1 00:00:01,840 --> 00:00:07,920 Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Blauren 2 00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:12,799 Speaker 1: Vogelbaum here. When George Washington was on his deathbed in 3 00:00:12,800 --> 00:00:17,040 Speaker 1: seventeen ninety nine, he signaled for his secretary and whispered hoarsely, 4 00:00:17,720 --> 00:00:21,159 Speaker 1: I am just going have me decently buried, and do 5 00:00:21,239 --> 00:00:23,239 Speaker 1: not let my body be put into the vault in 6 00:00:23,320 --> 00:00:29,000 Speaker 1: less than three days after I'm dead. Those were Washington's 7 00:00:29,040 --> 00:00:32,600 Speaker 1: final words. Careful instructions from a man who wasn't afraid 8 00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:35,920 Speaker 1: of death itself, but like many people of his time 9 00:00:35,960 --> 00:00:41,680 Speaker 1: and place, was deathly afraid of being buried alive. In 10 00:00:41,920 --> 00:00:45,280 Speaker 1: Washington's day and throughout the eighteen hundreds, the specter of 11 00:00:45,400 --> 00:00:49,720 Speaker 1: premature burial felt very real. Medical science as we know 12 00:00:49,800 --> 00:00:53,120 Speaker 1: it was in its infancy, and death could strike from anywhere, 13 00:00:53,400 --> 00:00:57,720 Speaker 1: common illnesses, infected wounds, or fast spreading outbreaks of smallpox. 14 00:00:58,600 --> 00:01:01,680 Speaker 1: With so much death happening and so few scientific tools, 15 00:01:01,960 --> 00:01:05,399 Speaker 1: even primitive stethoscopes weren't around until the eighteen twenties, it 16 00:01:05,520 --> 00:01:08,840 Speaker 1: went unquestioned that a few people were being buried while 17 00:01:09,120 --> 00:01:14,120 Speaker 1: not quite dead. The acute fear of being buried alive 18 00:01:14,480 --> 00:01:18,640 Speaker 1: dubbed tapaphobia, with Taffa, being Greek for burial, was part 19 00:01:18,680 --> 00:01:21,400 Speaker 1: of a larger obsession with death that gripped Europe and 20 00:01:21,440 --> 00:01:25,600 Speaker 1: North America in the nineteenth century. One of the wildest 21 00:01:25,600 --> 00:01:29,240 Speaker 1: ways that tafaphobia manifested was through the invention of safety 22 00:01:29,280 --> 00:01:34,280 Speaker 1: coffins or security coffins, basically tricked out caskets that provided 23 00:01:34,319 --> 00:01:37,319 Speaker 1: a way for prematurely buried people to escape from six 24 00:01:37,400 --> 00:01:42,080 Speaker 1: feet under. The first patents for safety coffins started appearing 25 00:01:42,160 --> 00:01:45,920 Speaker 1: in the seventeen nineties in Central Europe. That timing lines 26 00:01:46,040 --> 00:01:50,440 Speaker 1: up with when European intellectuals were swept up by German romanticism. 27 00:01:51,040 --> 00:01:54,400 Speaker 1: Romanticism was a response to the cold logic and reason 28 00:01:54,480 --> 00:01:59,440 Speaker 1: emphasized by the Enlightenment. Instead, romantic writers and philosophers sought 29 00:01:59,480 --> 00:02:02,840 Speaker 1: after true truth and art, emotion and instinct, with a 30 00:02:02,880 --> 00:02:06,880 Speaker 1: frequent focus on the natural and the supernatural, and in 31 00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:11,000 Speaker 1: areas in between. For the article, this episode is based 32 00:02:11,040 --> 00:02:14,120 Speaker 1: on How Stuff Works. Spoke with Adam Bisnow, an historian 33 00:02:14,200 --> 00:02:17,520 Speaker 1: at the US Patent and Trademark Office. He explained that 34 00:02:17,600 --> 00:02:22,360 Speaker 1: Romanticism looked into quote the unseen and unknown, the gray 35 00:02:22,400 --> 00:02:25,880 Speaker 1: areas in our experience, like the gray area between life 36 00:02:25,880 --> 00:02:31,480 Speaker 1: and death. A. Mary Shelley published Frankenstein or the Modern 37 00:02:31,520 --> 00:02:35,359 Speaker 1: Prometheus in eighteen eighteen, a novel that captured the airs 38 00:02:35,400 --> 00:02:39,480 Speaker 1: fixation on that blurry line between life and death. By 39 00:02:39,520 --> 00:02:42,920 Speaker 1: the mid eighteen hundreds, seances and psychics offered ways for 40 00:02:42,960 --> 00:02:45,840 Speaker 1: the living to communicate with the dead, who seemed to 41 00:02:45,880 --> 00:02:49,880 Speaker 1: exist on a spiritual plane just beyond our own. A 42 00:02:49,919 --> 00:02:53,840 Speaker 1: business said people were asking, are the dead really gone? 43 00:02:54,120 --> 00:02:56,839 Speaker 1: Are they still here with us? The fear of live 44 00:02:56,960 --> 00:03:01,359 