REAL AND APPARENT DEATH. 



405 



decomposition, and even if fluid, from infiltration in an (Edematous or 

 dependent part, this is always serum, unlike the vital fibrino-albuminous 

 solution coagulable by heat. The pathognomonic distinction, however, 

 is the difference presented by the underlying cutis on removing the 

 loosely adherent cuticle. This, after death, has an unalterable yellow- 

 ish-white, crisp, horny appearance, in obvious contrast to the efilores- 

 cence of vital active congestion, which can be repeatedly displaced 

 and renewed by recurrent pressure. 



Although circulation is a vital necessity, the chemical products of 

 its activity would of themselves speedily destroy life except for the 

 concurrent exercise of the respiratory and other functions. 



Tissues, such as the nervo-muscular, which perform some specific 

 action, may be classed as active in contrast to passive, such as the 

 osseo-fibrous, which merely subserve some mechanical office. When 

 the ultimate particles of passive tissues are fully developed, they re- 

 main in that state for a longer or shorter period, and then gradually 

 decay. Active tissues, during their development, appropriate a store 

 of energy which, at maturity, they are capable of instantly expending 

 in the manifestation of their special powers. Such exertions are inevi- 

 tably attended by degradative transformations of their material ele- 

 ments. Cardiac movements and their associated vital coordinations 

 involve the expenditure of nervo-muscular energy, and consequent 

 production of simpler compounds, such as carbonic acid, the undue 

 retention of which in the blood would cause certain death. Such a 

 fatal contingency is prevented by the circulatory forces propelling the 

 carbonized blood into the pulmonary capillaries, where an interchange 

 with the oxygen of the air takes place through the intervening mem- 

 brane till the vesicles become surcharged with carbonic acid, which is 

 then expelled by the expiratory forces through the anterior openings 

 of the air-passages, where its detention is evidence of vitality, while 

 its utter absence under adequate tests is undeniable proof of the oppo- 

 site condition. For, though certain cold-blooded animals can exhale a 

 sufficient quantity of this product through their skin to permit a re- 

 duced vitality, in man such a cutaneous transpiration is exceedingly 

 m^inute and altogether inadequate to the maintenance of life, and it 

 may continue even after death as a merely physical property of tissue. 



Innervation is blended with and controls all the vital operations, 

 being conspicuously implicated with muscular contraction, an act pri- 

 marily concerned in the various movements of respiration and circula- 

 tion. The frequently-repeated transmission of intense electric currents 

 is the most powerful stimulus of contractility, and, when such a measure 

 fails to excite contraction in muscles essential to life, death must have 

 occurred. 



"When rigidity and putrefaction are actually established, they may 

 be accepted as infallible ^:)os^mor?CT?i indications. The former state 

 arises from the muscles and other soft tissues becoming so stiffened as 



