

THE PHYSIOLOGY OF DEATH. 3H 



can be excited anew, awakened out of their torpor, and 

 animated to extremely remarkable vital manifestations. 

 This subject we now proceed to consider. 



n. 



Death seems to be absolute from the instant that the 

 pulsations of the heart are stopped without renewal, be- 

 cause, the circulation of the blood no longer proceeding, 

 the nutrition of the organs becomes impossible, and nutri- 

 tion is demanded for the maintenance of physiological har- 

 mony ; but, as we have said above, there are a thousand 

 little springs in the organism which keep up a certain de- 

 gree of activity after the great main-spring has ceased to 

 act. There is an infinite number of partial energies that 

 outlive the destruction of the principal energy, and with- 

 draw only by slow degrees. In cases of sudden death 

 especially the tissues keep their peculiar vitality a very 

 long time. In the first place, the heat declines only quite 

 slowly, and the more so in proportion as death has been 

 quick. For several hours after death the hair of the head 

 and body, and the nails, continue to grow, nor does ab- 

 sorption either stop at once. Even digestion, too, keeps 

 on. The experiment performed by Spallanzani to test this 

 is very curious. He conceived the idea of making a crow 

 eat a certain quantity of food, and killing it immediately 

 after the meal. Then he put it in a place kept at the same 

 temperature as that of a live bird, and opened it six hours 

 later. The food was thoroughly digested. 



Besides these general manifestations, the dead body is 

 capable, during some continued time, of different kinds of 

 activity. It is not easy to study these on the bodies of 

 persons dying of sickness, because they are not permitted 

 to be made the subject of anatomical examinations until 

 twenty-four hours after death ; but the bodies of beheaded 

 criminals, which are given up to savants a few moments 



