely by his fellow