Scotia on the Right to Die and Cheltenham

Good morning all and hope you are well, even after reading my subject matter?


I have touched on this before and would like to revisit the options on assisted suicide.Right to die Guide lines

We arrive on this planet as babies, helpless and need to be fed, changed and taught to start our life, short or long?
The problem is that many leave the planet the same way, unable to control the brain or body functions.

The pressure that can put on loved ones can be horrific and given the choice I am sure most would like to leave in a dignified manner, so your last holiday to Switzerland appears a good idea.

Taking things one step further, we all know we are going to die, so the plan is to do as much as possible before we go and when we are still capable.

Now the planning is not easy but essential, so this leads to a lengthy discussion I have had with Mrs S over the last month.

It is obvious when you consider whether you need the roof done or the house painted versus a trip to Cheltenham by using the principles of a bucket list of "things to do before I die" its a no brainer?

So I find that the stamp collection is with the bookie, the funeral has been downgraded and that I will find myself in the Betfair Marquee with Molly and Les for the Gold Cup on Friday the 19th of March.


D.I.Y coffins for Scotia


Its a flying visit but for me essential, it does not end there as Mrs S also has a list, so it looks like Bruges for the bloody xmas market.

As far as horses we have some good local racing over the next couple of weeks but for the sake of my stamp collection being returned and a free holiday my Cheltenham daily ATC has been placed.

Tuesday the 16th "Dunguib" 9/10 to win the Supreme Novice
Wednesday the 17th "Master Minded" 9/10 to win the Champion Chase
Thursday the 18th "Big Bucks" 7/10 to win the World Hurdle
Friday the 19th "Kauto Star" 7/10 to win the Gold Cup.


Kauto to bring home the cash

Other considerations should be Captain Cee Bee 33/10 and Sizing Europe 13/2 to fight out the Arkle
Go Native at 7/2 to win the Champion Hurdle
The bumper ? could be Shot from the Hip 10/1 and Drumbaloo 10/1 to come to the fore
RSA Chase should be a cracker Long Run 5/2, Punchestowns 4/1 and Diamond Harry 8/1

Molly will be giving you a morning update from the track.

Good punting and may your God be with you, and can only hope he does not read the forum?

scotia -D

Good luck at Cheltenham,looking forward to meeting you in real life next week..

I will be the one in the box ()

hibernia Wrote:

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> Good luck at Cheltenham,looking forward to meeting
> you in real life next week..


and here I am thinking that the pair of you were joined at the hip

Bob try and get a hold of C and C (tu) we can go see a Hearts/Hibs game?

The horrific tale of Lawrence Cawthorn, a butcher from Newgate Market in London, was published in a pamphlet called The Most Lamentable And Deplorable Accident, in 1661.

It was just one of many stories about premature burial avidly read by the public at the time.

Cawthorn had fallen ill sometime that year. In the 17th century, little more than the apparent absence of a heartbeat or breath were considered to constitute proof of death - and few were seen by a doctor in their final illness.

It was often left to lay people to pronounce someone deceased. And, as it happened, Lawrence's wicked landlady - eager to inherit his belongings - saw to it that he was hastily declared dead and then buried.

But at the chapel where Cawthorn was interred mourners were horrified by a muffled shriek from the tomb and a frenzied clawing at the coffin walls.

Although it was quickly dug up, it was too late. Cawthorn's lifeless body was a horrid sight: the shroud was torn to pieces, the eyes hideously swollen and the head battered and bleeding. The story concluded: 'Among all the torments that Mankind is capable of, the most dreadful of them is to be buried alive.'

Even more sinister was the story, published in 1674, of Madam Blunden from Basingstoke, described as 'a fat, gross woman who liked to drink brandy'.

Feeling ill one evening, she ordered some poppy water from her local apothecary. After drinking it she fell into a death-like stupor. When the apothecary was called, he claimed Blunden had overdosed on the poppy water.

Her husband William, a wealthy malt dealer, arranged her funeral, but two days after the burial, some schoolboys playing in the churchyard claimed they heard 'fearful groanings and dismal shriekings' from the grave. Terrified, they went to get their schoolmaster.

She was exhumed and appeared to be dead, although her body had fresh bruises and scratches - injuries that were thought to be self-inflicted as she had tried to escape.
leichenhaus

By the late 1700, paranoia about premature burial had reached such a peak that many doctors thought the only reliable sign of death was decomposition

Just to be on the safe side, after the body was wrapped in a new burial sheet the church warden suggested the grave be left open overnight, watched by some custodians. But it rained and the custodians closed the coffin and sought shelter.

The next morning, when the lid was opened, to everyone's horror it was seen that Madam Blunden had revived for a while, tearing off her winding sheet, and scratching her face and mouth until she drew blood.

Although we cannot know for sure how many people, like Cawthorn and Madam Blunden, have been buried alive it's no surprise that premature burial was something of an obsession for people in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

But such extraordinary episodes are not confined to the distant past. Only last month a 76-year-old Polish beekeeper named Josef Guzy - certified dead after a heart attack - narrowly escaped being buried alive when an undertaker noticed a faint pulse as he prepared to seal his coffin. Just weeks later, Mr Guzy was back tending his bees.

While modern advances in medical expertise have largely eradicated that kind of mistake, three centuries ago, such was the threat from diseases like bubonic plague and cholera that hasty interrment was the norm.

Ascertaining death was an inexact science. Aside from the basic check for a heartbeat and breath, in the 18th century additional tests included whipping the corpse's skin with nettles, bellowing in the ear and sticking needles under the toenails.

There were still many tales of near escapes. One from Dole in France, published in the 1700s, was confirmed by a professor of medicine in Besancon.

