BELL ON DEAD MAN'S WRIST

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1367, 19 February 1912, Page 6

BELL ON DEAD MAN'S WRIST

PRECAUTIONS AGAINST PREMATURE BURIAL. Explicit directions for the avoidance, of premature burial are contained in the will of Mr. Thomas Douglas Murray, of Iver Place, Iver, Bucks, who died on November 11 last, aged seventy years, leaving estate of the gross value of .Effi.-JSS, with net personalty .£23,052.-

He.directed that on his apparent death his body shall be kept in a. well-warmed bed for thirty-six- hours, thereafter. His body shall then be placed in a coffin in a. warm room with the windows partly opened, and watched for four days and nights or until definite signs of decomposition have set in. During this period Ihe tests given iu a pamphlet by Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, "Tho Signs and Proofs of Death," shall he applied, and during this period a bell shall be attached to his wrist which can 1)0 easily audible within and without the room.

When decomposition has set in, a surgeon shall completely sever the spinal cord high up in the body, and tho coffin muv then be lightly fastened, but shall not Ix 1 screwed down until the twelfth day after death. His remains shall then be cremated either on the downs near Stone-hi-nge or the downs near Rattlesbury Bill, Wilts, or ou Seratehbury Hill, near Tisbnry, Wilts, or if impracticable then at Woking, the ashes to be scattered to the leur winds of Heaven.