Dissertation sur l’incertitude des signes de la mort, et l’abus des enterremens

Paris: Morel, Prault, and Simon, 1742. Contemporary mottled calf (edges worn), spine and label gilt, edges sprinkled red, green silk marker. Contemporary inscriptions, pen trials, and calculations on the flyleaves and half-title, ownership inscriptions of Marie de Varrennes. In excellent condition
[Bound with :]

BRUHIER, Jacques-Jean

Memoire sur la nécessité d’un réglement général au sujet des enterremens. Paris : Morel, Prault, and Simon 1745.
8vo. 36 pp. First edition thus, a medical treatise on premature burials. Winslow asserts that the signs of death accepted by the medical community are unreliable and lead to the interrment of living people, and supplies several case studies of individuals who had been dissected, buried, and left in a morgue only to be revived. He claims that only the onset of putrefaction can adequately prove death and offers a number of tests to revive a person who appears dead : put horseradish under the nostrils, tickle with a feather, whip the body repeatedly, pour vinegar into the mouth, cut the feet with razors, shove pins under the toenails, and, as a last resort, shove a hot poker into the anus.

It was originally published in 1740 as a short dissertation in Latin ; it’s 29 pages are reproduced here in the frontmatter. The pamphlet caught the attention of Parisian physician Jacques-Jean Bruhier, who approached Winslow and offered to do a vernacular translation. He added a great deal of notes, case studies, and scholarly material. The success of his edition spurred additional translations as well as criticism across Europe. The second text offered here is Bruhier’s prospectus for a nationally-mandated checklist of death signs that must be completed before death can be pronounced.

Bondeson, Buried Alive 51-71.