Being Buried Alive: The Fear that Swept 19th Century America
Being Buried Alive: The Fear that Swept 19th Century America
The line dividing life from death was not clearly defined in the 1800’s. In the rush to bury a corpse quickly, before contagious disease could spread, people who were comatose, catatonic, sedated, or just plain drunk were sometimes mistaken for dead. Factual and fictional accounts of unfortunate souls awakening in their coffin, combined with medical disagreements about how to test definitively for absence of life, created widespread panic and led to imaginative inventions for preventing premature burial. Presented by Margaret Opsata through the Delaware Humanities
- Date:
- Monday, April 8, 2024
- Time:
- 10:30am - 11:30am Eastern Time
- Location:
- Meeting Area Small
- Library:
- Elsmere Public Library
- Audience:
- Adults
- Categories:
- Arts and Crafts Community and Culture History and Genealogy