OF VITAL MOTION. 75 



what was actually the case, that death was prematurely 

 binding his victim, and that the cramp was a true 

 rigor mortis in vitd. In such a case, we may indeed 

 suppose that the muscular contractions in many 

 instances passed at once, and without any interval, 

 into the rigidity of death; for though there is no 

 direct evidence on the subject, yet it may be argued 

 from analogy that it might be so. Indeed, in cases 

 of extreme typhoid depression, where the condition is 

 very closely allied to malignant cholera, (as was 

 pointed out by Dr. Billing,) the subsultus and con- 

 vulsive twitchings of the moribund state at once pass 

 into rigor mortis when life has fled : and therefore a 

 similar transition in cholera, where the subsultus is 

 exaggerated into spasm, is not only possible, but even 

 probable. 



The fact that paralysis of motion is a most familiar 

 consequence of the cutting off of nervous influence, is 

 not a fatal objection to the view that muscular con- 

 traction is a negative phenomenon. In this case we 

 must not deceive ourselves by supposing the possibility 

 of contraction to be lost. Twitchings in the muscles, 

 convulsion, and tonic spasm, are in fact not uncommon 

 accompaniments of paralysis of motion ; and there is 

 most generally and especially where the disease has 

 been of long continuance a certain rigidity, parti- 

 cularly in the flexors, by which the limbs are partly 

 bent. The occurrence, also, of excito-motory con- 



