This patient, it is recorded, was doing well and seemed to be in a
fair way of ultimate recovery, but fell a victim to the quackeries
of medical experiment. The galvanic battery was applied, and he
suddenly expired in one of those ecstatic paroxysms which,
occasionally, it superinduces.
The mention of the galvanic battery, nevertheless, 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 resolved to disinter the body and dissect it
at leisure, in private.
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