Every nation, however uncivilized, holds the idea of being buried alive in
constant dread; the horrors of such a situation cannot be described.
Bodies have been found where the miserable victims of precipitation had
actually devoured the flesh of their arms in the agonies of hunger and
despair. Such was the fate of John Scott and the Emperor Zeno. It is to be
feared that this melancholy occurrence is more frequent than is supposed,
more especially in countries where inhumation is speedily resorted to. The
ancients were remarkably cautious in this respect, especially when we take
into consideration the climate of Greece and Rome during the summer
months. A law of Greece on this subject directs that "the corpse should be
laid out at the relations' pleasure, but that the following morning before
daylight the funeral procession should take place." From various
authorities, however, it appears that the bodies were kept three, and
sometimes six days. Servius was of opinion that the time for burning
bodies was the eighth day, and the time for burying the tenth; it appears,
however, that this was a privilege granted to the wealthy, as the poor
were consumed the day after their death, a custom alluded to in an epigram
of Callimachus. Among the Romans several days were also allowed to elapse
before interment--sometimes seven days; during which, loud cries, in which
the deceased was called by his name, and the noise of various instruments
resounded near the body; this was called the _conclamatio_, alluded to by
Terence:
Desine, jam conclamatum est.
Lucan also alludes to this custom:
----------Sic funere primo
Attonitae tacuere domus, quam corpora nondum
Conclamata jacent, noc mater crine soluto
Exigit ad saevos famularum brachia planctus.
The ancients held hasty inhumation in great dread, and grounded their
apprehension on various current traditions. Thus Plato remarks the case of
a warrior who was left for ten days on the field of battle amongst the
dead, and who came to life when he was being borne to the sepulchre.
Asclepiades restored life to a man who was also consigned to the funeral
pile, and Pliny relates the case of Lucius Aviola and Lucius Lamia, who
showed signs of life upon the pile, but were too much injured to be saved.
Amongst the many absurd fancies regarding the dead, was the superstitious
belief of their being able to masticate in their coffin any substance
buried with them. Women more especially were believed to be gifted with
this _post mortem_ faculty of moving their jaw-bones very loudly. _Claro
sonitu_, says the learned Michael Ranfft, in his curious and elaborate
work, _de masticatione mortuorum_. In this apprehension, that the deceased
in their hunger might devour their own limbs, articles of food were
interred with them.
According to the law of the Jews, who appear to have been in constant
dread of pestilential disease, the inhumation of the dead were most hasty.
Yet in this instance many Rabbi maintain that the Talmud has been
erroneously interpreted, for although it decreed that a night should not
be allowed to pass before inhumation, it clearly meant that actual death
must have been ascertained.
While such fears are entertained of suspended animation being taken for
dissolution, it is strange that in some savage tribes the aged are allowed
to perish without any care being taken to prolong their lives. Such is the
custom of some of the Esquimaux, where old and decrepit creatures are
abandoned in their huts and left to their fate. An ancient tradition
stated that the inhabitants of the Isle of Syria never died of any
distemper, but dropped into their graves at a certain old age.
It would be desirable that in cases where interment is speedily resorted
to, a physician should attend, in order to ascertain that death had
actually taken place. This is seldom practised, from the common saying
"that it is uncivil on the part of a doctor to visit a dead patient."
Various means are employed to ascertain death: the looking-glass applied
to the mouth of the corpse, to find out whether breath had departed; the
coldness of the extremities, the falling of the lower jaw, the rigidity of
the limbs, and various other appearances, are universally known; but in
the villages of Italy and Portugal, pins and needles are frequently driven
under the nails, in what is vulgarly called _the quick_, to excite an
excruciating pain if life should not have fled. The most certain evidence,
when bodies are long kept, is most decidedly the commencement of
decomposition; but, in other cases, the action of the voltaic pile on a
bared muscle is an infallible test.
It is much to be feared that on the field of battle and naval actions many
individuals apparently dead are buried or thrown overboard. The history of
Francois de Civille, a French captain, who was missing at the siege of
Rouen, is rather curious: at the storming of the town he was supposed to
have been killed, and was thrown, with other bodies, in the ditch, where
he remained from eleven in the morning to half-past six in the evening;
when his servant, observing some latent heat, carried the body into the
house. For five days and five nights his master did not exhibit the
slightest sign of life, although the body gradually recovered its warmth.
At the expiration of this time, the town was carried by assault, and the
servants of an officer belonging to the besiegers, having found the
supposed corpse of Civille, threw it out of window, with no other covering
than his shirt. Fortunately for the captain, he had fallen upon a
dunghill, where he remained senseless for three days longer, when his body
was taken up by his relations for sepulture, and ultimately brought to
life. What was still more strange, Civille, like Macduff, had been "from
his mother's womb untimely ripp'd," having been brought into the world by
a Caesarean operation, which his mother did not survive; and after his last
wonderful escape he used to sign his name with the addition of "three
times born, three times buried, and three times risen from the dead by the
grace of God."
The fate of the unfortunate Abbe Prevost, author of "Manon Lescaut," and
other esteemed novels, was lamentable beyond expression. In passing
through the forest of Chantilly, he was seized with an apoplectic fit: the
body, cold and motionless, was found the following morning, and carried by
some woodcutters to the village surgeon, who proceeded to open it; it was
during this terrific operation that the wretched man was roused to a sense
of his miserable condition by the agonies he endured, to expire soon after
in all the complicated horrors of his situation. Various cases are
recorded where persons remained in a state of apparent death for a
considerable time. Cullen mentions an hysterical woman who was deprived of
movement and sensibility for six days. Licelus knew a nun of Bresia, who,
after an hysteric attack, continued in an inanimate state for ten days and
nights.