838 SUSPENDED ANIMATION IN MAN, 



days old, for only 2^ minutes. Many other ex- 

 periments might be adduced in support of the 

 doctrine, that life may be suspended for a much 

 longer time in very young animals, and be again 

 restored, than at later periods ; and longer in all 

 classes, in proportion as their vitality is less. 



It is also known, that the human subject may 

 remain for many days in a state of partially sus- 

 pended animation, and be recalled to activity by 

 proper treatment, as in cases of trance, that 

 Elizabeth Woodcock of Impington, while return- 

 ing from market at Cambridge, in a state of in- 

 toxication, was overwhelmed by drifts of snow, 

 under which she remained for 8 days and nights, 

 but died some months afterwards from a low con- 

 gestive fever, induced by that long chill. And 

 it is stated by Baron Larrey, that most of the 

 soldiers who escaped death during the fatal re- 

 treat of Napoleon from Moscow, afterwards died 

 of low fevers, attended with coma, delirium, 

 hemorrhages, and subsultus tendinum ; or were 

 attacked with paralysis, deafness, impaired vision, 

 neuralgia, rheumatism, dysentery, and diarrhaea. 

 It is also related by M'Nish, that sheep have 

 remained buried under banks of snow for six 

 weeks, in the Highlands of Scotland, and for two 

 months in Iceland, which recovered when re- 

 leased from their paralyzing confinement. 



It is therefore probable, that our power of re- 

 storing warm blooded animals, not excepting 



