207 



lasts a less time ; and that putrefaction appears sooner and proceeds 

 quicker in them than in the healthy muscles. 



2nd, Influence of a diminution of temperature of muscles before 

 death upon their irritability, cadaveric rigidity, and putrefac- 

 tion. I found many years ago that all the vital properties of the 

 nervous centres, the nerves and the muscles, in adult as well as in 

 young warm-blooded animals, may be much increased in consequence 

 of a diminution of temperature of these organs. The following ex- 

 periments show that when muscular irritability is increased by that 

 cause, the increase has the same influence upon cadaveric rigidity 

 and putrefaction as when it is caused by paralysis. 



In two kittens three days old, and of the same litter, I found after 

 death (by asphyxia) the following differences : one of them had the 

 temperature of 37 Cent. (98- 6 Fahr.) in the rectum at the time of 

 death ; its muscular irritability in the posterior limbs gave way to 

 cadaveric rigidity 3|- hours after the last effort at breathing ; this 

 rigidity lasted nearly three days ; putrefaction began to be evident 

 on the fourth day after death, and was much advanced the next day ; 

 while in the other, the temperature of which was only 25 Cent. 

 (77 Fahr.) at the time of death, muscular irritability lasted more 

 than nine hours after the last breathing ; cadaveric rigidity began 

 during the tenth hour and lasted nine days ; and putrefaction, which 

 began on the tenth day, was not much advanced until two days later. 



In many other instances of newly-born cats, dogs, rabbits, and birds 

 (especially ravens, sparrow-hawks, jays, and magpies), I have ob- 

 served similar differences as those observed in the preceding experi- 

 ment, when I noticed the duration of irritability after death and its 

 relations to cadaveric rigidity and putrefaction, according to the 

 degree of animal heat at the time of death. As a general rule, when 

 there was a difference of 8 or 10 Cent. (14 to 18 Fahr.) in the 

 temperature of two animals of the same age and the same species, 

 muscular irritability and cadaveric rigidity lasted twice or three times 

 longer in the cooler animal than in the other, and putrefaction in the 

 former was much less rapid. 



I have observed the same differences also in adult birds and 

 mammals*. It is thus clearly shown by experiment that when the 



* For the means of diminishing the temperature of warm-blooded animals, see 

 my Researches on Asphyxia (Journal de Physiol. Jan. 1859). 



