I finished Mary Roach's Stiff a few weeks ago, but, whenever I think of the book, there's still one part that flashes vividly in my mind, sends shivers down my spine and makes me go 'eshhh, yuck." In this charming section, Roach describes, in detail, the methods doctors devised to ensure their patients weren't buried alive. Trust me, if you're into being grossed out in a highly informative way, Stiff is right up your alley (this cliché will have a whole new frame of refernce in about two paragraphs).
Apparently, the fear of live burial was common, and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century doctors came up with all sorts of disgusting, painful and, at time perverse, ways to assure the patient was "undeniably and verifiably dead," to quote the Munchkin Undertaker in the Wizard of Oz.
Among my favorites were: needles jammed under toenails; a red-hot poker up the rear end; nipple pincers; tobacco enemas; warm urine poured into the mouth; and rhythmic tongue pulling. If the fear of dying wasn't already great enough, I'd be petrified to know what my doctor was doing to my corpse. esshhh, yuck.
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