Today’s Gruesome Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
German medical practitioner Michael Benedict Lessing told a gruesome story of a woman who was buried alive in the early 1800’s. A young Swedish girl, the only daughter of a wealthy ironmaster, had died in a state of advanced pregnancy and was buried in the local churchyard. In the evening, the verger heard pitiful groans from the grave he had filled with earth a few hours earlier. Coming closer, he thought he could discern the words “God! Jesus! Mercy!” He was a highly superstitious man and fearful of ghosts; not daring tho examine the grave any further, he ran home to his cottage and pulled the bedsheets over his head. The girl was left alone in her dark coffin underground. It was not until the next day that the verger told the rector about the ghost he had heard. The clergyman was of course aghast at this belated discovery, reproached the superstitious menial for his tardiness in reporting it, and ordered the coffin to be speedily exhumed. As the coffin was opened, every person present gave a shriek of horror on seeing that the girl had given birth to a child in her coffin! Dr. Lessing cannot be accused of squeamishness, for he described every detail of the gruesome scene: the confused awakening in the narrow house underground, the pain and horror of the unnatural childbirth, and the girl’s final torture in the unyielding coffin, writhing in blood and excrements.
Culled from: Buried Alive
This might be the most chilling Morbid Fact I’ve ever posted. Possibly. There’s so much competition though…
Bill of Mortality Du Jour!
Bills of mortality were the weekly mortality statistics in London, designed to monitor burials from 1592 to 1595 and then continuously from 1603 until they eventually stopped production in the mid-19th century Wellcome Images has a few copies of the bills available for download on their site, so I naturally had to go and download them. And, as predicted, they’re fascinating.
Here’s the Bill of Mortality from August 15-22, 1665. Lots of plague deaths this month.
