320 NATURE AND LIFE. 



In the islands of the Greek archipelago, where the busi- 

 ness of gathering sponges from the bottom of the sea is 

 pursued, children are not allowed to drink wine until, by 

 practice, they have grown accustomed to remain a certain 

 time under water. Old divers of the archipelago say that 

 the time to return and take breath at the surface is indi- 

 cated to them by painful convulsions of the limbs, and very 

 severe contractions in the region of the heart. This power 

 of enduring asphyxia for some time, and resisting by force 

 of will the movements of respiration, has been remarked 

 under other circumstances. The case of a Hindoo is men- 

 tioned, who used to creep into the palisaded inclosures 

 used for bathing, in the Ganges, by the ladies of Calcutta, 

 seize one of them by the legs, drown her, and rob her of 

 her rings. It was supposed that a crocodile carried her off. 

 One of his intended victims succeeding in escaping, the as- 

 sassin was seized and executed in 1817. He confessed 

 that he had practised the horrible business for seven years. 

 Another instance is that of a spy, who, seeing prepara- 

 tions making for his execution, endeavored to escape it by 

 feigning death. He held his breath, and suspended all 

 voluntary motions for twelve hours, and endured all the 

 tests applied to him to put the reality of his death beyond 

 doubt. Anaesthetics, too, like chloroform and ether, some- 

 times produce stronger effects than the surgeons using 

 them desire, and occasion a state of seeming death instead 

 of temporary insensibility. 



It is easy to recall persons to life who are in a state of 

 seeming death ; it is only needful to stimulate powerfully 

 the two mechanical systems that are more or less com- 

 pletely suspended in action, namely, those of respiration 

 and circulation. Such movements are communicated to 

 the frame of the chest, that the lungs are alternately com- 

 pressed and dilated. A sort of shampooing is applied over 

 the whole body, which restores the capillary circulation ; 



