THE DANGER OF HASTY BURIALS.
EARLY burials are advocated and defended by certain writers on sanitary
grounds; and there is, no doubt, something to be said for them,
provided the body shows unmistakable signs of dissolution; but to
impose a general rule upon Englishmen by Parliament, or upon Americans
by State Legislature, as has been urged, would add to the existing evil
of perfunctory and mistaken diagnosis of death, and greatly increase
the number of premature interments. The Romans kept the bodies of
the dead a week before burial, lest through haste they should inter
them while life remained. Servius, in his commentary on Virgil, tells
us--“That on the eighth day they burned the body, and on the ninth put
its ashes in the grave.” Plato enjoined the bodies of the dead to be
kept until the third day, _in order_ (as he says) _to be satisfied of
the reality of the death_. Quintilian explains why the Romans delayed
burials as follows:--“For what purpose do ye imagine that long-delayed
interments were invented? Or on what account is it that the mournful
pomp of funeral solemnities is always interrupted by sorrowful groans
and piercing cries? Why, for no other reason, but because we have seen
persons return to life after they were about to be laid in the grave
as dead.” “For this reason,” adds Lancisi, in “De Subita. Mort.,” lib.
i., cap. 15, “the Legislature has wisely and prudently prohibited
the immediate, or the too speedy, interment of all dead persons, and
especially of such as have the misfortune to be cut off by a sudden
death.”
[THE ADVANTAGE OF DELAY.]
Terilli, a celebrated physician of Venice, in a treatise of the
“Causes of Sudden Death,” sect. vi., cap. 2, says:--“Since the body
is sometimes so deprived of every vital function, and the principle
of life reduced so low, that it cannot be distinguished from death,
the laws both of natural comparison and revealed religion oblige us to
wait a sufficient time for life manifesting itself by the usual signs,
peradventure it should not be, as yet, totally extinguished; and if
we should act a contrary part, we may possibly become murderers, by
confining to the gloomy regions of the dead those who are actually
alive.”
Mr. Cooper, surgeon, in his treatise on “The Uncertainty of the
Signs of Death,” pp. 70, 71, had in his possession the following
certificate, written and signed by Mr. Blau, a native of Auvergne, a
man of untainted veracity:--“I hereto subscribe, and declare, that
fifty-five years ago, happening to reside at Toulouse for the sake
of my studies, and going to St. Stephen’s Church to hear a sermon, I
saw a corpse brought thither for the sake of interment. The ceremony,
however, was delayed till the sermon should be over; but the supposed
dead person, being laid in a chapel and attended by all the mourners,
about the middle of the sermon discovered manifest signs of life,
for which reason he was quickly conveyed back to his own house. From
a consideration of circumstances, it is sufficiently obvious that,
without the intervention of the sermon, the man had been interred
alive.”
Between 1780 and 1800 many pamphlets on the subject appeared in Germany
and France. Opposite sides were taken, some advocating delay until
putrefaction, others urging immediate burial.
In 1788, Marcus Hertz wrote strongly against the prevailing precipitate
burials among the Jews. He asked “what motive could justify hasty
burials;” and continued:--“The writings of learned men and doctors, of
both early times and recent date, describe the dangers of precipitate
burial; there is not a town in the world that has not its stories of
revivals in the grave.”
In 1791, Rev. J. W. C. Wolff, in Germany, published numerous narratives
of narrow escapes from the grave.
In 1792, Rev. Johann Moritz Schwager stated that he had preached
for twenty years against precipitate burials, and that he had been
requested to do so by a number of corporate bodies who had evidence of
the danger of hasty interments.
About 1800 great excitement prevailed in Germany on account of some
narrow escapes from living burial that happened in high quarters,
many books and pamphlets having been issued, and sermons preached
by the clergy on the subject. The key-note of all of these was the
fallaciousness of the appearances of death, and that none was reliable
but decomposition.
