ON PROOF 277 



ment of death. The experiment to be decisive, at 

 first may be only a rather rough one — relatively 

 speaking — and merely to establish the fact of life 

 as a quantity. Nevertheless, the research is extremely 

 difficult. The main problem consists in devising a 

 method for registering a quantity (as which the theory 

 conceives life to be) that corresponds to an undeter- 

 mined but exceedingly small wave-lengthy or a very 

 great wave-number. The research, of course, pre- 

 sents a number of other difficulties, such as, for 

 example, the necessity of distinguishing carefully 

 between the quantities of electricity that an or- 

 ganism may give off, due to being alive, quantities 

 that vary according to state of health, etc., and the 

 quantity, asserted by theory, that is life. 



Obviously, the research that is indicated is en- 

 tirely different from research on the changes caused 

 in the body by death. It is well known, and has 

 been known for many years, that the body does not 

 behave towards electrical stimuli in the same way 

 after death as before death. Thus, one of the rec- 

 ognized means of distinguishing death-like trance 

 from actual death, is the persistence of the excita- 

 bility of the muscles to electrical stimuli. Numerous 

 experiments have established the fact that death 

 causes changes in the body in respect to excitability 

 and resistance to the electrical current. 



