PREMATURE BURIAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 24 August 1907, Page 3

PREMATURE BURIAL.

The risk of premature burial at the present time is greater than twenty years ago, said Dr J. Stensou Hooker in presiding at a meeting held at Anderson's Hotel, Fleet street, London, under tho auspices of the Association for the Prevention of Premature Burial. Formerly it was no uncommon thing to keep a body some six or seven days, but the hurry and scurry of modern life seemed to have entered into the death chamber. One of the greatest dangers was that of trance, and in such a condition a person might well be taken for dead. It was possible for a person to hypnotise himself into a condition of trance, and at Loudon at the present time there was a gentleman who claimed to be able to stop the beating of his heart.

Dr Brindley James strongly advocated the substitution of a new medical certificate in the stead of the one now required by law, setting forth tiiat the medical man giving the certificate had attended the patient during life, and saying when he had last seen the person alive. He also believed in the medical man making a thorough examination of a body after reviewing it, and of applying certain tests, n9 he himself did in every case.

Mr George 0. Greenwood, M.P., said the laws governing the giving of death certificates was scandalous. For instance, a mother might tell a doctor who had seen Her child once that it had since suddenly died, and the doctor was 'egallv justified in giving her a certificate of death.

Statistics compiled by two members of the association from medical sources alone showed that 149 persons were known to have been buried alive, 219 to have had narrow escapes from premature burial, while ten had been dissected alive. ' Resolutions were carried to the effect that the Government be urged to reconstruct the burial laws, and that the association's Bill for the prevention of premature burial, which provides for the examination of all bodies by qualified medical men before death is certified, be strenuously supported. This Bill also urges the establishment of waiting mortuaries where doubtful cases may be kept until the fact of death has been conclusively ascertained.

The subject of premature burial, writes a correspondent, recalls the historic case of the great doctor Vesalius, who, opening a body which was supposed to be dead, for the purpose of post-mor-tem examination, found the heart still beating when it was laid bare. Many years ago Bruhier made careful investigations into the matter of premature burial and cases of mistaken death, and brought' to light some terrible facts • —four cases of people undergoing dissection while actually alive, and fiftythree cases of persons who were placed in their coffirs but regained consciousness before burial had taken place. It ts possible for'one's circulation and respiration practically to cease and become so imperceptible that even a skilled medical man cannot ascertain that life Is not extinct. The methods of determining whether death has really taken place in doubtful cases are many, and as a rule prove the matter without dispute. A mirror held near the mouth or nostrils will become damp within five minutes should respiration not have ceased. A galvanic current applied to the muscles should cause them to contract if life be not extinct, while if a vein be opened and the heart action has not ceased, blood should flow after a short lime.

A clever Continental doctor suggested some time back the use of a colored mejdium which, if injected into the veins would alter in appearance according as to whether life were extinct ov not.