Through a detailed and fascinating exploration of changing medical
knowledge and practice, this book provides a timeline of
humankind's understanding of physiological death. Anchored in Early
Modern Britain, it explains how evolving medical theories
challenged the ambiguous definition of death, instigating anxieties
over the newly realized potential for officials to mistake a
person's time of death. Fears of premature burials were
materialized as newspapers across Europe printed hundreds of
articles about people who had been misdiagnosed as dead and were
then buried-or nearly buried-alive. These stories have been tallied
within this text to present the first contemporary statistic of how
frequently misdiagnosed death led to premature burial during the
eighteenth century. The public consciousness of premature burial
manifested itself in many ways, including the necessity of having a
wake before a funeral and the creation of safety coffins. This book
also explores the folkloric phenomenon of the rising dead and the
stories that inspired a number of authors including Coleridge,
Byron and Stoker, who blended medical understanding with fiction to
create vampire literature.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