A troop of soldiers had been allowed to make camp in a churchyard. While some of them were strolling among the graves, they heard a faint cry coming from one of the vaults.

These soldiers broke down the vault door and rescueda young servant girl who had been interred a few hours earlier.

The girl had been gravely ill for some time and her mistress - too mean to call a doctor - had presumed her dead.

By the late 1700, paranoia about premature burial had reached such a peak that many doctors in Europe subscribed to the idea that the only reliable sign of death was putrefaction (decomposition).

In Germany, >Leichenhauser, 'hospitals for the dead' became widespread and were still in use in the 1950s. These heated mortuaries were designed to hold corpses until it was obvious they had started to rot.

Some Leichenhauser were filled with fragrant plants to try to mask the smell. All were staffed with watchmen who had to supervise the bodies for signs of life.

By the 1790s, another way of safeguarding against the dreaded premature burial was gaining popularity: the security coffin, designed to allow anyone who woke to find they had been prematurely interred to attract attention or escape.

One type was fitted with a tube rather like a ship's speaking trumpet. The idea was that local parson could take a stroll through the churchyard every morning and have a quick sniff down the tube to see if the putrefaction of the body was sufficiently well advanced to permit the tube to be withdrawn. If there was a lack of odour, the coffin should be opened after a few days.

In the second half of the 19th century, the obsession with security coffins continued and their design became more advanced. Alarm bells were replaced with firecrackers, sirens and even rockets which could be set off from inside the coffin.

Britons who wanted to guard against being buried alive in the 19th century could order coffins equipped with the Bateson Life Revival Device, an iron bell mounted in a miniature belltower on the lid of the casket, the bell rope attached to the hands of the body through a hole in the coffin lid.

Bateson's Belfry was patented in 1852 - and quite a few were sold. George Bateson was even awarded a medal by Queen Victoria for his services to the dead.

Today we know much more about physiology than the 19th century inventors did. A person enclosed in a normal-sized airtight coffin would perish within 60 minutes because of lack of oxygen - so any coffin that lacked a fresh air supply would be pretty useless no matter how many bells or sirens it was fitted with.

We also know that the putrefactive changes to a corpse are accompanied by swelling of the abdomen and some contractures of the arms and legs.

This process no doubt set off many of the coffins' alarm mechanisms - leading to many panicked scenes in cemeteries as ringing bells, waving flags and rocket explosions were hastily investigated.

Thanks to a slew of alarmist pamphlets that were being circulated in the 19th century (some which falsely claimed that more than one tenth of humanity was buried alive) the danger of premature burial had become one of the most feared perils of everyday life.

Many upper-class English people left legacies to their family physicians to protect themselves against this gruesome fate. Francis Douce, an antiquarian, gave 200 guineas to his surgeon to see that his heart was taken out after his death.

Lady Dryden of Northamptonshire, left an eminent physician £50 to slit her throat before burial; Mrs Elizabeth Thomas of Islington asked for her physician to pierce her heart with a long metal pin while the writer Harriet Martineau left her doctor ten guineas to see that her head was amputated.

Probably the most remarkable 20th-century incidence is that of Angelo Hays, from the village of St Quentin de Chalais in France. In 1937, when he was 19 years old, he was thrown from his motorcycle and hit a brick wall head first. Angelo Hays was declared dead and three days after the accident was buried.

But in nearby Bordeaux, an insurance firm found that Hay's father had recently insured his son's life for 200,000 francs. An inspector was called to investigate - and demanded to have the body exhumed two days after burial to confirm the exact cause of death.

When the doctor in charge of the autopsy removed the shroud, Hays was found to be warm. He was taken to hospital - and after several operations and a long period of rehabilitation recovered completely. His head injury had caused him to slip into deep unconciousness.

In 1995, 61-year-old Cambridgeshire farmer's wife Daphne Banks was certified dead by her family doctor after taking a drugs overdose on New Year's Eve. Three hours later, the undertaker loading her into a refrigerated drawer saw a vein twitch and heard her snore. Mrs Banks survived.

And it can still happen - as we saw with Josef Guzy a few weeks ago.

Magic C and C lets forget about the game, have more pressing arrangements.

thats why when i turn my toes i am going to be burnt to smithereens thus there wil be no coming back, but just in case some smart arse decides to have me buried I am demanding to have a telephone installed in the coffin as well as a lighter and a candle some canned food with an opener and most importantly an air pipe. If the phone dont work then as a back up I am having a bell pull with the bell on the ground above the grave.

A salesman drove into a small town where a circus was in progress.
A sign read: 'Don't Miss Derek The Amazing Scotsman'. The salesman bought a ticket and sat down.
There, on centre stage, was a table with three walnuts on it.
Standing next to it was an old Scotsman.
Suddenly the old man lifted his kilt, whipped out a huge willy and smashed all three walnuts with three mighty swings!
The crowd erupted in applause as the elderly Scot was carried off on the shoulders of the crowd.

Ten years later the salesman visited the same little town and saw a faded sign for the same circus and
the same sign 'Don't Miss Derek The Amazing Scotsman'.
He couldn’t believe the old guy was still alive, much less still doing his act!
He bought a ticket. Again, the centre ring was illuminated.

This time, however, instead of walnuts, three coconuts were placed on the table.
The Scotsman stood before them, then suddenly lifted his kilt and shattered the coconuts with three swings of his amazing member.
The crowd went wild!
Flabbergasted, the salesman requested a meeting with him after the show.

'You're incredible!' he told the Scotsman. 'But I have to know
something. You're older now, why switch from walnuts to coconuts?'

'Well laddie,' said the Scot, 'Ma eyes are nae whit they used tae be.'