SLEEP PRECEDING DEATH IN INTENSE COLD. 337 



far driven inwards, that the conducting power of the skin is 

 rendered considerably less : consequently, the body temperature 

 rises, until a higher equilibrium is attained." * 



The results of Dr. Garrod's experiments are given 

 in tabular form, in his collected papers which we have 

 here quoted from, and he has clearly shown that this 

 increase of internal temperature is an undoubted fact, 

 which would seem to afford some clue to the sensation 

 of oppressive heat, which sometimes seems to haunt the 

 last moments of those who have been frozen to death, 

 and may thus cause them to remove their clothing. 



More than that, as we know, persons when overcome 

 by cold, often experience an overpowering tendency 

 to sleep. This feeling of a desire to sleep is a species 

 of coma, which under conditions of great cold, quickly 

 passes into profound insensibility. It is a very common 

 concomitant of many forms of death, where life passes 

 from the sleep of time into that of eternity by so gradual 

 a process that there can really be no doubt that the 

 dying person passes away entirely unconscious of the 

 approaching change. Now under exposure to great cold 

 this seems to follow sleep, if indulged in, almost as a 

 matter of course. We therefore venture to suggest that 

 it may be, that the well-known deadening sense of 

 great cold upon the mental faculties, predisposes these 

 persons to the idea that they are merely retiring to 

 bed to take their nightly rest, and so induces them to 

 partly or wholly undress. 



Those who have been exposed to the intensely cold 

 winds of icy blizzards can quite feel that the chill is 

 penetrating the nervous centre, so as "to make them 



* The Collected Scientific Papers of the late Dr. A. H. Gar rod. Edited 

 by Wm. Alex. Forbes, 1881, pp. 37 41. 



VOL. II. 22 



