Observations placeholder

Ernesto Bozzano - Psychic phenomena at the moment of death [110 cases suggesting survival after death]

First category - Cases in which the apparitions of the deceased are perceived solely by the dying person, and relate to persons whose death he knew.

12th case. - Dr. W. C., of Seranyn, in his work, Contribution to the Study of Certain Unknown Brain Factors, reports the following fact which he personally observed during his long medical career:

Jean Vitalis was a robust man, fat, married without children, enjoying perfect health. He must have been 39 when he was suddenly seized with violent fever and joint pains. I was his doctor, and when I saw him, the symptoms he presented were those of rheumatic fever ...

On the morning of the sixteenth day I was surprised to find Jean Vitalis fully dressed, sitting on his bed, smiling, having his feet and hands completely free of pain and no longer showing any fever.

I had left him the day before in a sad state. The joints of the shoulder, elbow, hands, knee, and feet were swollen and painful. He had a high fever and I could never have predicted that I was going to find him as cool and refreshed.

In a very calm way, he told me that he attributed his sudden healing to a vision he had had during the night. He claimed that his father, who had been dead for a few years, had appeared to him.

Here is what he said to me:

"My father came to visit me tonight, he came into my room through this window overlooking the garden. He first looked at me from a distance, then he approached me, touched me everywhere to remove my pains and fever, then he told me that I was going to die tonight, at 9 o'clock sharp. At the time of his departure, he added that he hoped that I would prepare for this death, like a good Catholic.
I have sent for my confessor, who will arrive soon; I will confess and communicate; then I will be given extreme unction. I thank you very much for the care you gave me, my death will not be caused by any lack on your part. It's my father who wants it. He probably needs me, he'll come back to pick me up at 9 o'clock tonight.”

All this was said in a very calm manner, with a smiling face, and a real expression of contentment and happiness shone on his features.

- "You have had a dream, a hallucination," said I, "and I am astonished that you have added to it.”

“- No, no, he told me, I was fully awake, it was not a dream. My father really came, I saw him, I heard him, he looked alive.”

“- But this prediction of your death at a fixed hour, you do not believe it, surely, since you are cured?”

“- My father would not lie to me. I'm sure I'm going to die tonight, at the time he told me.”

His pulse was full, calm, steady, his temperature normal. Nothing indicated that I was in the presence of a seriously ill patient. However, I warned the family that sometimes deaths occurred in cases of cerebral rheumatism, and Dr. R., an old and excellent practitioner, was called in consultation.

Dr. R. made all sorts of jokes to the patient about his hallucination and his imminent death; but away from the patient and before the assembled family, he said that if the brain was indeed affected in this case, the prognosis was serious.

- "The patient's calm," he added, "is bizarre and unusual. His belief in the objectivity of his vision and his coming death is surprising. Ordinarily, we are afraid of death. He does not seem to care, on the contrary, he seems happy and happy to die. However, I can assure you that he does not look like a man who is going to die tonight. As for fixing in advance the moment of his death, it is a joke.”

I returned towards noon to see my patient, who was very interested in me. I found him standing, walking up and down the bedroom, and with a firm step, without the slightest sign of weakness or pain.

“- Ah! he said to me, I was waiting for you. Now that I've confessed and communicated, can I eat something? I have an appalling hunger, but I did not want to take anything without your permission”.

Since he had not the slightest fever and he had all the appearances of a man in perfect health, I allowed him to eat an apple steak.

I returned around 8 o'clock in the evening. I wanted to be with the patient to see what he would do when the 9 o'clock came.

He was always happy. He took part in the conversation with enthusiasm and equanimity. All the members of his family were gathered in his room. We talked, we laughed. His confessor, who was there, told me that he had yielded to the reiterated request from the patient, and that he had just administered to him the sacrament of extreme unction.

- "I did not want to annoy him," he added; “he insisted so much. Moreover, it is a sacrament that can be administered several times.”

There was a clock in the room, and Jean, whom I did not lose sight of, threw anxious glances from time to time.

When the clock struck nine minutes to nine, and while people continued to laugh and chat, he got up from the sofa he was sitting on and said quietly:

“- The time has come.”

He kissed his wife, his brothers, his sisters, then he jumped on his bed with great agility. He sat down there, arranged the cushions, then, like an actor who salutes the public, he bowed his head several times, saying: "Farewell! Farewell!" Stretched without hurrying and did not move.

I slowly approached him, convinced that he was simulating death. To my surprise, he was dead, without fear, without moan, without a sigh, he had died of a death I have never seen.

At first it was hoped that it was only a prolonged syncope, a catalepsy. The burial was long postponed, but eventually it was necessary to face the rigidity of the corpse and the signs of decomposition that ensued.