VOL. XLIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 105 



the tone and texture of the solids is injured or destroyed, it would be extreme 

 folly to think of any expedient to recover life. But where the solids are whole, 

 and their tone unimpaired by diseases, the juices not vitiated by any other cause 

 than a short stagnation ; where there is the least remains of animal heat ; it 

 would seem wrong not to attempt so easy an experiment. 



This description takes in a few diseases, but a great number of accidents. 

 Among the first are many of those which are called sudden deaths from some 

 invisible cause; apoplexies, fits of various kinds, as hysterics, syncopes, and 

 many other disorders, where, without any obvious pre-indisposition, persons in 

 a moment sink down and expire. In many of these cases it might be of use to 

 apply this method; but without neglecting any of those other helps, which are 

 usually employed on these melancholy occasions. 



It is not easy to enumerate all the various casualties, in which this method 

 might be tried with a prospect of success ; some of them are the following : 

 suffocations from the sulphureous damps of mines, coal-pits, &c. the condensed 

 air of long-unopened wells, or other subterraneous caverns ; the noxious vapours 

 arising from fermenting liquors received fi"om a narrow vent; the steam of burn- 

 ing charcoal ; sulphureous mineral acids ; arsenical effluvia, &c. 



Perhaps those who to appearance are struck dead by lightning, or any violent 

 agitation of the passions, as joy, fear, surprize, &c. might frequently be reco- 

 vered by this simple process of strongly blowing into the lungs, and by that 

 means once more communicating motion to the vital organs. Malefactors 

 executed at the gallows would afford opportunities of discovering how far this 

 method might be successful in relieving such as may have unhappily become 

 their own executioners, by hanging themselves. It might at least be tried if, 

 after the criminals have hung the usual time, inflating the lungs, in the manner 

 proposed, would not, sometimes, bring them to life. The only ill consequence 

 that could accrue from a discovery of this kind, would be easily obviated by pro- 

 longing the present allotted time of suspension. 



But this method would seem to promise very much in assisting those who 

 have been suffocated in the water, under the above-mentioned circumstances ; at 

 least it appears necessary to recommend a trial of it, after the body has been dis- 

 charged of the water admitted into it, by placing it in a proper position, the head 

 downwards, prone,* and, if it can be, across a barrel, hogshead, or some such- 

 like convex support, with the utmost expedition. 



It does not seem absurd to compare the animal machine to a clock ; let the 

 wheels of which be in ever so good order, the mechanism complete in every part, 

 and wound up to the full pitch, yet without some impulse communicated to the 

 pendulum, the whole continues motionless. 



* This was a very injudicious direction, founded on a naistaken supposition that the death of 

 drowned persons was owing to the quantity of water admitted into the stomach and lungs. 

 VOL, IX. P 



