SOMATIC DEATH NECR^EMIA MOLECULAR DEATH. 1035 



ing of the body after Somatic death is calculated to extinguish it speedily ; 

 and that this cause has a real operation, is evinced by the influence of arti- 

 ficial warmth in sustaining the vital properties of separated parts. The 

 rapidity, however, with which Molecular death follows the cessation of the 

 general circulation, will be influenced by a variety of causes ; but especially 

 by the decree in which the condition of the solids and fluids of the body lias 

 been impaired by the mode of death. Thus in Necnemia, Asthenia, and 

 death by gradual cooling, Molecular and Somatic death may be said to be 

 simultaneous; and the same appears to be true of death by sudden and vio- 

 lent impressions on the Nervous system ( 244). But in many cases of 

 death by causes which operate by producing a more gradual Syncope or 

 Asphyxia, the tissues and blood having been previously in a healthy condi- 

 tion, Molecular death may be long postponed ; and we cannot be quite cer- 

 tain that it has supervened until signs of actual decomposition present them- 

 selves. 



885. When Molecular death takes place in an isolated part, it must result 

 from some condition peculiar to that part, and not primarily affecting the 

 body in general. Thus we may have Gangrene or Mortification of a limb 

 as a direct result of the application of severe cold, or of an agent capable of 

 producing chemical changes in its substance, or of violent contusions occa- 

 sioning mechanical injury; or, again, from an interruption to the current of 

 nutritive fluid ; or, further, from some ill-understood stagnation of the nutri- 

 tive process, which manifests itself in the spontaneous death of the tissues- 

 without any assignable cause, as in some cases of senile gangrene. Some- 

 times we are enabled to trace this stagnation to a disordered condition of the 

 circulating fluid; as in the gangrene resulting from the continued use of the 

 "ergot" of rye or wheat; but we can give no other account of the almost 

 invariable commencement of such gangrene in the extremities, than we can 

 of the selection of lead, introduced into the blood, by the extensors of the 

 forearm. If Mortification or Molecular Death be once established in any 

 part, it tends to spread, both to contiguous and to distant portions of the 

 body. Thus we have continually to witness the extension of gangrene of the 

 lower extremities, resulting from severe injury or from the use of the ergot, 

 from the small part first affected, until the whole limb is involved ; and this 

 extension is easily accounted for, by our knowledge of the tendency of or- 

 ganic substances in the act of decomposition, to produce a similar change in 

 other organic substances subjected to the influence of proximity to them. 

 And the propagation of the gangrenous tendency to remoter parts, is ob- 

 viously due to the perversion of the qualities of the Blood, which results 

 from a similar cause. 1 



886. It is quite certain that an apparent cessation of all the vital functions 

 may take place, without that entire loss of vitality which would leave the 

 organism in the condition of a dead body, liable to be speedily disintegrated 

 by the operation of chemical and physical agencies. The state of Syncope 

 is sometimes so complete that neither can the heart's action be perceived nor 

 any respiratory movements be observed, all consciousness and power of 

 movement being at the same time abolished ; and yet recovery has sponta- 

 neously taken place, which could scarcely have been the case if all vital 

 action had been suspended. It is not a little remarkable, that certain indi- 

 viduals have possessed the power of mhuiim-ilij inducing this condition. The 

 best authenticated case of this kind is that of Col. Towusend, which was de- 



1 On the proximate causes of Death, see especially the Art. Death, by Dr. Symonds, 

 in the Cyclop, of Anat. and Phys., vol. i ; the first chapter of Prof. Alison's Outlines 

 of Pathology and Practice of Medicine, and Dr. C. J. B. Williams's Principles of 

 Medicine, 3d edit., pp. 536-557. 



