804 



DEATH, 



apparent cessation. The case of Colonel 

 Townsbend, related by Cheyne,* is too well 

 known to need recital here. Perhaps the most 

 unequivocal examples of their suspension are 

 certain cases on record of restoration after sub- 

 mersion for several minutes. In some of these 

 there is good reason to believe that there was 

 no genuine asphyxia, but that syncope took 

 place immediately, and consequently that there 

 was no stagnation of blood in the extremities 

 of the pulmonary arteries. As to the alleged 

 cases of persons who have been said to lie 

 many hours and even days without pulse or 

 breathing, we do not hesitate to express a 

 belief that the observers were deceived, and 

 that in reality both these functions were per- 

 formed, but in so low a degree as to escape 

 detection, just as hybernating animals were 

 supposed to be, during their torpor, in the pre- 

 dicament alluded to, until the researches of 

 Dr. M. Hall proved that these animals do 

 actually respire and maintain their circulation, 

 though in a much less degree than when 

 awake. It will be the duty of the practitioner 

 to adopt every method within his reach of 

 ascertaining the actual condition of these func- 

 tions; but he must remember that they are 

 often inefficient and even fallacious. Thus, 

 with regard to the common modes of trying 

 the respiration by a mirror, or by light downy 

 bodies placed near the mouth and nostrils, 

 it is obvious that the former may retain its 

 clearness, because the halitus is not in suf- 

 ficient quantity to stain it, or may be dimmed 

 by exhalations from the air-passages which are 

 not the products of respiration ; and that the 

 downy substances may be stirred by currents 

 of air, or remain unmoved by the trivial ex- 

 change which takes place between the external 

 atmosphere and the air in the chest of the 

 person examined. Winslow's test of a vessel 

 full of water placed on the lowest part of the 

 thorax is of little utility, since we know that 

 the diaphragm may be the only muscle em- 

 ployed in expanding the chest. As to the 

 circulation, it may continue though no pul- 

 sation can be felt over the arteries or the car- 

 diac region, and no sound be perceptible by 

 auscultation mediate or immediate. Few prac- 

 titioners would be willing to apply M. Fou- 

 bert's test, to wit, that of making an incision 

 in one of the intercostal spaces, and feeling 

 the heart with the finger ! 



The loss of irritability in the muscular fibres 

 is of far greater consequence than either of the 

 foregoing signs. It may be present when re- 

 covery is out of the question, but its absence 

 is quite conclusive. Galvanism affords a cer- 

 tain and ready method of detecting this pro- 

 perty. According to the researches of Nystenf 

 irritability is first extinguished in the left ven- 

 tricle; after forty-five minutes it has left the 

 intestines and stomach ; a little later the blad- 

 der ; after an hour the right ventricle ; after an 

 hour and a half the oesophagus; after an hour 



* English Malady, page 307. 

 t Recherches de Physiologic et de Chimie Pa- 

 thologique. 



and three quarters the iris. It next takes leave 

 of the muscles of the trunk, then the lower 

 and upper extremities, and lastly the right 

 auricle. The duration of contractility is short- 

 ened by a warm and humid state of the at- 

 mosphere, by ammoniacal gas, carbonic acid, 

 and sulphuretted hydrogen. It is unaffected by 

 carburetted hydrogen, chlorine, and sulphur- 

 ous acid ; nor is it found diminished in cases 

 of asphyxia by strangulation and immersion. 

 The annihilation of that particular kind of 

 contractility of tissue, which is equally dis- 

 tinct from muscular contractility, irritability, 

 and elasticity, is one of the surest signs of 

 death. We see it wanting in the collapsed 

 edges of a wound which has been inflicted on 

 the skin of a dead body, as contrasted with 

 the gaping appearance of a similar lesion made 

 during life. 



The loss of animal heat, though an invariable 

 occurrence at some period after death, is not 

 unfrequently noticed in disease. Every prac- 

 titioner must have met with it in hysterical 

 cases; and it is a matter of notorious obser- 

 vation in cholera. On the other hand we have 

 known the heat of the body not only continue 

 but even return at a considerable period after 

 death has unequivocally taken place; a fact 

 attributable either to chemical actions of a 

 cadaveric description, or to the continuance of 

 the processes which developed caloric during 

 life. The mean time requisite for the com- 

 plete cooling of the body is fifteen or twenty 

 hours ; but the process is modified by a great 

 variety of circumstances. It is slower after 

 acute than chronic maladies, but is very con- 

 siderably retarded in asphyxial cases, except 

 those occasioned by submersion. 



Calorification is not the only function that 

 may survive what is commonly called death ; 

 thus the rectum and bladder have been known 

 very frequently to discharge their contents 

 after death ; and, which is still more remark- 

 able, parturition has taken place under such 

 circumstances. The continuance of secretion, 

 absorption, and nutrition has been argued 

 from the exhalation of serous fluids in some 

 parts, their disappearance in others, arid the 

 alleged growth of hair. Some of these facts 

 are more rationally explained on such physical 

 principles as are involved in transudation, 

 endosmose, penetration, &c. &c. ; as to the 

 growth of hair, there is great reason to doubt 

 the accuracy of the testimonies to the fact. 

 Haller very justly observes that shrinking of 

 the skin would produce an apparent elongation 

 of the beard, which is the part upon which 

 the observation alluded to has been most fre- 

 quently made. 



2. The first alterations in the physical pro- 

 perties of the solids after death are softness 

 and flexibility, to which succeed sooner or later 

 the opposite conditions of firmness and rigi- 

 dity. The softness or want of elasticity may 

 be owing partly to differences in the distri- 

 bution of the fluids in the tissues, and partly 

 to changes in the tissue itself. The flattening 

 of those parts upon which the weight of the 

 body rests, the effect of deficient elasticity, 