About this period Dr. Herachborg, of Königsberg, Prussia, wrote that,
for forty years, as a doctor, he had always been disgusted with the
practice of hasty burials; and, to show the ignorance of the times,
he mentions the case of a woman he kept under observation in bed for
three days, when her relations took her out and placed her on the
floor, insisting that she was dead. He resisted her burial, and had
her covered with blankets; so that by being kept warm she recovered
completely. He insisted that no sign of death could be relied upon.
[HASTY BURIAL IN TURKEY.]
From the _British Medical Journal_, April 12, 1862, p. 390. “The
_Gaz. Méd. d’Orient_ tells us that people in Constantinople are, in
all probability, not unfrequently buried alive, in consequence of the
precipitancy with which their burial is performed. If the person dies
during the night, he has some chance of escaping premature sepulture;
but if he dies during the day, he is sure to be in his tomb in two
hours after he has drawn his last breath. Facts of daily occurrence in
this country, we are told, prove that persons who were thought to have
died during the night have recovered before morning, and thus, thanks
to the intervention of night, have been saved from being interred
alive. Other facts of not unfrequent occurrence show that persons have
recovered while on their road to the grave. In other rarer cases,
again, the cries of the revivified half-buried ones have been heard by
the passers-by, and thus saved from a horrible conclusion.”
In all countries it is the custom amongst the Jews to bury their dead,
and apparently dead, quickly, without taking the slightest steps for
restoration, and many are the catastrophes recorded.
“The Report of the Royal Humane Society” of 1802 states:--“At the
funeral of a Jewess, one of the bearers thought he heard repeatedly
some motion in the coffin, and informed his friends. Medical assistance
being obtained, she returned to her home in a few hours completely
restored.”
From the _British Medical Journal_, March 8, 1879, p. 356.
“SUSPENDED ANIMATION.
“A Jew, aged seventy, who had been ailing for some time, apparently
died recently in Lemberg, on a Friday night, after severe convulsions.
The deceased having been legally certified, the body was put on a
bier, preparatory to the funeral, which had to be deferred, the next
day being the Jewish Sabbath. Two pious brethren who had, according to
their custom, been spending the night in prayer, watching the dead,
were suddenly, on the morning of the Saturday, disturbed from their
devotions by strange sounds proceeding from the bier, and, to their
dismay, saw the dead man slowly rising, and preparing to descend from
it, using at the same time very strong language. Both brethren fled
very precipitately; and one of them has since died from the effects
of the fright. It is hoped by the _Wiener Medicinische Zeitung_ that
this case will make the local government watch the Jewish funerals more
carefully, as it is known that the Jews often bury their dead very
quickly.”
The _Undertakers’ Journal_, January 22, 1887, says:--“The dangers that
may arise from premature interment are illustrated by a sensational
incident which recently occurred at Trencsin, in Hungary. The wife of
the Rabbi of the Jewish Congregation apparently died suddenly without
having been previously ill. The night before the funeral the female
watcher, sitting in an adjoining room, heard a noise in the chamber of
death, and, when, stricken with horror, she ventured to open the door,
she found that the seemingly dead woman had risen from her bier, and
had thrown off the shroud by which she was covered. By a fortunate
accident the interment had been postponed in consequence of the
intervening Sabbath, otherwise a horrible fate would have overtaken the
Rabbi’s wife.”
[THE LANCET’S SUGGESTIONS.]
The _Lancet_, August 23, 1884, vol. ii., p. 329, comments thus:--
“BURYING CHOLERA PATIENTS ALIVE.
“It is not so much undue haste as inexcusable carelessness that must be
blamed for the premature burying of persons who are not really dead.
