^54 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ever since 1861 he has eaten the flesh 

 of all animals that have died within his 

 reach, no matter from what disease. He 

 affirms that one may eat with impunity the 

 flesh, cooked (not putrid), of any of the 

 domesticated animals, no matter what they 

 died of glanders, typhus, hydrophobia, 

 etc. So far from the flesh of animals which 

 have died naturally having a repugnant ap- 

 pearance or a peculiar flavor, he states that 

 he has placed the two kinds side by side in 

 the same pan and with the same sauce, and, 

 in serving to diff'erent persons, many of them 

 connoisseurs, the meat of animals that have 

 died a natural death has invariably been 

 pronounced superior to that from the slaugh- 

 ter-house ! 



New Test of Death. The importance of 

 having some readily-appUed and indisputa- 

 ble test of the fact of death is apparent, 

 and many are the processes that have been 

 ofi"ered to determine it. Nevertheless, such 

 a test appears to be still a desideratum 

 unless, indeed, we accept that offered by 

 Kappeler. In the course of his researches 

 on the electrical stimulation of dead mus- 

 cles, Kappeler subjected twenty corpses to 

 the action of various electric currents, not- 

 ing the times of disappearance of contrac- 

 tility. In persons emaciated by chronic 

 maladies, it disappeared much more rap- 

 idly than in well-nourished individuals, or 

 those who had had acute disease. It dis- 

 appeared seventy-five minutes after death 

 at the quickest, and six and a half hours 

 at the slowest. In cases where a rise of 

 temperature is observed after death electric 

 contractility persists longest. So long as 

 there remains the least flicker of life the 

 contractions continue intact. In the most 

 prolonged faints, in the deepest lethargies, 

 in poisoning by carbonic oxide, chloroform, 

 etc., there is contraction so long as life 

 lasts. But if the muscles make no response 

 to the electrical stimulation, Kappeler pro- 

 nounces life to be extinct. 



Voracity of the Tront A correspond- 

 ent writing from Au Sable Forks, New York, 

 communicates to The Monthly the follow- 

 ing very remarkable instance of voracity in 

 a trout : While he and another gentleman 

 were fishing in a stream near the place of 



his residence, they came to a "long still 

 hole," into which his companion dropped a 

 hook and line, and immediately after pulled 

 up a trout measuring about nine inches. 

 The trout had swallowed the hook, and, in 

 trying to extricate it, the fish's mouth, 

 throat, and stomach, were found to be 

 almost filled with a snake. They pulled 

 the animal out and threw it on the bank ; 

 it had evidently been recently killed. " We 

 did not measure the snake," writes our cor- 

 respondent, " but each of us estimated its 

 length at fourteen inches. We took," he 

 adds, " about a dozen more trout from the 

 same hole, which seemed to show that this 

 enormous meal had not made the trout in 

 the least sluggish, or dulled the edge of his 

 appetite ; for if it had, some of the smaller 

 fish would have taken the bait before him." 



Deaths from Inhalation of Chloroform. 



In communicating to the Cincinnati Acade- 

 my of Medicine a list of deaths by chloro- 

 form occurring in that city and its vicinity, 

 Dr. Charles Anderson recognizes a" strange 

 fatality " attending the use of the drug in 

 Cincinnati. No other city in the United 

 States numbers so many deaths from this 

 cause ; yet, perhaps, if all the chloroform 

 casualties of other cities had been duly re- 

 corded, Cincinnati would no longer hold 

 this bad preeminence. The author calls at- 

 tention to a singular anomaly observed in 

 the action of this anaesthetic, viz., that 

 many of those who have died from chloro- 

 form have taken it repeatedly, and often for 

 a considerable lime, without any unpleasant 

 symptoms, whereas an attempt to give it a 

 short time afterward has proved fatal. Thus 

 one patient, who had taken it frequently 

 during ten years, died from forty drops ; 

 another had taken it a hundred times, and 

 had once been under its influence fcr five 

 hours ; the last dose, which was fatal, con- 

 sisted of an inhalation or two from a chlo- 

 roformed handkerchief. After citing other 

 similar instances. Dr. Anderson, whose com- 

 munication we find in the Clinic, express- 

 es the opinion that in these cases there 

 exists a sort of floating idiosyncrasy one 

 that may have hold of a man for an hour or 

 an instant. " It may be on him to-day," adds 

 the author, " and off" to-morrow ; but if, while 

 under its influence, he inhale the vapor of 



