THE PHYSIOLOGY OF DEATH. 313 



the body of a criminal that had remained more than an hour 

 hanging on the gallows. One of the poles of a battery of 

 seven hundred pairs having been connected with the spinal 

 marrow below the nape of the neck, and the other brought 

 in contact with the heel, the leg, before bent back on itself, 

 was thrust violently forward, almost throwing down one of 

 the assistants, who had hard work to keep it in place. 

 When one of the poles was placed on the seventh rib, and 

 the other on one of the nerves of the neck, the chest rose 

 and fell, and the abdomen repeated the like movement, as 

 takes place in respiration. On touching a nerve of the 

 eyebrow at the same time with the head, the facial muscles 

 contracted. " Wrath, terror, despair, anguish, and fright- 

 ful grins, blended in horrible expression on the assassin's 

 countenance." 



The most remarkable instance of a momentary reappear- 

 ance of vital properties, not in the whole organism, but in 

 the head alone, is {he famous experiment suggested by 

 Legallois, and carried out for the first time in 1858 by 

 Brown-Sequard. This skillful physiologist beheads a dog, 

 taking pains to make the section below the point at which 

 the vertebral arteries enter their bony sheath. Ten min- 

 utes afterward he sends the galvanic current into the dif- 

 ferent parts of the head thus severed from its body, with- 

 out producing any result of movement. He then fits to 

 the four arteries, the extremities of which appear in the 

 cutting of the neck, little pipes connected by tubes with a 

 reservoir full of fresh oxygenated blood, and guides the in- 

 jection of this blood into the vessels of the brain. Imme- 

 diately irregular motions of the eyes and the facial mus- 

 cles occur, succeeded by the appearance of regular harmo- 

 nious contractions, seeming to be prompted by the will. 

 The head has regained life. The motions continue to be 

 performed during a quarter of an hour, while the injection 

 of blood into the cerebral arteries lasts. On stopping the 



