THE IRVING BISHOP CASE.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 301, 21 May 1889, Page 2

THE IRVING BISHOP CASE.

A LONDON SENSATION. THE DISSECTING MEDICO ARRESTED. London, May 18. The sensation has not yet abated over the case of the late Irving Bishop, the noted thought reader. The widow persists that the autopsy took place before death had actually resulted, the cataleptic fits being very deceptive. The medical gentleman who performed the operation has been arrested on the charge that he dissected the body against the will of the deceased's relations.

One writer on the above subject says :— Some doctors have looked with suspicion upon all alleged cases of catalepsy, almost to the extent of denying the existence of such a disease, but they must be put out of the controversy. The disease has been known since there have been men to observe and record phenomena, and there is little doubt that some of the well authenticated cases of Hindoo Fakirs being shut up in a sealed tomb, to all appearance dead, for periods of several weeks at a stretch, are but examples ot the malady, voluntarily brought on, for which the old Greeks found such an expressive name. The deceased man whose end has again brought the question of catalepsy to the front appears to have been afraid that he might some day be buried alive, and the provision in his will as to the treatment of his body after it was considered to be dead show* that his fear was a very enthralling one. And now comes his widow with a charge of murder against the doctors who dissected Irving Bishop, on the ground that he was out up while living ; and also with the further strange statement that the dissection was commenced before the friends af the now certainly deceased man could interfere. Till we get further particulars it is difficult to understand how this could have happened, but it seems certain that it did happen. The possibilities of what Irving Bishop may have suffered are too horrible to contemplate, for although the dissectors will probably maintain that their 11 subject" was certainly dead when operated upon, the supposed death and autopsy leave very great room for doubt as to whether Irving Bishop was not vivisected.