22 ORGANISED FLUIDS. 



suited to play its part in the maintenance of the vital func- 

 tions. The accuracy of these statements is attested by 

 physiology, which demonstrates to us that a fluid condition is 

 necessary to the blood, for the correct performance of its 

 allotted functions. It follows, then, from the foregoing, that 

 a coagulated state of the blood, not in a single vessel indeed, 

 but in the vessels of the system generally, affords a certain 

 indication that death has occurred, and that therefore a 

 return to life has become impossible. 



It has ever been an object of the highest importance to 

 distinguish real from apparent death ; and anxious searches 

 have been instituted in the hope of discovering some certain 

 sign whereby the occurrence of death is at once signalised. 

 Hitherto this inquiry has been unsuccessful ; and it could hardly 

 have been otherwise ; for before the physiologist will be able 

 to determine the precise moment when life ceases, and death 

 begins, he must know in what the life consists, for death is 

 but the negation of life. It is probable that the mystery 

 of life will never be revealed to man ; if, indeed, it be any 

 thing more than, as already hinted, the result of the com- 

 bined operation of various chemical and physical laws ap- 

 pertaining to matter. 



Although no one single sign has hitherto been discovered 

 indicative of death at the moment of its occurrence, yet 

 several appearances have been remarked some time after 

 death, all of which are of more or less value in determining 

 so important a point. Independently of the cessation of 

 respiration and circulation, the presence of muscular rigidity, 

 some other changes have been noticed to occur in different 

 parts of the human body soon after the extinction of life ; as, 

 for instance, in the eye, and in the skin : these are mostly, 

 however, symptomatic of incipient decomposition, arid the 

 time of their accession is very uncertain : they likewise affect 

 parts, the integrity of which is not essential to life. A 

 fluid state of the blood, on the contrary, has been shown to 

 be indispensable to life ; so that the change which it under- 

 goes in the vessels of the body so quickly after death, may 

 be employed with much advantage and certainty in de- 



