Part 3

It is a horrid custom, immediately to consign over to death every person who has the misfortune, by a fall, a blow, or the like, to be deprived of the appearance of life. The unhappy person, instead of being carried into a warm house, and laid by the fire, or put to a warm bed, is generally hurried away to church, or a barn, or some other cold damp house, where, after a fruitless attempt has been made to bleed him, perhaps by one who knew nothing of the matter, he is given over for dead, and no further notice taken of him. This conduct seems to be the result of ignorance, supported by an ancient superstitious notion, which forbids the body of any person killed by accident to be laid in an house that is inhabited. What the ground of this superstition may be, we shall not pretend to inquire; but surely the conduct founded upon it, is contrary to all the principles of reason, humanity, and common sense.

When a person seems to be suddenly deprived of life, our first business is to inquire into the cause. We ought carefully to observe whether any substance be lodged in the wind-pipe or gullet; and, if that is the case, attempts must be made to remove it. When unwholesome air is the cause, the patient ought immediately to be removed out of it. If the circulation be suddenly stopped, from any cause whatever, except mere weakness, the patient should be bled. If the blood does not flow, he may be immersed in warm water, or rubbed with warm cloths, &c. to promote the circulation. When the cause cannot be suddenly removed, our great aim should be to keep up the vital warmth by rubbing the patient with hot cloths, or salt, and covering his body with warm sand, ashes, or the like.

REMARKABLE

INSTANCES

People who have been nearly buried alive, but recovered by resuscitative application.

A Director of the coach office at Dijon, named Colinet, was supposed to be dead, and the news of this event was spread throughout the whole city. One of his friends, who was desirous of seeing him at the moment when he was about to be buried, having looked at him for a considerable time, thought he perceived some remains of sensibility in the muscles of the face. He therefore made an attempt to bring him to life by spirituous liquors, in which he succeeded; and this director enjoyed afterwards, for a long time, that life which he owed to his friend. This remarkable circumstance was much like those of Empedocles and Asclepiades. These instances would perhaps be more frequent, were men of skill and abilities called in cases of sudden death, in which people of ordinary knowledge are often deceived by false appearances.

A man may fall into a syncope, and may remain in that condition three, or even eight days. People in this situation have been known to come to life when deposited among the dead.

II.

A boy belonging to the Hospital at Cassel, appeared to have breathed his last: he was carried into the hall where the dead were exposed, and was wrapped up in a piece of canvas. Some time after, recovering from his lethargy, he recollected the place in which he had been deposited, and crawling towards the door, knocked against it with his foot. This noise was luckily heard by the centinel, who soon perceiving the motion of the canvas, called for assistance. The youth was immediately conveyed to a warm bed, and soon perfectly recovered. Had his body been confined by close bandages, or ligatures, he would not have been able, in all probability, to make himself be heard: his unavailing efforts would have made him again fall into a syncope, and he would have been thus buried alive.

III.

We must not be astonished, that the servants of an hospital should take a syncope for a real death, since even the most enlightened people have fallen into errors of the same kind. Dr. John Schmid relates, that a young girl, seven years of age, after being afflicted for some weeks with a violent cough, was all of a sudden freed from this troublesome malady, and appeared to be in perfect health. But some days after, while playing with her companions, this child fell down in an instant, as if struck by lightning. A death-like paleness was diffused over her face and arms; she had no apparent pulse; her temples were sunk, and she shewed no signs of sensation when shaken or pinched. A physician, who was called, and who believed her to be dead, in compliance with the repeated and pressing request of her parents, attempted, though without any hopes, to recal her to life, and at length, after several vain efforts, he made the soles of her feet be smartly rubbed with a brush, dipped in strong pickle. At the end of three quarters of an hour, she was observed to sigh; she was then made to swallow some spirituous liquor, and she was soon after restored to life, much to the joy of her disconsolate parents.

IV.

A certain man having undertaken a journey, in order to see his brother, on his arrival at his house, found him dead. This news affected him so much, that it brought on a most dreadful syncope, and he himself was supposed to be in the like situation. After the usual means had been employed to recal him to life, it was agreed that his body should be dissected, to discover the cause of so sudden a death; but the supposed dead person over-hearing this proposal, opened his eyes, started up, and immediately betook himself to his heels.

Cardinal Espinola, prime minister to Philip II. was not so fortunate, for we read in the memoirs of Amelot de la Houssai, that he put his hand to the knife with which he was opened, in order to be embalmed. In short, almost every one knows, that Vesalius, the father of anatomy, having been sent for to open a woman, subject to hysterics, who was supposed to be dead, he perceived, on making the first incision, by her motions, and cries, that she was still alive; that this circumstance rendered him so odious, that he was obliged to fly, and that he was so much affected by it, that he died soon after.

VI.

On this occasion, we cannot forbear to add an event more recent, but no less melancholy. The Abbé Prevost, so well known by his writings, and the singularities of his life, was seized with a fit of the apoplexy, in the forest of Chantilly, on the 23rd of October, 1763. His body was carried to the nearest village, and the officers of justice were proceeding to open it, when a cry which he sent forth affrightened all the assistants, and convinced the surgeon that the Abbé was not dead; but it was too late to save him, as he had already received the mortal wound.

