BURYING ALIVE.
THERE is probably no horror more universal, more in- tense, more soul-subduing, than the horror of being buried alive. Ask any ten men and women at random what is the worst nightmare fear which oppresses the ordinary sane person, and they will say the fear of being buried alive. There is hardly a human being who has not shuddered at the thought of the thirty or forty seconds' agony—it could hardly be more—which would take place were he to awake from a trance and find his arms pressed to the coffin's sides, and the coffin lid almost touching his lips. Of course the want of air would very soon bring unconsciousness, but till it did, how awful would be the impotent struggle. Burning, drowning, even the most hideous mutilation under a railway train, is as nothing compared with burying alive. Strangely enough, this universal horror seems to have produced no desire to guard against burying alive. We all fear it, and yet practically no one takes any trouble to avoid the risk of it happening in his own case, or in that of the rest of mankind. It would be the simplest thing in the world to take away all chance of burying alive ; and yet the world remains indifferent, and enjoys its horror undisturbed by the hope of remedy. It would only be necessary to enact that no burial should take place before recourse had been had to some simple test— such as opening an important vein—and the risk of pre- mature interment would be banished ; and yet no one thinks of making that a sine qui non to the granting of a death- certificate. We do not allow people to be buried until a doctor has certified the cause of death, but we, in many cases, practically allow the death to be assumed, and do not insist that a certain medical ritual shall be gone through in order to ensure that death has really taken place.
No doubt in many cases—nay, in nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine cases in ten thousand—the opening of a vein (if that would be the ultimate test ; for on this matter we, as laymen, can of course offer no opinion worth having) would be the merest formality; but every now and then some such simple formality would save a life, and possibly prevent the unconscious infliction of the most awful torture of which the human mind can conceive. Of course it can be said that the danger of burying alive is grossly exaggerated. Indeed, there are many men who stoutly deny that it exists at all as a danger which can reasonably be taken into account. These men class it with the risk of the earth being baked brown by a sudden increase of activity in the sun, or by the impact of a comet. With this view we entirely disagree. We do not believe that there are very many cases of burying alive, but we cannot doubt that a distinct percentage of cases takes place every year. The Science Notes of Tuesday's Daily Chronicle contain a string of facts in regard to burial alive, of a very horrible kind. One story is quoted from a medical monograph on the subject by Dr. Franz Hart- mann, of Boston. "A young lady was actually prepared for the grave while conscious of all that was passing, yet, like a person in a nightmare, quite unable to stretch out her limbs, to cry, or to open her eyes. It was only when she perspired in her mental agony, that the mourners suspected the true state of matters. Then she awoke and uttered a most pitiable shriek." Here the fact that the trance was not of the unconscious kind, saved the woman's life. If her brain had been entranced, as well as her body, she would not have been subject to the mental agony which, acting on her tissues, gave warning of her state. Mr. Williamson, a corre- spondent of the Daily Chronicle, points out that we need not go to America "for proofs of this terrible danger, inasmuch as cases are not infrequently reported in the daily and weekly Press at home." The following, he points out, are the titles of recent cases from well-known journals, "copies of which lie before me" :—" Buried Alive," "A Gruesome Narrative," "Premature Burial," " Mistaken for Dead," " A Woman's Awful Experience," "Almost Buried while Alive," "A Woman Buried Alive," " Revivication after Burial," " A Lady Nearly Buried Alive," " Sounds from Another Coffin," " The Dead Alive," &c. That a person should be able to draw up this list from the newspapers of the last week or two is sufficiently remarkable. These all allude to cases in which the discovery was actually made that death had not taken place. Can it be called sensational or imaginative to assert that there must have been as many or more cases in which the discovery was not made ? Mr. Williamson comments very sensibly on
the facts which he adduces. After stating that women are more subject to trance than men, he goes on, " How often do we read of sudden deaths—of persons going to bed perfectly well, and found apparently dead in the morning—verdict, heart-disease, followed by prompt burial. Dr. Hartmann's investigations show that in many instances the supposed deaths are really cases of trance or catalepsy, from which the unfortunate victims would have recovered had they not been buried alive. The London Cremation Society has pointed out the importance of reform, and requires two independent medical certificates of death ; and the highest authorities now affirm that advanced putrefaction is the only sure indi- cation that life is extinct." It may be said that the diffusion of the knowledge that there is a perceptible chance of bury- ing alive will be quite sufficient to prevent any risk for the future, and will ensure private individuals insisting on medical men making absolutely sure that death has taken place. Those who argue this, ignore how many thousands of superfluous people there are in the world,—people who, though in no danger of being put out of the way, create, when they die, a distinct feeling of relief. The family would not lift a finger to injure the tiresome old mother or grand- father, the querulous invalid daughter, or the crippled son with the temper of a fiend ; but when they die, there is, we may be sure, no passionate desire to bring them back to life. Death is accepted as a release for all concerned, and no one wishes to be doubly sure that life is extinct. It sounds horrible to write as we are writing ; but when people live hard, and three-quarters of the world live so, they are apt to have their feelings indurated. They would not kill, but hold-
" They need not strive
Officiously to keep alive."
That is an addition to the commandment very widely accepted ; and it would certainly, though unconsciously no doubt more than consciously, tend to prevent people from making too sure that their disagreeable and burdensome relatives had not merely fallen into a trance. We want, then, to do some- thing more than merely awaken opinion if we are to get rid of the risk of burial alive,
As we have said above, we do not see why it should not be part of the duty of the doctor who grants the death- certificate to see that the person assumed to be dead is actually dead. Why should he not be called upon, first, to certify that he has made an examination, and has come to the conclusion, owing to the fact that the blood is congealed, or that putrefaction has set in, or that there is some other absolute indication, such as the discolourisation of the skin of the abdomen, that death has taken place ; and secondly, that death was due to such and such a cause P If this were done, and if the doctor were obliged to state shortly, on the face of the cer- tificate, what were the indications on which he based the assurance that death had taken place, there would be little or no risk of burial alive. Even the most careless practitioner would hardly like to say that he had found absolute proof that death had taken place, when in fact he had not. Of course, we only make these suggestions by way of illustra- tion, and not with a view to their specific adoption. To do that we should want to be in possession of a scientific defini- tion of a death, and as far as we know, that has not yet been given. Is the congealing of the blood in the veins and arteries a certain sign of death ? Or again,—Is death in the last resort the ceasing of that in the human body which prevents putre- faction of the frame as a whole and not merely of its parts ? What answer the doctors give to these questions we do not know, but at any rate we shall be safe in assuming that they have some absolute test of death which could be applied and acted on by a doctor before certifying a person to be dead. It would be better to cut the carotid artery, or put a steel needle through the heart, even at the risk of killing a few entranced subjects, than to bury alive one man per million. That is, if no sure test of death can be found, it would be better to "mak siccar" than to leave any uncertainty in regard to premature burial.
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