May 29, 1879] 



NATURE 



109 



hours after apparent death. The action of the nitrite of 

 amyl in causing suspended animation seemed to be like 

 cold. It prevented the pectous change of colloidal 

 matter, and so prevented rigor mortis, coagulation of 

 blood, and solidification of nervous centres and cords. 

 So long as this change was suspended return of vital 

 function was possible. When the pectous change oc- 

 curred, all was over, and resolution into new forms of 

 matter by putrefaction was the result. 



From the analogy of some of these symptoms from 

 nitrite of amyl with the symptoms of the disease called 

 catalepsy, I hare ventured to suggest that, under some 

 abnonnal conditions, the human body itself, in its own 

 chemistry, may produce an agent which causes the sus- 

 pended life observed during the cataleptic condition. 



Woorali in a similar manner suspends vital function ; 

 but as the influence of this agent has been more fre- 

 quently under observation from other physiologists, I 

 leave it with this mention of it. 



Chloral Hydrate has many of the properties of the 

 other substances named above in its power of suspending 

 life. At the meeting of the British Association at Exeter, 

 at which I made the earliest report in this country of Lieb- 

 reich's remarkable discoveries, some pigeons, which 

 had been put to sleep by the needle-injection of a large 

 dose of chloral, fell into such complete resemblance 

 of death, that they passed among an audience containing 

 many physiologists and other men of science for dead. 

 For my own part I could detect no sign of life in them, 

 and they were laid in one of the out-offices of the museum 

 of the infirmary as dead. In this condition they were left 

 late at night, but in the following morning they were found 

 alive and as well as if nothing hurtful had happened to 

 them. 



Cyanogens. — Cyanogen gas and hydrocyanic acid, 

 •deadly poisons as they are, have the power in a singular 

 degree of suspending animation. Combined with a 

 sufficient degree of cold to prevent their evaporation 

 from the body, their suspending power is of the most 

 definite kind. In the laboratory of a large drug estab- 

 lishment a cat, by request of its owner, was killed, as it 

 was assumed, instantaneously and painlessly by a large 

 dose of Scheele's acid. The animal appeared to die with- 

 out a pang, and presenting every appearance of death 

 was laid in a sink to be removed on the next morning. At 

 night the animal was lying still in form of death in the 

 tank beneath a tap. In the morning it was found 

 alive and well, but with the fur wet from the dropping 

 of water from the tap. This fact was communicated to 

 me by the eminent chemist under whose direct observa- 

 tion it occurred, in corroboration of an observation of 

 mine similar in character. 



Alcohol is another substance which holds the vital 

 functions in suspense for long periods of time, the mus- 

 cles retaining their excitability. In animals killed by 

 alcohol tin ^combination with cold, two influences which 

 act powerfully together in the same direction, I found 

 the muscular excitability could be retained at freezing- 

 point for several hours even in birds. A remarkable 

 similar experience, which I have elsewhere recorded, 

 was obtained in the case of an intoxicated man who, 

 while on the ice at the Welsh Harp lake, fell into the 

 water through a breakage in the ice, and who for more 

 than fifteen minutes was completely immersed. This man 

 was extricated to all appearances dead, but under artificial 

 respiration, carried out by my friend Ur. Belgrave, of 

 Hendon, he was restored to consciousness and hved for 

 several hours. 



Oxygen. — It is not a little singular that pure oxygen 

 gas possesses the power of suspending life, at all events 

 in muscular fibre, when it is aided by condensation pro- 

 duced by cold ; but 1 am on new ground here, with which I 

 am not so conversant at present as I hope to be. 



I have now shown as briefly as was possible that much 



is known in the world of science in respect to suspension 

 of animal life by artificial means. It will be seen that 

 cold as well as various chemical agents has this power ; 

 and it is worthy of note that cold, together with the 

 agents named, is antiseptic, as though whatever suspended 

 living action, suspended also by some necessity or cor- 

 relative influence the process of putrefactive change. 

 Hence the influence I drew in my lecture at the Society 

 of Arts, that it was within the range of experiment to 

 preserve the structures of dead animals in a form of sus- 

 pended molecular life. 



If the experiments reported from Brisbane be reliable 

 it is clear, I think, that what has been done has been 

 effected by the combination of one of the chemical 

 agents above, named, or of a similar agent, in combination 

 with cold, the efficiency of which combination we have 

 seen in many of the experimental facts referred to above. 

 The only question that exists as of moment is, not 

 whether a new principle has been developed, but whether, 

 in matter of detail, a new product has been discovered 

 which, better than any of the agents we already possess, 

 destroys and suspends animation. In organic chemistry, 

 there are, I doubt not, hundreds of substances which, like 

 mandragora and nitrite of amyl, would suspend the vital 

 process, and it may be that a new experimenter has met 

 with such an agent. It is not incredible indeed that the 

 Indian Fakirs possess a vegetable extract or essence which 

 possesses the same power, and by means of which they 

 perform their as yet unexplained feat of prolonged living 

 burial : but I confess, on reading the Australian narrative, 

 there is nothing suggested by it to my mind that might not 

 be produced by agents already known. Making allow- 

 ance for what is clearly a very enthusiastic description, 

 there is nothing in an experiment related as made on a 

 dog that] might not 'have been produced by the subcu. 

 taneous injection of hydrate of chloral ; neither is there 

 anything in other experiments that might not follow from 

 the injection of chloral or woorali in a cold atmosphere. 

 At the same time it is not also unreasonable to infer that a 

 new product has been found which surpasses any we 

 possess, and suspends animation for a longer period. 

 My faith is most shaken first by the statement that 

 the agent referred to is a secret, for men of true 

 science know no such word ; secondly, that the 

 experimenter has himself to go to America to procure 

 more supplies of his agents ; and thirdly, that herequires 

 two agents, one of which is antidotal to the other. I can 

 understand the production of a definite effect from a 

 single ; and others as well as myself have made out a great 

 many facts respecting the antagonism of one agent by 

 another. But in our researches on antagonistic physio- 

 logical substances we require the agencies of absorption 

 and circulation of the antidote, and how in a body bereft 

 of motion and practically dead such absorption can take 

 place I am unable to divine. 



But even should the' description given by the Aus- 

 tralian journalist prove overdrawn or imaginative, 

 I am not sorry it has appeared, since it has afforded 

 a reason for relating in a plain and faithful manner 

 to what actual extent human knowledge has been ad- 

 vanced by experiment on the subject under considera- 

 tion. This duty, though it be but preliminary, is im- 

 portant as an introduction to those great events which in 

 the future are sure to come from the positive results that 

 have already been secured, and for which the world should 

 be prepared, without anxiety or amazement. 



Benjamin Ward Richardson 



NOTES 



The death is announced of William Froude, F.R.S., a name 

 familiar to our readers in connection with experiments on wave- 

 resistances and the form of ships. Mr. Froude, who had long 



