Life-preserving coffin, in doubtful cases of death

Advertisement for "life-preserving coffin" manufactured by Bobeth & Schulenberg, Baltimore, Md. Designed to be easily opened from the inside by living persons who are not yet dead: "...the inventor has so contrived an arrangement admitting of pure air, and with springs and levers on the inside, that the slightest motion of its inmate will be instantly communicated to the springs, which, freeing the coffin-lid, it flies open -- a circumstance which entirely relieves the confinement of the body, and thus removes all uneasiness of premature interment from the minds of anxious friends and relatives." It adds that the inventor recommends the life-preserving coffin be placed in a room or vault with a door that opens from the inside, or that it not be buried until decomposition takes place and death is certain. Includes story of a woman who awoke three days after being declared dead and would have benefited from such an apparatus. 1844.

Folder: MD3