Part 5

As soon as Aurora made her appearance, some labourers, who had just come to their work, acquainted them where the sexton lived, and he was prevailed on, though not without some difficulty, to comply with their request. Accordingly, the canonized bones of the doctor, which had a few hours before been hearsed in death, revisited the glimpse of morn. Upon opening the coffin, (I shudder whilst I relate the horrid scene) they found the body now totally deprived of life, but observed, that the late inhabitant of it had endeavoured to burst his cearments, and leave the dreadful mansion in which he was confined. He had actually turned upon his side; and, as my servant had reported, his arms bled afresh. The coffin was carried to the house of the Sexton, where multitudes, excited by curiosity, flocked from all parts, to see this memorable instance of fruitless precaution. The family, however, hearing of the circumstances, the body was ordered to be re-interred, and the affair was hushed up.

Are you casuist enough to tell me, how it happens that we are generally disappointed in the grand expectations of our lives, and find our favourite wishes crossed? Never was there a more singular confirmation of this fact, than in the case of the Doctor. The fear of being buried alive, seems to have engrossed all his thoughts. The apprehensions which arose in his mind, both on his own account, and that of others, furnished him an inexhaustible fund for conversation, and gave frequent employment to his pen. The presentiment which had taken possession of him, was not to be suppressed. But, alas! how unavailing, from a combination of preventive circumstances, did it prove!--Let it serve as a document to us, not to fix our hearts with too much anxiety on any object that lies within the reach of the accidents of life, or to indulge too great apprehensions of any dreaded evils.

I was greatly affected at the melancholy accident which had just happened; but my mother was almost distracted at being obliged to break a promise she had so solemnly made, and which would have proved so consonant to the wishes of her old friend.

I have often wondered that humanity, exclusive of affection, does not prevent those, who have a regard for persons during their lives, from leaving them in their last moments, through a false tenderness, to the care of nurses and servants, who are usually insensible to every claim but those of their own ease or interest. Too susceptible of pain, from beholding the expiring pangs of a beloved object, they hasten from it; whereas, that ought to be the strongest motive for their stay, as these would stimulate them to unremitted assiduity in administering every needful assistance whilst life remains, and to a due attention to the body till its interment.

XVII.

The following Story is related by a Traveller, who translated the particulars from a foreign monument.

The heroine of this event was named Retchmuth Adoleh. She was the wife of a merchant of Cologne, and is said to have died of the plague, which destroyed the greatest part of that city in 1571. She was speedily interred, and a ring of great value was suffered to remain on her finger, which tempted the cupidity of the grave-digger. The night was the time he had planned for the plunder. On going to the grave, opening the same, and attempting to take the ring from off the finger of the lady, she came to herself and so terrified the sacrilegious thief, that he scampered away with speed, and left his lanthorn behind him. The lady took advantage of his fright, and, with the assistance of the lanthorn, found her way home, and lived afterwards to be the mother of three children. After her real decease, she was buried near the door of the same church, and a tomb was erected over her sepulchre, from whence this record is taken.

XVIII.

The following account of reanimation is extracted from the first volume of the Causes Célebres, and was the subject of a serious law suit in Paris.

Two men in trade, who lived in the street, St. Honoré, in Paris, nearly equal in circumstances, both following the same profession, and united in the closest friendship, had each of them a child, much about the same age. These children were brought up together, and conceived a mutual attachment, which ripening with years into a stronger and more lively sentiment, was approved by the parents on both sides. This young couple was upon the point of being made happy, by a more solid union, when a rich financier, conceiving a passion for the young maiden, unfortunately crossed their inclinations, by demanding her in marriage. The allurements of a more brilliant fortune, seduced her father and mother, notwithstanding their daughter’s repugnance to consent to the change. To their entreaties, however, she was obliged to yield, and sacrificed her affections, by becoming the wife of the financier. Like a woman of virtue, she forbad her earlier lover the house. A fit of melancholy, the consequence of this violence done to her inclinations, by entering into an engagement of interest, brought on her a malady, which so far benumbed her faculties, that she was thought by all her friends to be dead, and was accordingly consigned to the grave. The former lover conceiving, and hoping what he had heard of her death, might only prove a syncope, or fit of lethargy, (as she had been before subject to those complaints) bribed the grave-digger, to convey the body to his house in the night time. He then used every means recommended for restoring suspended animation; and at length was overjoyed at finding his efforts prove effectual.

It is not easy to conceive the surprise the young woman was in on her resuscitation, when she found herself in a strange house, and as it were in the arms of her lover, who informed her of what had taken place, and the risk he had run on her account. She then comprehended the extent of her obligation to her deliverer, and love, more pathetic than all his persuasions to unite their destinies, determined her, on her recovery to escape with him into England: where they lived for some years in the closest union.

At the end of ten years, they conceived the natural wish of revisiting their own country, and at length returned to Paris, where they took no precaution whatever, of concealing themselves, being persuaded that no suspicion would attend their arrival. It happened however by chance, that the financier met his wife in one of the public walks. The sight of her, made so strong an impression on him, that the persuasion of her death could not efface it. He contrived it so as to join her, and notwithstanding, the language which she used to impose upon him, he left her with the conviction that he was not deceived.

The strangeness of this event, gave more charms to the woman in the eyes of her former husband, than she had for him before. He acted with such address, that he discovered her abode, notwithstanding all her precautions, and reclaimed her with all the regular formalities of justice.

