Buried Alive by Jan Bondeson, W. W. Norton, 拢21.95, ISBN 039304906X
OH, DEATH, where is thy sting-a-ling? Oh, grave, thy victory? Death鈥檚 sting
is a certainty, but do we sometimes misjudge its timing? Could you end up in
your coffin before you鈥檙e dead?
Our fascination with premature burial stretches back thousands of years, and
remains as gripping as ever. Edgar Allan Poe鈥檚 macabre tale of Madeline Usher,
placed in her tomb alive, summoned up a terror that still resonates 160 years
later. But is it an unfounded fear? Are we just 鈥渙verpowered by an intense
sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable鈥�, as Poe writes? Or could
these nightmares be rooted in fact?
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Yes, says Jan Bondeson, a professor at the University of Wales College of
Medicine, in his enthralling Buried Alive. People have always had
problems determining when someone has died. Bondeson鈥檚 tale weaves its way from
accounts in the earliest novels of Greece and Rome to modern methods for
declaring someone dead.
Bondeson shows how the fear that many feel, often to the point of obsession,
means that any incident or rumour that someone has been buried alive acts like a
match to tinder. Hundreds of cases suddenly appear. Campaigners against
premature burial shrill their way through the book鈥檚 pages, heaping horror on
horror. Whole industries arise to exploit the panic: chapels of waiting,
escapable coffins and devices that let you ring a bell from within the
grave.
The author鈥檚 measured consideration of notorious cases where doctors were
jailed for incompetence or relatives accused of attempted murder shows how easy
it was to make mistakes. You鈥檒l need a strong stomach for the corpse so bloated
with post-mortem gases that it shatters its coffin when it bursts.
Bondeson ponders the long rituals before burial and reckons many a life has
been saved by them. In a coma or during an epileptic fit, 鈥渄ead鈥� drunk or
unconscious, you could be wrongly hastened into a coffin.
And he has a warning for modern times: don鈥檛 take central-nervous-system
depressants and pass out in the cold. It鈥檚 very confusing for doctors, and
horribly shocking for mortuary attendants. This is definitely a must-read
book.