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and passed a noose round his neck, above the wound. The animal, 

 though hanged, continued to live and to breathe? the air entered and 

 came out alternately, at the small opening. He died, when the constric- 

 tion was applied below the wound. A respectable surgeon, who served 

 in the Austrian army, assured me, that he had saved the life of a soldier, 

 by performing upon him the operation of laryngotomy, a few hours be- 

 fore his execution. 



Persons who are hanged may die, however, from dislocation of the cer- 

 vical vertebrae, and from the injury done, at the same time, to the spinal 

 marrow. Loui^, it is well known, ascertained, that of the two executioners 

 in Lyons and Paris, the one despatched the criminals he executed, by dis- 

 locating the head at its articulation with the neck, while the ether execu- 

 tioner destroyed them, by inducing asphyxia. 



Of the different mephilic gases unfit for respiration, some appear to 

 bring on asphyxia, merely by depriving the lungs of the vital air necessa- 

 ry to the support of life, while others evidently affect the organs and the 

 blood which fills them, by their poisonous and deleterious influence. 



One may mention, among the former, carbonic acid , in the asphyxia 

 occasioned by this gas, and which of all others is the most frequent, the 

 blood preserves its fluidity, the limbs their suppleness, and the body its 

 natural warmth, or even a greater degree of warmth, for some hours after 

 death; for, this kind of asphyxia occurring always in a very hot situation, 

 the body deprived of life, admits of an excess of caloric, such as would 

 have been resisted, if the vital power had not been suspended. However, 

 in this asphyxia, as in the preceding, the lungs remain uninjured , the 

 rig-lit cavities of the heart and the venous system, are gorged with a dark 

 but fluid blood. In the asphyxia, on the other hand, that is occasioned 

 by sulphureted or phosphureted hydrogen, Sec. or by certain vapours 

 whose nature is well understood, and which escape from privies, or from 

 vaults in which a number of dead bodies undergo putrefaction ; these are 

 frequently found in the lungs, dark and gangrenous marks, and death 

 seems the effect of a poison which is the more active, as its particles, ex- 

 ceedingly divided and in a gaseous state, are more insinuating, and affect 

 throughout its whole extent, the nervous and sensible surface of the 

 lungs*. 



Inebriation seldom goes the length of bringing on asphyxia, it most 

 commonly produces a stupor readily distinguished from the affection 

 treated of in this article, by the perceptible, though obscure pulse, and 

 by the motions of respiration, though these are rare and indistinct. On 

 this account, M. Pinel, in his Noaografihie Philasophique, has placed inebri 

 ation and the different kinds of asphyxia, in two separate genera of the 

 class neuroses. It is conceivable, however, that the muscular irritability 



* The celebrated Mr. Goodwin, not to mention others, concurs with our author, in 

 the opinion that the carbonic acid destroys life, and produces its lesser mischievous ef- 

 fects merely by the preclusion of oxygen. These writers, however, are undoubtedly 

 mistaken. Nothing is more clear than that this species of gas has a positive operation 

 en the animal economy. We will state a few facts in proof of it. 



1. It has been shown, that animals die much sooner when exposed to the carbonic 

 acid, than when placed in vacuo, or when a ligature is applied to the trachea. 



2. It has been shown, that frogs may be kept, without injury, for upwards of an hour 

 under water, but perish almost instantly if put into an atmosphere of fixed air. 



3. It has been shown, that when the carbonic acid is combined' with water it very 

 speedily destroys fish. Chapman, 



