Case Four
The use of the galvanic battery, recalls to my memory a well-known and very extraordinary case in point where its action proved the means of restoring to animation a young attorney of London, who had been interred for two days. This occurred in 1831 and created at the time, a very profound sensation wherever it was made the subject of converse.
The patient, Mr Edward Stapleton had died apparently of typhus fever, accompanied with some anomalous symptoms which had excited the curiosity of his medical attendants. Upon his seeming decease, his friends were requested to sanction a post-mortem examination, but declined to permit it.
As often happens, when such refusals are made, the practitioners are resolved to disinter the body and dissect it at leisure, in private. Arrangements were easily effected with some of the numerous corps of body-snatchers with which London abounds and upon the third night after the funeral, the supposed corpse was unearthed from a grave eight feet deep and deposited in the operating chamber of one of the private hospitals.
An incision of some extent had been actually made in the abdomen, when the fresh and undecayed appearance of the subject suggested an application of the battery. One experiment succeeded another, and the customary effects supervened, with nothing to characterise them in any respect except upon one or two occasions, a more than ordinary degree of life-likeness in the convulsive action.
It was getting late. The day was about to dawn and it was thought expedient, at length to proceed at once to the dissection. A student however was especially desirous of testing a theory of his own and insisted upon applying the battery to one of the pectoral muscles. A rough gash was made and a wire was hastily brought in contact.
When suddenly the patient with a hurried, but quite unconvulsive movement arose from the table and stepped into the middle of the floor gazed about him uneasily for a few seconds.
He spoke. What he said was unintelligible but the words were uttered, the syllabification was distinct. After he uttered what was in his mind, he fell heavily to the floor.
For some moments all were paralysed with awe - but the urgency of the case soon had restored them to their presence of mind. It was seen that Mr Stapleton was alive, although in a swoon. Upon the usage of ether he was revived and was rapidly restored to health. To the society of his friends from whom, however all knowledge of his resuscitation was withheld, until a further relapse was no longer to be apprehended. Their wonder their rapturous astonishment - can be conceived.
The most thrilling peculiarity of this incident nevertheless, was involved in what Mr S. himself asserts. He declared that at no period was he altogether insensible that he was confused, he was aware of everything which happened to him, from the moment in which he was pronounced dead by his physicians, to that in which he fell swooning to the floor of the hospital.
"I am alive", were the uncomprehended words which, he uttered on recognising the locality of the dissecting-room.
