APPARENT DEATH.

Grey River Argus, Volume VIII, Issue 590, 28 October 1869, Page 4

APPARENT DEATH.

(From All the Year Bound.) Very lately, the present writer was reqnested to attend, on a Monday morning, the funeral of a lady 67 years of age, the wife of the mayor of a small French town, who had died in the night between the Thursday and the Friday previous. On the company assembling, the cure' informed \is that the body would remain where it was for awhile, but that the usual ceremonies- (except those at the cemetery) I would be proceeded with all the same. We therefore followed him to the church, and had a funeral service without a burial. It transpired that the body was still quite warm, and presented no signs of decomposition. In the ordinary course of things, this circumstance might not have prevented the interment ; but fche poor lady herself had requested not to be buried until decomposition should have begun beyond the possibility of mistake ; and the family remembered, and regretted, that her brother had been put into the ground, three days after his death, while still warm, and with his countenance unchanged. They had occasionally felt uneasy about the matter, fearing that they might have been too precipitate in their proceedings. So in this case they resolved to take no irrevocable step without the full assurance of being justified in doing so. The corpse was kept uninterred long after every doubt was set at rest. Certainly we manage some things better in England than in France ; amongst them being the interval allowed to elapse between death and interment, Still, there are circumstances and cases which, even here, afford matter for serious reflection. It will easily be supposed that the dangerous briefness uf this interval has been urged upon the attention of the French Legislature, and been ably discussed by the French medical press. In 1866, a person named De Cornol, pointing out the danger of hasty interments, and suggesting the measures he thought requisite ■ to avoid terrible consequences. Amongst j other things, he prayed that the space of twenty-four hours between the decease and the interment now prescribed by the law should be extended to eight-and-forty hours. A long debate followed, in which Cardinal Donnet, Archbishop of Bordeaux, took a leading part. He was decidedly of opinion that the petition should not be set aside by the " order of the day," but that it should be transmitted to the minister of the interior for further consideration and inquiry. Some of the venerable prelate's remarks produced so great an effect on his auditors as to merit particular mention. He said he lad the very best reasons for believing that the victims of hasty interments were more numerous than people supposed. He considered the regulations on this head prescribed by the law as very judicious, but unfortunately they were not always executed as they should be, nor was sufficient importance attached to them. In the village where he was stationed as assistant curate in the first period of his sacerdotal life^

he saved two persons from being buried alive. The first was an aged man, who lived twelve hours after the hour fixed for his interment by tho municipal officer, , The second was a man who was quite restored to life, In both these instances a trance more prolonged than usual was taken for actual death, The next case in his experience occurred at Bordeaux. A young lady, who bore one of the most distinguished names in the department, had passed through what was believed to be her laat agony, and as, apparently, all was over, the father and mother were torn away from the heartrending spectacle. At that moment, as God willed it, the cardinal happened to pass the door of the house, when it occurred to him to call and inquire how the young lady was going on. When he entered the room, the nurse, finding the body breathless, was in the act of covering the face, and indeed there waa every appearance that life had departed Somehow or other, it did not soem so certain to him as to the bystanders, He resolved to try. He raised his voice, called loudly upon the yonng lady not to give up all hope, said that he was come to cure her, and that he was about to pray by her side, " You do not see me," he said, "but you hear what I am saying." Those singular presentiments were not unfounded. The words of hope reached her ear and effected a marvellous change^ or rather called back the life that was departing. The young girl survived, and in 186 C was a wife, the mother of children, and the chief happiness of two most respectable families. The last instance related by the archbishop 13 so interesting, and made such a sensation, that it deserves to be given in his own words: — "In the summer of 1826, on a close and sultry day, in a church that was excessively crowded, a young priest who was in the act of preaching was suddenly seized with giddiness in the pulpit. The words he was uttering became indistinct ; he soon lost the power of Bpeech, aud sank down upon the floor. He was taken out of the church, and carried home. Everybody thought that all was over. Some hours afterwards, the funeral bell was tolled, and the usual preparations were made for the interment. His eyesight was gone ; but if, like the young lady I have mentioned, he could see nothing, he could nevertheless hear ; and I need not say that what reached his ears was not calculated to reassure him. The doctor came, examined him, and pronounced him dead ; and after the usual inquiries as to his age, the place of his birth, &c, gave permission for his interment next morning. The venerable bishop, in whose cathedral the young priest was preaching when he was seized with the fit, came to his bedside to recite the De Profundis. The body waa measured for the coffin. Night came on, and you will easily feel how inexpressible was the anguish of the living being in such a situation. At last, amid the voices murmuring around him, he distinguished that of one whom he had known from infancy. That voice produced a marvellous effect, and excited him to make a superhuman effort. Of what followed, I need say no more than that the seemingly dead man stood next day in the pulpit, from which he had been taken for dead. That young, priest, gentlemen, is tho same man who is now speaking before you, and who, more than forty years after that event, implores those in authority not merely to watch vigilantly over the careful execution of the legal prescriptions with regard to interments, but to enact fresh ones, in order to prevent the recurrence of irreparable misfortunes." On the 13th of July, 1829, about two o'clock in the afternoon, near the Pont des Arts, Paris, a body, which appeared lifeless, was taken out of the river. It was that of a young man, 20 years of age, darii-complexioned, and strongly built. The corpse was discolored and cold ; the face and lips were swollen and tinged with blue ; a thick and yellowish froth exuded from the mouth ; the eyes were open; fixed, and motionless ; the limbs limp and drooping. No pulsation of the heart nor | trace of respiration was perceptible. The body had remained under water for a considerable time ; the search after it, made in Dr. Bourgeois's presence, lasted fully twenty minutes. That gentleman did not hesitate to incur the derision of the lookers-on, by proceeding to attempt the [ resurrection of what, in their eyes, was a ' mere lump of clay. Nevertheless, several hours afterwards, the supposed corpse was restored to life, thanks to the Obstinate perseverance of the doctor, who, although strong and enjoying robust health, was several times on the point of losing courage, and abandoning the patient in despair. But what would have happened if Dr. Bourgeois, instead of persistently remaining stooping over the inanimate body, with watchful eye and attentive ear, to catch the first rustling of the heart, had left the drowned man, after half-an-honr's fruitless endeavor, as often happens ? The unfortunate young man would, have been laid in the grave, although capable of restoration to life ! To this case, Dr. Bourgeois, in the Archives de Medicine, adds others, in which individuals who had remained under water as long as six hours were recalled to life by efforts which a weaker conviction than his own would have refrained from making. These facts lead Dr. Londe to the conclusion that, every day, drowned individuals are buried, who, with greater perseverance, might be restored to life.