Such heedlessness as alone can lead to the commission of this crime is
not a shade less black than manslaughter. We speak strongly, because
this is a matter in regard to which measures ought to be at once taken
to render the horrible act impossible, and to dismiss all fear from the
public mind. If it be a fact, as would seem to be indisputable, that
during the last few weeks there have been cases--we will not attempt
to say how many or how few--of burying alive, a scandal and a horror,
wholly unpardonable in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, have
to be faced; and the sooner the full truth is known and rules of safety
established the better. Let it be once for all decided that measures
shall be taken to ascertain the fact of death before burial. Why not
revert to the old practice, and _always_ open a vein in the arm after
death, or pass a current of electricity through the body before the
coffin is finally screwed down? It may be held that these unpleasant
resorts are unnecessary. We do not think they are. In any case enough
is known of the possibilities of ‘suspended animation’ to render it
unsafe to bury until the evidences of an actual extinction of life are
unmistakable; and, as it is impossible to wait until decomposition sets
in in all cases of death from infectious diseases, it would be prudent
to adopt what must certainly be the least of evils.”
If, as the _Lancet_ maintains, it is not possible to wait until the
only absolute sign of death is manifest, then, in a large majority
of cases, there is no safety, and those who die fatally mutilated by
horrible accidents may be considered fortunate. The difficulty, we
admit, is of a serious nature, particularly for the poor, and can only
be overcome by the erection of mortuaries, as discussed in another
chapter. The expedient of applying the electric current, suggested by
the _Lancet_, has been proved useless in cases of death-trance, where
the patients are impervious to the most violent modes of cutaneous
excitation.
The _Jewish World_, September 13, 1895, observes:--“Cases of trance
and of the burial of persons who only seemed to be dead, and of narrow
escapes of others from the most terrible of all imaginable fates, are
not so uncommon as most people suppose; and while Jews adhere to the
practice of interring their dead within a few hours after the supposed
demise, there will always be a risk of such horrible catastrophes
happening, even more frequently among us than among the general
community. Here is, then, really a matter in which some reform is
needed, and that without a day’s delay.
[OPINIONS OF THE “JEWISH WORLD.”]
“To say nothing of the merely human aspect of this important question,
to bury until decomposition has actually set in might possibly be
shown to be a violation of Jewish Law. It is now commonly admitted
that even expert medical men cannot be absolutely certain of death
until some signs of decomposition have shown themselves. Now, so
strict is the Jewish Law as regards the risk of destroying life, that
it is prohibited to even move or touch a man or woman who is on the
point of death, lest we hasten, by a moment, their dissolution. It is,
therefore, no less than a violation of the Jewish laws against murder
to preserve a custom that involves even the minutest scintilla of risk
of premature burial. It is high time that this question was seriously
taken up by the Jewish clergy and laity.”[8]
In the province of Quebec no interment is permitted within twenty-four
hours, and the Jews reconcile themselves to this delay, which, however,
is far too brief to ensure safety.
It will be said that the danger referred to is not so imminent in the
United Kingdom as in France, Spain, Portugal, or even in the United
States, owing to the existence of a more temperate climate, and the
longer period allowed for burial. This may be so and yet the danger
be considerable. It must be remembered that in the rural districts
nothing in the shape of examination to establish the fact of death is
practised; while in certain parts of Cornwall, throughout the greater
part of agricultural Ireland, amongst the Jews in all cities and towns,
as well as those who in all places are certified as dead of cholera,
small-pox, and other infectious and epidemic diseases, burial often
follows certified death quite as quickly as in the Continental States
before mentioned. In all the public resorts on the Continent the
hotel-keepers, through an insensate fear of death and the injury which
the possession of “a corpse,” dead or alive, may do to their business,
have them coffined and disposed of, particularly in the night, within
a few hours of their supposed death. Dr. D. de Lignières, in “Pour ne
pas être Enterré Vivant,” Paris, 1893, says he has known of burials
under such circumstances six hours after death. This author says that
these scandalous homicidal acts are of every-day occurrence, and that
the rapacious landlords have no difficulty in obtaining certificates of
death from the accommodating _mort verificateurs_. Every one who visits
the _hôtels des villes d’eaux, des stations balnéaires_, may verify
(he says) the truth of this statement for himself. In short, these are
willing disciples of the “Latest Decalogue”:--
“Thou shalt not kill; but need’st not strive
Officiously to keep alive.”