Halle, 1753.--In the register of deaths, at St. Mary’s Church, is the following entry:--“Shoemaker Casper Koch was buried, aged eighty-one years. Thirty years ago he had died, to all appearances, and was put in a coffin, when suddenly, when they were about to bury him, he recovered his consciousness.”
Haag, Holland, 1785.--The son of a cook died, and while the coffin was being carried to the grave-yard, he was heard to knock. On opening the coffin he was found alive. He was taken home and was restored.
In the “Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine,” edited by John Forbes, M.D., F.R.S., and others, 1847, vol. i., pp. 548-549, is the following:--“A remarkable instance of resuscitation after apparent death occurred in France, in the neighbourhood of Douai, in the year 1745, and is related by Rigaudeaux, (_Journal des Sçavans_, 1749,) to whom the case was confided. He was summoned in the morning to attend a woman in labour, at a distance of about a league. On his arrival, he was informed that she had died in a convulsive fit two hours previously. The body was already prepared for interment, and on examination he could discover no indications of life. The os uteri was sufficiently dilated to enable him to turn the child and deliver by the feet. The child appeared to be dead also; but, by persevering in the means of resuscitation for three hours, they excited some signs of vitality, which encouraged them to proceed, and their endeavours were ultimately crowned with complete success. Rigaudeaux again carefully examined the mother, and was confirmed in the belief of her death; but he found that, although she had been in that state for seven hours, her limbs retained their flexibility. Stimulants were applied in vain; he took his leave, recommending that the interment should be deferred until the flexibility was lost. At five p.m. a messenger came to inform him that she had revived at half-past three. The mother and child were both alive three years after.”
RESUSCITATION OF STILL-BORN AND OTHER INFANTS.
THE danger of premature burial of still-born (apparently dead) infants is clearly shown by the following quotation from Tidy’s “Legal Medicine,” part ii., page 253, from tables given on the authority of the _British and Foreign Medical Review_, No. ii., p. 235, based on eight millions of births. “It would appear that from one in eighteen to one in twenty births are still-born. Dr. Lever found that the proportion in his three thousand cases was one in eighteen. So notorious is it that a large number of these deaths could be averted, that some legislation is urgently needed, requiring that still-borns, whose bodies weigh, say, not less than two pounds (the average weight about the sixth and seventh months at which children are viable), should not be buried without registration and a medical examination.”
