If requirement is the mother of invention , death is its flakey aunt . For centuries , human race has been preoccupied with what happens to our bodies after we conk out . The result has been a unforgiving procession of inventions intended to make our Graf good , uncompromising , and in some cases , easy to take flight . Some of these sober innovations are pragmatic , but others border on the freaky and downright creepy . Here are seven of the strangest .
1. THE SAFETY COFFIN
Leave it to the Victorians to fearbeing buried alivemore than death itself . In the late nineteenth century , Quran and newspapers were full of stories of terrorise previous internments , although it ’s not unmortgaged how many actually come about . The solution to the peradventure - made - up problem was thesafety coffin , or coffin alarm . These devices — of which there were several — most often employed a chime or other randomness - wee-wee setup that could be wangle by a person trapped inside a buried casket toalertthose aboveground . Many also admit a hatch that would let fresh gentle wind into the coffin , permit the prematurely lay to rest victim to rest until rescue came . One of the morefamousof these devices was created by the Russian Count Michel de Karnice - Karnicki , and included a spring - loaded compartment atop the grave that would come out overt like a jack - in - the box if there were any bodily movement below .
2. THE ESCAPE COFFIN
A moreelaborate cousinof the safety equipment coffin , get away coffin were built for those prematurely declared dead who did n’t have the patience to wait for someone else to come to the deliverance . One such coffin , patent in 1843 and intended for exercise in vaults , had a spring - load palpebra that could be opened with the simple campaign of a head or hand . Another more extreme object lesson was the burial bank vault retired firefighter Thomas Pursell designed for himself and his category at acemetery in Westport , Pennsylvania . The ventilate hurdle could be open from the interior by a patented bicycle lock chamber . Pursell was indeed immerse there in 1937 , but so far he has not emerged .
3. THE WAITING MORTUARY
Thewaiting mortuary , a somewhat more practical approach to avoiding previous burial , was most democratic in Germany in the 19th century . Corpses were laid out inside these noble halls and monitored mean solar day and night for sign of revival or , more often than not , decomposition . Sometimes , strings bind to bells would be tied around fingers and toes — a predecessor to the casket dismay . When Mark Twain visited one in Munich in 1880 , hewrote :
4. CAST-IRON COFFINS
Inventor Almond D. Fisk was less concerned with premature burial than he was with delayed inhumation , such as when someone died overseas and send the body plate would take weeks . In 1848 , he patent hiscast - iron coffin , which could preserve soundbox for extended periods of time . Similar in shape to an Egyptian sarcophagus , theseornate coffinsalso included hinged faceplates , which could be opened to uncover the typeface of the deceased through a superman of spyglass .
5. REUSABLE COFFINS
Around 1784 , Austria ’s Emperor Joseph II rise so concerned about Vienna’sextravagant funerals(not to mention dwindling wood supplies and burying ground space ) that he instituted the usage of a reusable coffin . Thewooden coffincontained a trap door in the bottom through which cadaver , wrap in sack , would be discreetly dropped into their Robert Graves . The coffin could then be reused for other funerals , which wouldsave woodand hasten chemical decomposition reaction of Vienna ’s dead . The Viennese , however , were outraged at such an invention , and the dip - bottom coffin order was reverse , meaning that recyclable coffins never in reality became part of Viennese funeral custom .
6. MORTSAFES
In the nineteenth one C , grave robbers known as " resurrection men " prowled UK and American cemeteries depend for fresh corpses to sell to medical schoolhouse . The job was specially grave , pun intended , in Scotland . Thus get the mortsafe , a heavywrought - iron cageor stone placed over gravesites topreventthe theft of remains . It would be aim over the tomb for a few week until the robber lost interest , and then sometimes moved to a new grave . Although the practice of life-threatening robbing diminished in the UK after the Anatomy Act of 1832 , which impart aesculapian schools a effectual way to obtain cadaver for subject , mortsafes would pull round a few more decades . They can sometimes still be seen on former burials , and are on occasion misread as cages meant to keep vampires from rising from their grave accent .
7. COFFIN TORPEDOS
When incidents of corpsestealingincreased after the U.S. Civil War , trigger - happy Americans had a moreexplosive wayof stealing - proofing their graves — the casket torpedo . Contrary to what its name implies , acoffin torpedowas either a greatlymodified firearmthat shot lead balls when actuate by the opening of the coffin palpebra or a landmine - similar twist that sit around atop the coffin and would detonate if the grave accent was disturbed .
A interlingual rendition of this news report in the beginning run in 2014 .
