74 OF VITAL MOTION. 



rigid spasm a transient state connected with the last 

 flicker of life (as some suppose), but it endures, un- 

 tiring and unrelaxing, until the fibres break up in 

 the ruin of final decay. Like the coagulation of the 

 blood, it is the consequence of an abstraction from the 

 influence of life, whatever the influence may be. 



The connexion of muscular contraction with a 

 diminished supply of nervous force may also be seen 

 in certain conditions of the system in which there is 

 great prostration. 



The subsultus and convulsive jerkings, of extreme 

 typhoid depression, are connected with a state of the 

 nervous system, in some respects similar to that which 

 supervenes gradually in old age, and gives rise to the 

 tremulous shakings of this period. 



In cholera, also, the spasm which begins in the 

 involuntary muscles, and gradually extends to those 

 which are subject to the will, goes hand in hand with 

 collapse; and he who has stood by the bedside of 

 patients in the last epidemic, and regarded the blue 

 and icy skin, the shrunken countenance, and the 

 hopeless prostration of mental and nervous energy, 

 in extreme cases, and noticed the occurrence of fierce 

 and untiring spasm along with this fearful depression, 

 need have little difficulty (if he will remember these 

 things) in dispossessing his mind of the idea that 

 the spasms were owing to the operation of a vital 

 stimulus. So far from supposing this, he will imagine. 



