116 



♦ KNOW^LEDGE ♦ 



[Aug. 8, 1884. 



head thrown back, as if death had come upon the individual 

 while he was reciting a prayer. In addition, many other 

 persons who have visited battlefields immediately after a 

 conflict tell us that they observe numbers of corpses that 

 were still holding their guns or sabres. Some seemed to be 

 biting their cartridges, while others, still upon horseback, 

 continued to preserve the attitude they had at the moment 

 of death. The=e phenomena have been studied with special 

 attention Ijy Dr. Armand at Magenta, by Baron Larrey at 

 Solferino, and by Dr. Baudin at Inkermann. 



I owe to the kindness of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell a know- 

 ledge of an excellent memoir by Dr. John Brinton, of Phila- 

 delphia, upon the " Rigidity which Accompanies Sudden or 

 Violent Death " — a work in which the question under con- 

 sideration is studied with the greatest care. Speaking of 

 the field of battle of Antietam, Dr. Brinton says that he 

 counted forty corpses over a space of from forty to fifty 

 yards square, and he gives us the following picture of what 

 he observed in this place. 



" Several of these corpses were lying in extraordinary 

 attitudes, some with their arms lifted and rigid, and others 

 with their legs drawn up toward the trunk, and stiff. With 

 others, in quite large number, the trunk was curved for- 

 ward and also rigid. In a word, these attitudes were not 

 those of the state of relaxation produced by death, but 

 rather those of an apparently active character, doubtless 

 due to a final muscular act at the very moment of the 

 extinction of life — a spasmodic act that had left the muscles 

 stiff and inflexible. Death, in the majority of these case?, 

 had been caused by wounds made in the breast ; and, less 

 frequently, by balls that had traversed the head or abdomen. 

 In the latter cases there had been considerable hemorrhage, 

 ■as was proved by the pools of blood of dark colour near 

 the sides of the bodies. This inspection was made thirty- 

 six hours after death, or still later." 



The following three cases related by Dr. Brinton (which 

 were furnished to him by friends, are very remarkable : — 



A detachment of United States soldiers, foraging around 

 ■Goldsborough, N.C., came suddenly upon a small band of 

 Southern troopers who had dismounted. These latter im- 

 mediately jumped into their saddles, and all scampered 

 away except one, after being exposed to one round of fire. 

 The soldier who did not escape was sitting upright, one foot 

 in his stirrup. In his left hand he held the bridle and the 

 horse's mane, while his right hand grasped the barrel of his 

 rifle, near the muzzle, the stock of the gun resting on the 

 ground. The horseman's head was turned toward his 

 right shoulder, apparently watching the approach of the 

 assailing party. Some of the soldiers of the latter 

 were preparing to fire again, when their ofiicer ordered 

 them to desist, and to go and make the defiant man a 

 prisoner. The latter, upon being ordered to surrender, 

 made no answer. When he was approached and examined, 

 it was found that he was dead and rigid in the singular 

 attitude that we have just described. It took a consider- 

 able eflfort to force his left hand to release the horse's mane 

 and to remove the rifle from his right hand. When the 

 body was laid upon the ground, the limbs preserved the 

 same position and the same inflexibility. This man had 

 been struck by two balls fired from Springfield rifles. One 

 of the.ifc had entered to the right of the vertebral column, 

 and had made its exit from the body near the region of the 

 heart. It had left its track upon the side of the saddle, 

 and had then dropped to the ground. The other ball had 

 entered through the right temple, and its point of exit 

 could not be found. The horse had remained quiet, as he 

 was fastened by a halter. 



The following is another incident : At the battle of Wil- 

 liaaisburg, Dr. T. B. Reed examined the body of a United 



States Zouave who had received a ball in the forehead just 

 as he was climbing over a low fence. He, likewise, had 

 preserved the last attitude of his life. One of his legs was 

 half over the fence, while his body still remained behind. 

 One hand, which was partially closed, was raised level with 

 his forehead, with the palm forward, as if to preserve him- 

 self against some imminent danger. 



Dr. Henry Stille relates that, while seated upon a freight 

 car on the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, he saw a 

 brakeman instantly killed by a ball which struck Mm 

 between the eyes, a mortal wound that was given by a 

 guerilla who lay in ambush in a forest through which the 

 train was passing. The man thus killed was tightening 

 the brake when he received the ball. After his death his 

 body remained fixed, the arms extended and stiff on the 

 handwheel of the brake. The pipe which he was smoking 

 remained fastened between his teeth. The rigidity was so 

 perfect, and his hands were so tightly closed, that it was 

 scarcely possible to free the corpse and make it let go its 

 hold. 



A maintenance of the last attitude may occur under cir- 

 cumstances other than a sudden death produced by lesions 

 of the brain, heart, or lungs, although an injury to an organ 

 of great importance to life is the most frequent cause of the 

 phenomena. Dr. Brinton has observed it after wounds 

 made in the abdomen, and Dr. Armand, in a single case, 

 through a wound of the thijrh. 



Yet this phenomenon does not manifest itself exclusively 

 in cases where death results from wounds. It was observed 

 in a horrible accident that happened at Lindon in 1867, 

 when forty-one persons, skating upon Regent's Park 

 Reservoir, perished through the sudden giving way of the 

 ice. The following extract from T)ie ?'i»iss concerning this 

 event is full of interest : — 



"The attitude of the majority of the persons who were 

 taken from the water has given rise to numerous discussions 

 in the medical journals. In almost all cases the arms were 

 raised, and sometimes the elbows were pressed against the 

 sides. In other cases the elbows formed a right angle, and 

 projected as in the act of skating. It may be concluded 

 that these unfortunates were resting upon the ice with their 

 arms, not daring to use their hands, and that when, on be- 

 coming exhausted, they died, it was not through asphyxia, 

 but rather through the action of cold and fright : and this 

 would explain why they preserved the position in which 

 they were found." 



Dr. Taylor had already mentioned the case of an. indi- 

 vidual who had for a long time held his- arms extended to 

 avoid being drowned, and in whom, after death, these limbs 

 were found stiffened out in the same position. 



It seems that carbonic acid is capable of producing that 

 special rigidity of the muscles that maintains the trunk and 

 limbs in the attitude that the last act of the will has caused 

 them to assume. 



In 1832 Dr. Von Graefe saw, in the grotto of Pyrmont, 

 the corpse of a young man who had voluntarily put an end 

 to his days by exposing himself to the carbonic acid gas 

 that fills this cavern. The body was found half-seated upon 

 the ground. One of the hands supported the head, as if 

 the young man had desired to avoid touching the wall, 

 against which the upper part of his body rested. The 

 trunk was bent toward the right. The attitude of the 

 body had the appearance of a person asleep and reposing 

 peacefully. 



How shall we explain this curious series of facts 1 We 

 know that sooner or later there supervenes a stillness 

 (called cadaveric or post mortem riyidity) in all the limbs 

 and all other parts of the body where there are muscles. Is 

 not the stifihess that occurs on the battle-field, and some- 