Speaker 1: burial really tapped into that fascination. It's a figure underground 45 00:03:01,360 --> 00:03:04,120 Speaker 1: who was with us and not with us, alive and 46 00:03:04,200 --> 00:03:10,680 Speaker 1: not alive, a dead and somehow not dead. Bisino estimates 47 00:03:10,720 --> 00:03:13,560 Speaker 1: that more than one hundred security coffin patents were granted 48 00:03:13,560 --> 00:03:15,880 Speaker 1: in America by the Patent and Trademark Office during the 49 00:03:15,880 --> 00:03:19,639 Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, with each design offering more bells and whistles 50 00:03:19,680 --> 00:03:23,120 Speaker 1: than the last. Literally many of the designs used noise 51 00:03:23,120 --> 00:03:25,480 Speaker 1: makers like these to allow a person trapped in the 52 00:03:25,480 --> 00:03:30,799 Speaker 1: coffin to alert someone above ground. One of the earliest 53 00:03:30,840 --> 00:03:34,080 Speaker 1: American patents for a life preserving coffin was filed in 54 00:03:34,120 --> 00:03:38,280 Speaker 1: eighteen forty three by one Christian H. Eisenbrandt of Baltimore, Maryland. 55 00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:41,800 Speaker 1: The coffin had a spring loaded lid which would snap 56 00:03:41,840 --> 00:03:44,600 Speaker 1: open at the slightest motion of either the head or 57 00:03:44,640 --> 00:03:48,000 Speaker 1: the hand. Since that wouldn't do much good if the 58 00:03:48,040 --> 00:03:51,920 Speaker 1: coffin were six feet underground, Eisenbrandt suggested leaving the coffin 59 00:03:51,960 --> 00:03:53,840 Speaker 1: in an above ground fault, with a key to the 60 00:03:53,920 --> 00:03:56,720 Speaker 1: vault door left inside, so that should the person not 61 00:03:56,840 --> 00:04:02,960 Speaker 1: really be dead, life may be preserved. Historians found advertisements 62 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:05,920 Speaker 1: for Eisenbrandts Jack in the Box coffin dating from eighteen 63 00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:10,080 Speaker 1: forty four, playing up the popular but unfounded belief in 64 00:04:10,120 --> 00:04:14,440 Speaker 1: the frequency and danger of premature internment and the necessity 65 00:04:14,520 --> 00:04:17,680 Speaker 1: of such a device. We don't know how many were 66 00:04:17,680 --> 00:04:20,720 Speaker 1: actually made, but sales might have been helped by Edgar 67 00:04:20,760 --> 00:04:24,320 Speaker 1: Allan Poe, who published his harrowing short story The Premature 68 00:04:24,360 --> 00:04:29,120 Speaker 1: Burial in the same year. In the story, Poe wrote, 69 00:04:29,360 --> 00:04:32,640 Speaker 1: to be buried while alive is beyond question the most 70 00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:35,680 Speaker 1: terrific of these extremes, which has ever fallen to the 71 00:04:35,760 --> 00:04:40,240 Speaker 1: lot of mere mortality, that it has frequently, very frequently 72 00:04:40,400 --> 00:04:43,719 Speaker 1: so fallen, will scarcely be denied by those who think 73 00:04:44,920 --> 00:04:48,119 Speaker 1: the boundaries which divide life from death are at best 74 00:04:48,160 --> 00:04:52,000 Speaker 1: shadowy and vague. Who shall say where one ends and 75 00:04:52,080 --> 00:04:58,120 Speaker 1: where the other begins. In eighteen sixty eight, one Franz 76 00:04:58,200 --> 00:05:01,800 Speaker 1: Fester of Newark, New Jersey, the patent for his improved 77 00:05:01,839 --> 00:05:05,240 Speaker 1: burial case, which featured a narrow tube with a ladder 78 00:05:05,360 --> 00:05:09,479 Speaker 1: that allowed a reanimated person to climb to safety. If 79 00:05:09,520 --> 00:05:12,280 Speaker 1: the buried individual was too weak to escape on their own, 80 00:05:12,520 --> 00:05:14,880 Speaker 1: they could also pull a rope inside the coffin that 81 00:05:14,960 --> 00:05:18,520 Speaker 1: rang a bell above ground to alert the living. A 82 00:05:18,600 --> 00:05:22,440 Speaker 1: Vester gave demonstrations of his coffin. In eighteen sixty eight. 