It was in vain that the lover maintained the right which his cares for his mistress gave him to the possession of her: that he represented her inevitable death, but for him: that he ought even to be accused of homicide, for want of having taken proper precautions to assure himself of her death, and a thousand other ingenious reasons which love suggested to him, but without the desired effect. He found that the judicial ear was against him, and not thinking it expedient to wait the result of a definitive judgment, he fled with his mistress into a foreign country, where they passed the remainder of their days, without further molestation.

We have before observed that several persons reputed dead, had exhibited signs of life under the blade of the Anatomist, and had consequently deceived the judgment of the surgeon who regarded them as defunct. Hence it follows, that apparent death often carries with it the exterior characters of real death; that men of the faculty may be deceived, and much more so those who are less instructed; hence it follows likewise that for the good of humanity it is indispensible that a regulation should be adopted, which would save us from the dreadful horrors of so cruel an event.

XIX.

It is well known what happened to the celebrated Vesabe, successive physician to Charles V. and to Philip II. of Spain, his son. Being persuaded that a Spanish Nobleman whom he attended was really dead, he asked the permission of opening him, which was granted. But he had scarcely plunged the instrument into the body of the unfortunate man, when he remarked some signs of returning life. In effect, he found, on opening his bosom, the heart still palpitating. The relations of the deceased, informed of the accident, were not satisfied with pursuing him as a murderer; they dragged him, as a man guilty of sacrilege, before the tribunal of the Inquisition.

As the fault was notorious, the judges of this tribunal were for condemning him to the punishment attached to the impiety. But fortunately for him, the King of Spain, by his authority and entreaties, delivered him from this certain danger, on condition of his expiating his crime by a voyage to the holy-land. But the unfortunate Vesabe did not long enjoy the pardon which he thus obtained. The Venetian senate having sent for him to fill the place of Falloppe, a violent tempest overtook him on his passage, and cast him on the island of Zante, where after wandering about for several days in the deserts, and suffering all the rigours of hunger, he ended his life deplorably in 1564, at the age of fifty eight.

XX.

We are informed in a treatise by Terilli, that a lady of distinction in Spain, being attacked with hysteric suffocations, was regarded as dead. Her relations applied to a celebrated Anatomist to open her, and acquaint himself more particularly with the cause of her death. At the second stroke of his knife she revived, and gave evident signs of life, by the cries that were forced from her by this fatal instrument. The dreadful spectacle excited such astonishment and horror in those present, that this physician, who had hitherto enjoyed the fairest reputation, abhorred now, and detested by every one, was compelled to quit not only the city, where this tragedy was acted, but even the very province itself, in order to withdraw himself from the effects of public indignation.

XXI.

Acilius Aviola was (according to Pliny) concluded dead, both by his domestics and physicians; he was accordingly laid out upon the ground for some time, and then carried forth to his funeral pile: but as soon as the flames began to catch his body, he cried out that he was alive, imploring the assistance of his schoolmaster, who was the only person that had tarried by him: but it was too late; for encompassed with flames, he was dead before he could be succoured.

XXII.

Plato tells us of Erus Armenius being slain in battle, among many others; when they came to take up the dead bodies upon the tenth day after, they found, that though all the other carcases were putrid, this of his was entire and uncorrupted; they therefore carried it home, that it might have the just and due funeral rites performed to it. Two days they kept it at home in that state, and on the twelfth day, he was carried out to the funeral pile; and being ready to be laid upon it, he returned to life, to the admiration of all that were present. He declared several strange and prodigious things, which he had seen and known, during all that time that he had remained in the state of the dead.

XXIII.

One of the noble family of the Tatoreidi, being seized with the plague in Burgundy, was supposed to die thereof, and was put into a coffin to be carried to the sepulchres of his ancestor, which were distant from that place some four German miles. Night coming on, the corpse was disposed in a barn, and there attended by some rustics. These perceived a great quantity of fresh blood to drain through the chinks of the coffin; whereupon they opened it, and found that the body was wounded by a nail that was driven into the shoulder through the coffin; and that the wound was much torn by the jogging of the chariot he was carried in; but withal, they discovered that the natural heat had not left his breast. They took him out, and laid him before the fire: he recovered as out of a deep sleep, ignorant of all that had passed. He afterwards married a wife, by whom he had a daughter; married afterwards to Huldericus a Psirt; from his daughter came Sigismundus a Psirt, chief Pastor of St. Mary’s Church in Basil.

XXIV.

In the year 1650 Anne Green was tried at Oxford, before Serjeant Umpton Croke, for the murder of her bastard child, and by him sentenced to be hanged; which sentence was accordingly executed on the fourteenth day of December, in the Castle-Yard, Oxford, where she hung about half an hour, being pulled by the legs, and, after all, had several strokes given her on the stomach with the butt end of a musket. Being cut down, she was put into a coffin, and carried to a house to be dissected; where when they opened the coffin, notwithstanding the rope remained fast jammed round her neck, they perceived her breast to rise: whereupon one Mason, a tailor, intending an act of humanity, stamped on her breast and belly; and one Oran, a soldier, struck her with the butt end of his musket. After all this, when Sir William Patty, Dr. Willis, and Mr. Clarke, came to prepare the body for dissection, they perceived some small rattling in her throat, which induced them to desist from their original design, and began to use means for her recovery; in which they were so successful, that within fourteen hours she began to speak, and the next day talked and prayed very heartily. Nor did the humanity of the Doctors stop, till by obtaining a pardon for her, they secured that life, which their skill had restored. She was afterwards married, had three children, lived in good repute among her neighbours, at Steeple-Barton, and died in 1659. What was very remarkable, and distinguished the hand of Providence in her recovery, she was found to be innocent of the crime for which she suffered; and it appeared the child had never been alive, but came from her spontaneously, four months after conception.