The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-11-19
MANY BURIED ALIVE.
Horrors That Are Permitted by the
Laws of New York.
~, ~. ~, vo,ly r1,r,1a

there is nothing to insure us against being
buried alive or killed by an undertaken"
was the declaration of DE-. Henry J. Garrl-
CUES before the Society of Medical Juris-
prudence last evening, and he was loudly
applauded. His was the paper of the even
ing at the meeting of the society at No.
II West Forty-third street It's subject
was Apparent Death"
DR.. Garrigues contends that the statute
as it stands to-day. which permits the
burial of a body without its first having
been examined by physician and by him
subjected to thorough tests 10 determine
absolutely that life is extinct is nothing
short of homicidal For through this Grim
inal lack of necessary precauGOn, he ar
CUES, there is nothing to prevent anybody
from being buried alive or frozen to death
in an undertaker's ice box. ~
All rules and regulations governing
death in this city and state, he said in his
paper, are designed solely to protect the
community, with no thought of protection
for the person supposed 20 be dead. ANY
householder may fill out death certificate
on which a burial permit is issued. Ii Is
not even required that the cause Of death
shall be certified TO by physician. It is
left 10 laymen 10 say that death has oc-
CURED, and doctor need not even see the
body of the person supposed to be dead
and vet the question of whether per-
son is dead or alive, now left to laymen,
saws DR.. Garrigues. SIS most difficult to
decide, and requires the incest physlolog-
ical discernment
The action of the vital organs Is Ire
ouently suspended the doctor said, pro-
ducine every appearance of death, yet I'M
der proper manipulation they are restored
to life Physicians themselves have fire.
uuentIy been deceived by these conditions
of suspended animation. How then can
it be expected that they can be known
TO ANYBODY who has not made study of
them, he asked. ...-.,...
II appeared from his illustration of his
argument on this point that he doubts
whether electrocution kills the criminal.
In citing the counterfets of death he
spoke of persons taken from the water
apparently drowned, but who were resusci-
tated, and then declared that perhaps the
victims of electrocution might also be re-
stored to life.
persons and animals struck by light
ming have survived" he said why not
from any other strong electric shock2"
INVESTIGATION, lightning stroke. anaesthe-
tics. narcotics, concussion-all of these pro
duce the counterfeit of death, ,he said, ard
oftentimes so closely resemble the real
that the science and experience of ply
sicians is at fault; therefore the great evil
of leaving IL to unaccustomed persons to
pronounce death on the subject He re-
lated how life frequently remained even
after 1t was natural to believe il had de-
parted, and by way of illustration told
| how the blood could be drawn from
| dog until it had seemingly bled to death,
| yet the infusion of blood from another dog
restored life to the former. and animals
| thus experimental upon lived to full age.
This case of the dog" he said, 'js more
| like that of drowned persons, and if 1t
were not so common to think persons are
dead when they are cold and limp, many
would be revived"
| Danger of taking live persons for dead,
| he explained, still remained, even after
all tests for determining death had been
| tried. Not one, he declared, but what
| failed under certain conditions. Thus the
| most common test of all, trying 20 discover
| if breath had stopped, was always invok-
ed, for science knew of cases of suspended
animation where breathing had ceased for
| forty-eight hours. So with the stopping
| of the heart and on through the entire
| list All signs failed in cases of suspend
! ed animation. There was only one sure
| proof of death, decomposition of the body
That physicians and trained nurses
were deceived by the appearance of death
was shown, he said, by a case in a Paris
| hospital. A woman, pronounced dead by
doctor and nurses, was removed to the
| dead house to await removal to the dis
| secting table. Groans were heard in the
| night but they were unheeded. It was
| discovered in the morning that the woman
| had returned to life in the night partially
| torn off her shroud and moved her limbs
| She was dead at the time of this dscov-
cry.
OF the horror of being buried alive DR.
| Garrigues said II had been contended by
| his opponents that there was little real
| suffering in such a DEATH that suffocat ton
| came speedily to end all. Disputing this
view, Dr. Garrigues related the discoveries
| made in Southern Russia among sect
| whose members were entombed before
| death. When the tomb was opened. ne
| said, appearances indicated that the very
young and old had died comparatively cas-
| lily. Not so with young women. They
had struggled in frenzy in their efforts to
| burst through the walls.
Undertakers kill persons, DR. Carrte,Ies
| believes, and their chief accomplioe in end
ing human life is the common fear NOR
tails have of dead bodies A loved relative
| apparently dleS IN the night The living
are afraid of the dead and at once send
for the undertaken. He drags the supposed
dead body out Of bed and claps 1t on ice
where it would be frozen to death anv
| way.
He told of an instance in his own prac-
| tice where he found a beautiful girl laid ON
on the floor in winter with all the win
dows open. She was dead then. That tenn
perature would have frozen her TO death
ha6 oh haar, a.
and placed there and the doctor was NOT
sure that she was not.
Again he was called to a house. which
he reached after the undertaken. and found
a weeping widow sitting beside her hus-
bands body, which had been taken from
bed. still warm, and stretched out in an
ice box.
DR.. Garrigues said that here In New
York there was ltue danger of meeting
these horrors if person had a little
money but that the destitute would frd
their way to the dissecting room. rhe
others WOuld he ga red for bv