An address to the public [on premature death and interment] / [William Hawes].

  • Hawes, William, 1736-1808
Date:
[1778?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An address to the public [on premature death and interment] / [William Hawes]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The fame methods may alfo be ufed with pro** priety in the fmall pox, when the pudules fink, and oeath apparently eniues; and hkewife in any other acute difeaies, when the vital functions are fufpended from a fimilar caufe. Even in old age, when life fee ms to have been gradually drawing to a clofe, the appearances of death are often fallacious. “ Not many years fince, a lady in Cornwall, more than eighty years of age, who had been a considerable time declining, took to her bed, and, in a few days, leemingly expired in the morning. .As fhe had often defired not to be buried till fhe had been two days dead, her re- queft was to have been regularly complied with by her relations. All that faw her looked upon her as dead, and the report was current through the whole place ; nay, a gentleman of the town actually wrote to his friend in the ifland of Scilly, that 1he was deceafed. But one of thofe who were paaying the I a it kind office of humanity to her remains, perceived fame warmth about the middle of the back, and acquainting her friends with it, they applied a mirrour to her mouth ; but lifter repeated trials, could not obferve it in the leak gained; her under jaw was like wife fallen, as the common phrafe is, and, in fhort, fhe had every appearance of a dead perfon. All this time fhe had not been dripped or drefled, buc the windows were opened, as is ufual in the chambers of the deceafed. In the evening the heat feemed to increafe, and at length fhe was perceived to breathe.” See Lond. Chron. <vol. 4> /• 4^5* It was the intention of the writer to publifh a work upon this fubjedt, but as his various avoca¬ tions