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Updated: Jul 12, 2026

Human Fear Conditioning Conducted in Full Immersion 3-Dimensional Virtual Reality
Published on: August 10, 2010
[The phobia of being buried alive from Michael Ranft (1728) to Eugene Bouchut (1849)]
1Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Département de chimie-biologie, Canada.
Abstract:
In the XVIII and XIXth centuries, a real morbid fear of premature burial raged all over Europe. Though this question is lost in the mists of time, the publication of Michael Ranft's book (1728) on the one hand, and the awarding of the Manni Prize to Eugène Bouchut (1849) on the other hand, are two key-dates, between which the amount of researches on the diagnosis of death show the need of reassuring answers to an anxious population. This paper summarizes the bibliography on premature burial, and its results on the diagnosis of death from 1728 till 1849.
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