# Help

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help/23449>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 25, 2000, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help/23449 "2000-06-25T05:48:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help/23449/1 "2000-06-25T05:48:53Z")

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I don’t have money to send the SD staff, so I’m forced to turn to you for my answers. The exchange was like this:

> [@](#):
>
> ME  
> Cecil, I’ve looked around and I can’t find the answer to this question! I  
> just listened t Edgar Alan Poe’s ‘Premature Burial’. I’m wondering if the  
> disease they mention (catalepsy, or something like that) is a real problem or  
> if Poe invented it for his story.If it is real, then what causes the trances  
> etc.?
> 
> Please enlighten me!
> 
> SD  
> There are any number of diseases that cause a coma or trance-like state. They  
> are quite real. And throughout history (going back to ancient Rome), there  
> are people who have feared being buried alive. There are records of ancient  
> Romans whose will stipulates that they should be decapitated before burial,  
> to be sure they were dead.
> 
> Poe played on a real (if somewhat morbid) fear. And, of course, turned it  
> into a joke.
> 
> ME  
> This is a follow up question to the one I previously asked. Actually, I  
> have two: First, have they ever actually found a person they can prove was  
> buried alive, then suffocate (or however you die when buried alive)?  
> Second, when did the medical tests improve enough to detect if someone was  
> really dead or just comatose? Also, what test(s?) are used in situations  
> like this? Oops, I guess that’s 3…

I was jsut wondering if any of you can answer my three questions? Sorry for such a long post.

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**Author:** ![matt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@matt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help/23449/2 "2000-06-25T10:16:56Z")

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I don’t have answers, but you may find this link interesting:

[http://www.calacademy.org/calwild/archives/sum98/eye.htm](http://www.calacademy.org/calwild/archives/sum98/eye.htm)

a quote from the article:

“Several cases in which victims of fugu intoxication were erroneously declared dead by competent physicians have been described in the Japanese medical literature, one as recently as 1983. Halstead, in his book, Poisonous and Venomous Marine Animals of the World, describes the case of a fugu victim who revived several days after his poisoning, just as he was about to be placed into a crematorium. He had been conscious throughout the ordeal.”