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

  • William Tebb
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

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 Col. Edward Perry Vollum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    59/466 (page 53)
    ! THE HUMAN DORMOUSE. 53 was inserted in her mouth, after the doctors had broken a tooth for the purpose. Dr. Charlier had attended her all the 20 years, and the first sign of dawning conscious- ness was in February, when her medical attendant had to open an abscess, and she started involuntarily. The day before her death, after a violent twitching of the limbs, she momentarily opened her eyes, flinched when the doctor pinched her, and subsequently asked after her grandfather who had been dead many years. She did not recognise her mother, and thought her cousin was her sister. The effort to speak and rouse herself seemed more than the enfeebled frame could bear, and she ceased to breathe at nine o’clock in the morning. A Long Sleep from Fright. Scieftce Siftings, ]ur).e 20, 1903, says:—Marie Daskalaki, a pretty girl of seventeen, is the object of a popular subscription of money to take her to Paris from Athens in the hope of getting her awakened from a sleep that has lasted for months. The history of the case is unique. The girl suffered from a chest affection, and being absol*utely destitute, was given a bed in the hospital, where, when near recovery, she was so frightened by seeing a woman dying in the next bed that she lost consciousness and has now been sleeping for five months and a half She has since been removed to her parents’ house, and awakes every five or six days, but falls to sleep again almost immediately. She scarcely eats anything, sleeps with her eyes open, and appears not to hear anything. She is, however, very sensible in her waking moments, but at the slightest sound falls back unconscious.