George Eric Mackay

“ In days when land is dear, and burial rights are less sacred than the rights of builders and contractors, coffins have been opened with the pickaxe, in the act of converting cemeteries into streets and gardens. Here a grave has been discovered whose inmate has turned in its shroud; here a corpse clutching its hair in a strained and unnatural position: dead men and dead women lying in their graves as dead men never lie in a Christian land at the moment of burial. ”

“ English law provides an interval of a week (more or less) between death and burial, and the seeming-dead may in a week's time return to life—that is to say, that the body, with the suspended life dormant within it, may, by chance or by medical treatment, reassume its functions, or a portion of its functions, before burial has become a legal or a sanitary necessity; but it can not be stated with certainty that all persons buried in a northern climate—such a climate, for instance, as England—are in reality dead after the delay of a week has been accorded. ”

“ Celebrated physicians can not be at the death-beds of all sick persons. The poor, and even the rich, must oftentimes content themselves with the services of doctors who are not famous either for learning or intuition; and the medicines and appliances by which distinguished physicians might succeed in testing the existence of life, in persons suffering from trance, would, in the case of poor people, cost too much; and no one is willing to guarantee their final success. For it is important to bear this point in mind: it is one thing to certify that a "corpse" is not really dead ”

“ A poor woman at Castel del Giudice, in the province of Molise, was taken ill with the premonitory symptoms of childbirth, and, having fainted away while the doctor was being sent for, was, on his arrival, declared dead. Burial follows death very rapidly in southern countries, especially in Italy: it is the night of the tomb setting in without the twilight of the death-chamber; and eight-and-forty hours in the north of Italy, and four-and-twenty in the south, is the time allowed by law. ”

“ The doctor was of opinion that the girl had died from excitement—overjoy, it is said, at the prospect of being married, but the legal name for the catastrophe was disease of the heart, and with this verdict her place in society was declared vacant. When the first shovelful of earth was thrown down on the coffin, strange noises were heard proceeding therefrom, "as of evil spirits disputing over the body of the dead." The grave-diggers took to flight, and the mourners began praying; but the bridegroom, less superstitious than the others, insisted on the coffin being unnailed. ”

“ That "the organic phenomena which precede apparent death can not of themselves be distinguished from those which precede real death, and that for a certain time it will be difficult to decide, scientifically, whether life be suspended, or extinct" ”

“ There are, they affirm, a great many ways of proving death, if sufficient time allowed be for experiments; but during the experiments, or before the experiments have begun, the supposed corpse may, they declare, pass from apparent to real death, and thus, without sign or warning, frustrate all inquiry. ”

“ In some instances the victims of trance have been known to rise out of their coffins. A case is recorded of a young lady in Leipsic, who, being reported dead during a nervous attack, was placed in her coffin in her parents' house, and there kept duly dressed for the grave, with the lid of the coffin still unnailed. ”

“ But humanity prevailed over ignorance, and cupidity gave way to medical skill. The lady was thoroughly revived by a medical practitioner of the neighborhood, and lived for many a long day to tell the story of her escape from the tomb. ”