Chapter IV

A certain man having undertaken a journey, in order to see his brother, on his arrival at his house, found him dead. This news affected him so much, that it brought on a most dreadful syncope, and he himself was supposed to be in the like situation. After the usual means had been employed to recal him to life, it was agreed that his body should be dissected, to discover the cause of so sudden a death; but the supposed dead person over-hearing this proposal, opened his eyes, started up, and immediately betook himself to his heels.

V.

Cardinal Espinola, prime minister to Philip II. was not so fortunate, for we read in the memoirs of Amelot de la Houssai, that he put his hand to the knife with which he was opened, in order to be embalmed. In short, almost every one knows, that Vesalius, the father of anatomy, having been sent for to open a woman, subject to hysterics, who was supposed to be dead, he perceived, on making the first incision, by her motions, and cries, that she was still alive; that this circumstance rendered him so odious, that he was obliged to fly, and that he was so much affected by it, that he died soon after.