Lore

Before we knew how disease spread, medicine was as much superstition as it was science. And in the small New England towns of the 1800s, there is a belief that consumption can only be stopped by making sure the dead are actually dead.

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even though some early methods

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These were people who prided themselves on hard work,

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of one in four people in New England.

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there'll be more than just the two of us by the first snow.

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Thomas says he's good as new.

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and after enduring the ravages of such a brutal disease,

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And thus the birth of the Waiting Mortuary,

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Bugle fanfares at point blank range.

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that provided light and fresh air.

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The therapies and fresh mountain air

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[TICKING]

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He's just a farmer, just like us.

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and the next until no one is left.

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But if there remains an unnatural glow,

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I'd like you to leave my house. Now.

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I refuse to give into that madness.

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I didn't know the other members of your family.

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if they were, in a way, still alive.

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the heart beating, the blood liquid.

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This strange combination of bad science and folklore

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[SCREAMING]

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I don't care about the... the cause,

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He will fail, too.

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a good doctor.

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And yet medicine still fell short.

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Like the belief that a heart, long dead,

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May God understand and guide us.

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♪♪

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as it should be after three months frozen.

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It's how I saved my daughter.

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