VII.

In the civil wars of France, on account of religious disputes, when the Catholics besieged Rouen, in 1562, Francis Civile, one of the most intrepid gentlemen of the Calvinist party, received a wound which made him fall senseless from the rampart into the town. Some soldiers, who supposed him dead, stripped and buried him, with the usual negligence on those occasions. A trusty and affectionate person he had retained in his service, desirous of procuring for his master a more honourable burial, went with design to find his body. His search being fruitless amongst several dead bodies which were quite disfigured, he covered them again with earth, but so as that the hand of one of them remained uncovered. As he was returning, he looked behind him, and perceived that hand above the ground, and the apprehension he was under, that such an object might excite the dogs to unearth the dead body for devouring it, induced him to come back in order to cover it. The moment he was going to exercise this pious office, a gleam of light from the moon, just coming from under a cloud, made him perceive a diamond ring Civile wore on his finger. Without loss of time he takes up his master, who had still breath in him, and carries him to the hospital for the wounded, but the surgeon, who had been quite fatigued with labour, and who considered him as on the point of death, would take no trouble about dressing his wounds. The servant then found himself obliged to convey him to his own inn, where he languished four days without any help. At the end of this time two physicians were found who had the humanity to visit him. They cleansed his wounds, and by their care and attention put him in a way to live, and at length, to the astonishment of every one, he finally recovered.

But the misfortunes of this hero had not yet ended. The town having been taken by assault, the conquerors were so barbarous as to throw him out of a window. He fortunately fell on a heap of dung, where, abandoned by every one, he passed three days, until his relation Ducroiset had him carried off privately in the night, and sent to a house up the country, where his wounds were dressed as opportunity offered. There, after so many disasters, he recovered so perfect a state of health, that he survived forty years after all these accidents. That particular providence, which had saved this man from so many perils, also presided over his birth. His mother dying with child, during the absence of her husband, had been buried without any one thinking to extract the child, by the Cæsarian operation, when fortunately the day after she was interred, the husband arrived, and learnt with surprise the death of his wife, and the little attention that was paid to the fruit of her womb. He instantly required her grave to be dug up, and having had his unfortunate wife opened, Civile was extracted while living.

VIII.

Sir Hugh Ackland, after being laid out as a corpse, recovered by a bumper of brandy.

The late Sir Hugh Ackland, of Devonshire, apparently died of a fever, and was laid out as dead: the nurse, with two of the footmen, sat up with the corpse. Lady Ackland, sent them a bottle of brandy to drink in the night: one of the servants being an arch rogue, told the other that his master dearly loved brandy when he was alive, and, says he, I am resolved he shall drink one glass, with us now he is dead. The fellow accordingly poured out a bumper of brandy, and forced it down his throat: a guggling immediately ensued, and a violent motion of the neck, and upper part of the breast. The other footman and the nurse were so terrified, that they ran down stairs; and the brandy genius hastening away with rather too much speed, tumbled down stairs head-foremost. The noise of the fall, and his cries, alarmed a young gentleman that slept in the house that night, who got up, and went to the room where the corpse lay, and, to his great surprise, saw Sir Hugh sitting upright. He called the servants; Sir Hugh was put into a warm bed, and the physician and apothecary were sent for. These gentlemen in a few weeks perfectly restored their patient to health, and he lived several years after. The above, says the writer, is well known to the people in Devonshire, as in most companies Sir Hugh used to tell this strange circumstance, and talk of his resurrection by his brandy footman, to whom, when he really died, he left a handsome annuity.

IX.

Sir Gervase Scroop.

In Edge-hill fight, Sir Gervase Scroop, fighting valiantly for his king, received twenty-six wounds, and was left on the ground amongst the dead: next day, his son Adrian obtained leave of the king, to find and fetch off his father’s corpse, and his hopes pretended no higher than a decent interment thereof: such a search was thought in vain amongst so many naked bodies with wounds disguised from themselves, and where pale death had confounded all complexions together. However, he having some general hint of the place, where his father fell, did light upon his body, which had some warmth left therein: the heat was with rubbing within a few moments improved to motion, that motion within some hours into sense, that sense within a day into speech: within certain weeks he arrived to a perfect recovery, living more than ten years after, a monument of God’s mercy and his son’s affection. The effect of this story (says Dr. Fuller) I received from his own mouth in Lincoln College.

“We know some,” saith Alexander Benedictus, “who have been laid in their graves half alive; and some noble persons have been disposed in their sepulchres, whose life has lain hid in the secret repositories of the heart. One great lady was thus entombed, who was after found dead indeed; but sitting, and removed from her place, as one that had returned to life amongst the carcases of the dead. She had pulled off the hair from her head, and had torn her breast with her nails, signs too apparent of what had passed; and that she had long in vain called for help, while alone in the society of the dead.”

XI.

Monsieur Mercier, in his Tableau de Paris, relates the following extraordinary Fact.