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To be buried while alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of these
extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality. That it has
frequently, very frequently, so fallen will scarcely be denied by those
who think. The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best
shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other
begins? We know that there are diseases in which occur total cessations
of all the apparent functions of vitality, and yet in which these
cessations are merely suspensions, properly so called. They are only
temporary pauses in the incomprehensible mechanism. A certain period
elapses, and some unseen mysterious principle again sets in motion the
magic pinions and the wizard wheels. The silver cord was not for ever
loosed, nor the golden bowl irreparably broken. But where, meantime, was
the soul?
Apart, however, from the inevitable conclusion, a priori that such
causes must produce such effects----that the well-known occurrence of
such cases of suspended animation must naturally give rise, now and
then, to premature interments--apart from this consideration, we have
the direct testimony of medical and ordinary experience to prove that a
vast number of such interments have actually taken place. I might refer
at once, if necessary to a hundred well authenticated instances. One of
very remarkable character, and of which the circumstances may be fresh
in the memory of some of my readers, occurred, not very long ago, in the
neighboring city of Baltimore, where it occasioned a painful, intense,
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