EXTREME RARITY OF PREMATURE BURIALS. 529 



The respiratory movements coincide generally with the heart's ac- 

 tion : all respiration ceasing, the heart never continues to act longer 

 than five minutes, and these movements can be noted by the non-medi- 

 cal observer, by placing a piece of looking-glass, or a dish filled with 

 water or mercury, upon tbe chest, and allowing the light to be re- 

 flected upon the surface ; the slightest movement will result in oscil- 

 lations. 



A common mistake of death for a supposititious trance state is the 

 continued or increased warmth of the body, which is so remarkable in 

 some cases ; there are instances whei*e days have elapsed before the 

 body was allowed to be put in the ground, because of its continued 

 warmth, and of the absence of the corpse pallor ; and again it has 

 been frequently noted in cases of death from cholera that bodies, which 

 at the time of death were moderately cool, have developed a tempera- 

 ture of 87 Fahr. and of 92 Fahr., and in cases of death from injuries 

 to the nervous system even a much higher temperature has been reached 

 evidences, as Taylor puts it, of some latent vital power or chemical 

 force still lingering about the circulating system. 



While the trance state is a source of mystery and wonderment to 

 the popular mind, the positive statements of a change of position in a 

 body, and even of the birth of children after death, are something more 

 tangible and real, and carry their convictions in a more decided manner. 

 Yet these phenomena in many cases are accounted for in the most 

 natural way. There is inherent in the muscular tissue of our bodies 

 a certain irritability or tonicity vitality, perhaps, is a good expression 

 of the muscle itself, which is independent of the brain, nerves, cir- 

 culation, or respiration, in that it continues to exhibit its function 

 that of muscular contraction for an appreciable time after death has 

 abolished these forces, and physiologists, by supplying the muscles 

 with nutrition, such as the injection of defibrinated blood, have been able 

 to excite this irritability so late as sixteen hours after death. It is this 

 irritability which results in the rigor mortis, or rigidity of death, and 

 which sets in generally within five or six hours, lasting from sixteen 

 to twenty-four hours. "With this rigidity is a muscular contraction 

 usually not resulting in any change of position of the body ; but the 

 flexor muscles exhibit a greater tendency to contraction than the ex- 

 tensors, and there are instances where this contraction has been quite 

 marked, resulting of course in a change of position. If a body be not 

 properly laid out and placed in a coffin in the cramped position in which 

 rigor mortis has set it, there will necessarily be some change of posi- 

 tion when, at the end of the time mentioned, this condition passes off 

 and a relaxation ensues. In one case of death from cholera, half an 

 hour after complete cessation of circulation and respiration, the muscles 

 of the arms underwent spontaneously various motions of contraction 

 and relaxation, continuing for upward of an hour. 



The fact of finding a dead child lying by the side of its mother in 

 vol. xvii. 34 



