when people went into comas a thousand years ago, were they left for dead?

Question

probably so.

Answer 1

they probably weren't necessiarly left for dead but it might have been assumed that they were dead because they didnt have the medical technology back then to determine if they were alive or not

Answer 2

More than likely, they didn't go into long comas and were basically left to die. People are left in comas because machines keep them alive. There weren't machines like that back then so the comas probably only lasted a few days at the most, then they died.

Answer 3

Yep, when they were reclaiming old cemeteries, they found lots of coffins with scratch marks inside the lids, which essentially meant that many people were buried alive (perhaps in a coma, who woke up after being declared dead and buried).

So to combat this, the authorities sometimes put a man in the cemetery, standing guard to listen out for any scratching or clawing coming from a newly-made grave. Hence the name "Graveyard Shift". Another option was to run a string through a tiny hole in the coffin lid, and the "other" end of the string was tied to a small bell that stuck up out of the ground. If the corpse woke up and realised he had been buried alive, he would (hopefully) find his end of the string and pull on it, causing the bell to ring. Hence the term "saved by the bell".

Is that what you REALLY wanted to know?

Answer 4

I would imagine that man has always been able to recognize a person's chest moving up and down as he breathes and also the ability to hear the heart beating with his ear pressed to a person's chest as signs of life. A person in a coma wouldn't have lived very long back then, though. There would have been no way to feed him or give him fluid, and he would die of dehydration if the head injury didn't kill him first.

Answer 5

Yes they were, back then they presumed anyone who didn't have a pulse or even appeared dead to infact be dead.
There have been numerous stories about people being exumed after supposed time of death to find scratch marks on the coffin doors and things of that nature.
If you google it you can find a story about a mummified body of a woman to had her hand stuck in her mouth from screaming and her body was in horrible shape like she was struggling to open the coffin.

Answer 6

If you look at some of the burial rituals, like binding the dead head and foot, it's very likely. then there are the Wake" customs including pouring a last round of whiskey into the deceased. If the "water of life" and pipes can't revive them, what will?

Answer 7

Its one of the reasons why we have the tradition of beating the pope with a hammer in the head when he dies - to make sure he is dead. That can be read a couple of ways.

Answer 8

Yes

Answer 9

Probably, not much was known about medicine back then, although some ancien cultures practiced brain surgery.

Answer 10

Good Question, I would like to know the rest of the answers