Premature burial and how it may be prevented : with special reference to trance, catalepsy, and other forms of suspended animation / by William Tebb and Edward Perry Vollum.

  • William Tebb
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Premature burial and how it may be prevented : with special reference to trance, catalepsy, and other forms of suspended animation / by William Tebb and Edward Perry Vollum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    calls ' cold abstraction,' he was aware of all that was passing. At last, as he was about to be covered in his coffin, his mental con- dition was such that he broke into a profuse sweat, which was fortunately perceived, and he recovered and was able to recount his experiences. It would appear from the following telegram through Reuter's Agency that trance is occasionally epidemic :— [From Daily Telegraphy March 17, 1890.] a new disease. Vienna, March 15, 1890. Several cases of a new disease, which originally appeared in Mantua immediately after the subsidence of the recent influenza epidemic, and to which the people of that city gave the name of 'La nonna'—AiigUce^ 'Falling asleep'—have occurred in the Comitat of Pressburg. Persons suffering from this complaint fall into a death-like trance, lasting about four days, out of which the patient wakes in a state of intense exhaustion. Recovery is very slow, but, so far, no fatal case has been reported. A correspondent writing to the English Mechanic September 13, 1895, says :—I know one lady who has been three times prepared for burial, and very narrowly escaped it on the first occasion. The author wrote to the writer for further details, and received a reply, dated September 19, 1895, froni which it appears that the lady had married into a political family of considerable note, who would not care to have her identity disclosed. My correspondent says :— I know that she lay several days in a state not to be distinguished from death ; that she was in her coffin, and, I believe, showed signs of life just as the coffin was about to be closed. On two subsequent occasions she passed into similar trances ; but though believed to be dead, and treated as such, the previous