The German waiting mortuaries, or Leichenhauser, had a remarkably long run -- most had alarm systems in place through the 1890s, and two in Alsace still had electrical alarms in the 1940s (a push switch was thoughtfully placed in the hands of the corpses when they arrived). Eventually, however, these bizarre, foul-smelling establishments (great floral displays were used to mask the odor of putrefying bodies) went the way of the dodo -- their decline hastened by their expense, by fear of the supposed health hazards resulting from the "mephitic fumes" rising from the corpses and, no doubt, by the inconvenient fact that no reliable report of a corpse coming back to life was ever recorded in any of them.

A simpler solution was the "security coffin" -- a conveyance that would allow the stiff awakening from his dirt nap to stay alive and signal for help. The first such coffin was built for Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick in 1792. It contained a window, an air hole and a lid that could be unlocked. Such a device was too expensive for most people, however, so various cheaper alternatives were suggested. One German parson advocated that all coffins should have hollow tubes connected to them, into which would be placed a rope leading to the church bell. Should a corpse wake up, he would merely pull on the rope, ringing the bell. (Bondeson points out that "the parson's plan did not take into account either the weight of the bell or the feebleness of the poor wretch in the narrow box underneath." This lapse, alas, is not unique to the optimistic parson: Time and again in Bondeson's tale one encounters dubious tales of people who, after being buried alive for hours, days or even weeks, immediately engage in robust and even Olympian physical feats. These Herculean achievements are rendered suspect not only by the decrepitude and weakness customarily associated with people who have been ill enough to have been thought dead, but by the fact that a person buried in an airtight coffin would suffocate after about an hour.)

To rectify this impracticality, another parson (being on the front lines, as it were, parsons were evidently much occupied with the subject) suggested that coffins should be fitted with a speaking tube communicating with the open air. "The local parson should take a stroll through the churchyard every morning and stop by each recent grave to ascertain, through the sense of smell, whether the putrefaction of the body was sufficiently well established to permit the tube to be withdrawn." The tube would also, of course, allow the corpse to yell for help. A similar design made provisions for food and drink to be served through the speaking tube, so that the awakened victim could enjoy a reviving meal while being exhumed. The inventor of this coffin, one Herr Gutsmuth, actually tested his coffin by having himself buried in it twice; on the second occasion, he dined on a clichéd German meal of soup, beer and sausages, after which he delivered a philanthropic speech to the assembled spectators standing above his grave.

But these modest proposals were mere Volkswagens compared to the Mercedes-like heights of luxury offered by some security coffins. Not surprisingly, go-go Americans led the way in opulent security coffin design: Some Yankee designs featured not only flags, bells and lights as signaling devices, but telephones and heaters, as well as supplies of food and wine.

Unfortunately, as Bondeson points out, these admirable contraptions had several fatal design flaws. One problem was the signaling device, which had to be attached to the body in some fashion. Putrefying corpses bloat due to abdominal gas, and the arms and legs also contract; these physiological changes would have set off the alarms. (The movement of the corpse's extremities also explains a phenomenon cited in numerous bloodcurdling accounts of supposed cases of premature burial, which relate in hideous tones how the corpse was found in an attitude of desperate struggle.)

An even bigger problem, in terms of selling them to potential customers, was their excessive reliance on eternally vigilant pastors and sextons. To have real confidence that the security coffin would work, the terrified prospective buyer would have to have confidence that those village worthies really would constantly stroll about the graveyards, listening for ringing bells, watching for waving flags and stopping every few minutes to inhale a copious draught of putrescent gas from a speaking tube. Just one unauthorized break for sausages and beer could lead to an agonizing, worm-eaten death in the bowels of the earth. And what if the mechanism jammed?

Not surprisingly, the security coffin never really caught on. Many fearful upper-class people, especially in England, instead left explicit instructions with their doctors that their corpses be poked, prodded and pierced in various ways to ensure that they were really dead. These techniques included removing the heart, cutting the throat, piercing the heart with a long pin, having all the fingers and toes amputated, and cutting the jugular vein. Taking no chances, the writer Harriet Martineau left her doctor 10 guineas to cut off her head.

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"