MODES OF DEATH. 117 



heart affecting the quantity of blood in the lungs and great 

 thoracic vessels ; strangulation ; drowning ; pressure upon the 

 diaphragm, forcing it forward and preventing admission of air 

 into the lungs, as in severe tympanitis of the stomach and 

 howels, or from any circumstance wliicli may paralyze the 

 diaphragm — fracture or dislocation of the upper cervical 

 vertebrae, and pithing, for example — or obstruct the passage 

 of air through the nostrils, larynx, trachea, or bronchial tubes. 



Sudden death from apncea is not often witnessed as the result 

 of disease, but is generally brought about by accident or design, 

 accidentally when the upper cervical vertebrae are fractured or 

 displaced ; in cases of parturient apoplexy, when fluids gain 

 entrance into the lungs, and from impaction of foreign bodies, 

 or polypi in the larynx ; and designedly, wdien an animal is 

 pithed. Death is also thus produced by the entrance of air into 

 the veins. — (See Principles and Practice of Veterinary Surgery?) 



Death from apncea takes place most commonly from the supply 

 of air being gradually cut off by morbid changes in the respira- 

 tory organs, and is often accompanied by asthenia and coma ; 

 but generally the symptoms belonging to apncea are plainly 

 predominant. In death, when the passage of air into the 

 lungs is arrested suddenly and completely, it has been ob- 

 served that the muscles of respiration exhibit strong and 

 •\dolent contractions ; that the eftbrts to breathe are very great, 

 struggling but ineffectual, and very distressing. This extreme 

 distress, however, soon passes away, and is succeeded by 

 vertigo, stupor, loss of consciousness, and convulsions, till at 

 length all efforts cease, except a few irregular twitchings of the 

 limbs ; the muscles then relax, the sphincters yield, but even 

 then the movements of the heart and the pulse continue for a 

 short time after all signs of life are gone. The other signs of 

 this method of death are congestion and lividity of the visible 

 mucous membranes, a full, staring eye, protrusion of the nose, 

 dilatation of the nostrils, and sometimes flapping of them. When 

 it arises from inflammation or spasm of the muscles of the 

 larynx, tumours, abscesses, or obstruction in the trachea, there 

 will be a loud, roaring, inspiratory sound. In the slower forms 

 of apncea, from diseases of the lungs, air tubes, or hydrothorax, 

 where the interruption is less complete, the efforts less violent, the 

 congestion of the membranes less marked, there may be little 



