EFFECTS OF SUSPENSION OR DEFICIENCY OF RESPIRATION. 405 



of from 04 to 70 F., and these survived, on an average, 26-> minutes. A 

 iir\vlv-bom dog will survive, if its temperature be low, an immersion of 50 

 minutes' duration. A duck is capable of resisting the privation of air for seven 

 or eight minutes, while a chicken will die from submersion or strangling in 

 two or three. A satisfactory explanation of these peculiarities has been given 

 by M. P. Bert, who has shown that they are dependent upon the amount 

 of Oxygen in the blood, and the activity of the combustive processes in the 

 tissues. As the blood-corpuscles constitute a magazine of Oxygen, the larger 

 their number the longer will the animal be able to resist the privation of 

 air; and so also life will be prolonged when from any cause the processes of 

 oxidation in the tissues are lowered. M. Bart has elsewhere shown that the 

 respiration of the tissues takes place less actively in young than in old ani- 

 mals, whilst it is obvious that a low temperature is less favorable for oxida- 

 tion than a high one, and direct experiment has demonstrated that a duck 

 contains one-third or even one-half more blood than a chicken. Many per- 

 sons are capable of sustaining a deprivation of air for two, three, or even 

 four minutes, 1 without insensibility or any other injury; but this power, 

 which seems possessed to the greatest degree by the divers of Ceylon, can. 

 only be acquired by habit. The period during which remedial means may 

 be successful in restoring the activity of the vital and animal functions, is 

 not, however, restricted to this. There is one well-authenticated case, in 

 Avhich recovery took place after a continuous submersion of fifteen minutes; 2 

 and many others are on record, of the revival of drowned persons after an 

 interval of half an hour, or even more; but there is not the same certainty 

 in regard to these, that the individuals may not have occasionally risen to 

 the surface and taken breath there. It is not improbable, however, that in 

 some of these cases a state of Syncope had come on at the moment of immer- 

 sion, through the influence of fear or other mental emotion, concussion of the 

 brain, etc.; so that, when the circulation was thus enfeebled, the deprivation 

 of air would not have the same injurious effect as when this function was 

 in full activity. The case would then closely resemble that of a hibernating 

 animal; for in both instances the being might be said to live very slowly, 

 and would therefore not require the usual amount of respiration. The con- 

 dition of the stillborn infant is in some respects the same; its tissues, as just 

 stated, are the seat of much less active processes of combustion than those of 

 the adult, and reanimatoin has been successfully attempted, when nearly half 



1 Dr. Hutchinson states that any man of ordinary " vital capacity " can pass two 

 minutes without breathing, if he first makes five or six forcible inspirations and expi- 

 rations, so as to cleanse the lungs of the old air, and then fills his chest as completely 

 as he can. " For the first 15 seconds a giddiness will be experienced ; but when this 

 leaves us, we do not feel the slightest inconvenience from want of air." (See Cyclop. 

 of Anat. and Phys., vol. iv, p. 1066.) 



2 The following are the facts of this case, as narrated by Marc (Manuel d'Autopsie 

 Caduverique Medico-Legale, p. 165) on the authority of Prater: A woman convicted 

 of infanticide was condemned to die by drowning. This punishment was formerly 

 inflicted in Germany according to the now obsolete Caroline law, the culprit being 

 inclosed in a sack with a cock and a cat, and sunk to the bottom of the water. In 

 this instance, the woman, after having been submerged for a quarter of an hour, was 

 drawn up, and spontaneously recovered her senses. She stated that she had become 

 insensible at the moment of her submersion ; a circumstance which adds considerable 



' weight to the supposition, based upon the post-mortem appearances in many cases of 

 drowning, that death often takes place as much by Syncope (or primary failure of the 

 heart's action, consequent upon sudden and violent emotion, or upon physical shock) 

 as by Asphyxia. If the reality of this state of Syncopal Asphyxia be admitted, there 

 does not seem any adequate reason for limiting the possible persistence of vitality in 

 a submerged body, even to half an hour; especially if the temperature of the water 

 be such as not to cause any rapid abstraction of its heat. 