83 00:05:22,560 --> 00:05:25,520 Speaker 1: A reporter for The New York Times chronicled one such demo, 84 00:05:26,080 --> 00:05:28,839 Speaker 1: during which Vester was buried under four feet of dirt 85 00:05:28,880 --> 00:05:31,760 Speaker 1: and emerged an hour later out of his living grave, 86 00:05:32,080 --> 00:05:37,120 Speaker 1: to the applause and congratulations of the crowd. But the 87 00:05:37,200 --> 00:05:40,839 Speaker 1: undisputed showman of nineteenth century security coffins was a man 88 00:05:40,920 --> 00:05:44,880 Speaker 1: known as Count Michele de Carnice. Carnegie, described as a 89 00:05:45,080 --> 00:05:47,760 Speaker 1: chamberlain to the Tsar of Russia who toured Europe and 90 00:05:47,800 --> 00:05:51,719 Speaker 1: the United States demonstrating a remarkable coffin contraption that he 91 00:05:51,800 --> 00:05:56,839 Speaker 1: called Lee Carnice. In eighteen ninety nine, The Chicago Tribune 92 00:05:56,920 --> 00:05:59,240 Speaker 1: reported on a meeting of the Academy of Medicine in 93 00:05:59,240 --> 00:06:02,760 Speaker 1: New York City, where one physician startled his fellow members 94 00:06:02,800 --> 00:06:05,680 Speaker 1: with the ascertation that one out of every two hundred 95 00:06:05,720 --> 00:06:08,799 Speaker 1: people buried in the US was actually in a lethargic 96 00:06:08,880 --> 00:06:14,200 Speaker 1: state and is buried alive. That questionable claim served as 97 00:06:14,200 --> 00:06:17,760 Speaker 1: an introduction to the Count, who then demonstrated his device. 98 00:06:18,760 --> 00:06:22,160 Speaker 1: It improved on other security coffins by triggering a series 99 00:06:22,200 --> 00:06:24,840 Speaker 1: of alarms and alerts with any movement of the body. 100 00:06:25,560 --> 00:06:27,760 Speaker 1: There was a bell that rang and a shiny ball 101 00:06:27,800 --> 00:06:31,240 Speaker 1: that lifted into the air. While waiting for help to arrive, 102 00:06:31,360 --> 00:06:36,200 Speaker 1: the trapped individual could breathe and speak through a special tube. 103 00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:40,080 Speaker 1: One design flaw of such safety coffins is the morbid 104 00:06:40,160 --> 00:06:44,120 Speaker 1: fact that dead bodies do indeed move, though just not voluntarily. 105 00:06:44,880 --> 00:06:47,960 Speaker 1: During the process of decomposition, a corpse can shift and 106 00:06:48,160 --> 00:06:51,479 Speaker 1: even flip over, which would trigger a false alarm for 107 00:06:51,720 --> 00:06:57,120 Speaker 1: most security coffins, but nonetheless, to show its effectiveness, the 108 00:06:57,160 --> 00:07:01,200 Speaker 1: count would ask for volunteers to be buried alive. To 109 00:07:01,279 --> 00:07:04,680 Speaker 1: this day, the world record of the longest voluntary live 110 00:07:04,720 --> 00:07:08,280 Speaker 1: burial is held by an Italian man named Fropo Lorenzo, 111 00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:11,360 Speaker 1: who consented to be entombed in Lake Carnice for nine 112 00:07:11,440 --> 00:07:17,320 Speaker 1: days in eighteen ninety eight. And despite these entertaining demonstrations, 113 00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:21,560 Speaker 1: the count never put Lake Carnice into production. Busino said 114 00:07:22,160 --> 00:07:25,760 Speaker 1: people didn't buy it. Funeral directors weren't interested, and the 115 00:07:25,800 --> 00:07:29,400 Speaker 1: public wasn't interested either. In fact, none of these inventions 116 00:07:29,440 --> 00:07:34,280 Speaker 1: ever caught on. However, that's not to say that such 117 00:07:34,320 --> 00:07:39,520 Speaker 1: designs were never implemented. While not exactly a security coffin, 118 00:07:39,760 --> 00:07:43,080 Speaker 1: there is a grave with a window in New Haven, Connecticut. 119 00:07:43,760 --> 00:07:47,200 Speaker 1: One doctor Timothy Clarksmith, who died in eighteen ninety three, 120 00:07:47,720 --> 00:07:50,520 Speaker 1: was so afraid of being buried alive that he constructed 121 00:07:50,560 --> 00:07:53,760 Speaker 1: a large underground tomb where his body was laid out 122 00:07:53,800 --> 00:07:57,360 Speaker 1: next to a hammer and chisel. The window allowed cemetery 123 00:07:57,360 --> 00:08:00,200 Speaker 1: workers and passers by to check and see if that 124 00:08:00,400 --> 00:08:09,200 Speaker 1: had returned to life. No signs as of yet. Today's 125 00:08:09,240 --> 00:08:12,200 Speaker 1: episode is based on the article how safety coffins eased 126 00:08:12,240 --> 00:08:15,680 Speaker 1: grave fears of premature burial on HowStuffWorks dot com, written 127 00:08:15,720 --> 00:08:18,800 Speaker 1: by Dave Ruse. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in 128 00:08:18,880 --> 00:08:21,200 Speaker 1: partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced by 129 00:08:21,240 --> 00:08:24,560 Speaker 1: Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the 130 00:08:24,600 --> 00:08:27,640 Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your 131 00:08:27,640 --> 00:08:28,400 Speaker 1: favorite shows.