October io, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



205 



HEALTH MATTERS. 

 The Diaphanous Test of Death. 



De. Benjamin Ward Richakdson, in the last Asclepiad, speaks 

 of a paragraph making the round of the scientific and general 

 press which must be accepted cum grano. In this paragraph, ac- 

 cording to the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, it is stated 

 that the French Academy of Sciences ten or fifteen years ago 

 offered a prize of $8,000 for the discovery of some means "by 

 which even the inexperienced might at once determine whether 

 in a given case death had or had not ensued. A physician ob- 

 tained the prize. He had discovered the following well-known 

 phenomenon. If the hand of the suspected dead person be held 

 towards a candle or other artificial light with the fingers extended 

 and one touching the other, and one looks through the spaces be- 

 tween the fingers towards the light, there appears a scarlet red 

 color where the fingers touch each other, due to the blood still 

 circulating, and showing itself through the tissues, if life have 

 not yet ceased. When life is entirely extinct, the phenomenon of 

 scarlet space between the fingers at once ceases. The most 

 thorough trials, it was said, had established the truth of this ob- 

 servation. 



Dr. Richardson says that in his essay on absolute proofs of death 

 he has described this test with the others, and has attached to it 

 its true value. The statement that the test is sufficient of itself 

 is, however, too solemn to be allowed to go without correction; 

 and he therefore affirms, with all possible earnestness, that the 

 test, trusted to alone, is capable of producing the most serious 

 error. In the ease of a person in a state of syncope, where the 

 test was most carefully applied, there was not the faintest trace of 

 red coloration between the fingers ; yet reooveiy from the syncope 

 was quite satisfactory without any artificial aid. The test is one 

 which admits of being readily tried, and, prima facie, it is a 

 good test to bring into operation. But as an absolute proof of 

 death Dr. Richardson would put before it, (1) the pulsation of the 

 heart, (3) the respiratory murmur, (3) pressure on veins, (4) the 

 electric test for muscular irritability, (3) the ammonia hypodermic 

 test, (6) coagulation of blood in the veins, (7) rigor mortis, and (8) 

 decomposition. 



Impurities under Finger-Nails. 



The progress of bacteriology has shown that aseptic surgery 

 means scientific cleanliness. The same lines of investigation 

 show how very dirty people can be. Seventy-eight examinations 

 of the impurities under finger-nails were made in the bacterio- 

 logical laboratories of Vienna, and the cultivations thus produced 

 showed thirty-six kinds of micrococci, eighteen bacilli, three 

 sarcinee, and various varieties. The spores of common mould 

 were very frequently present. The removal of all such impuri- 

 ties is an absolute duty in all who come near a wound. It is not 

 enough to apply some antiseptic material to the surface of dirt: 

 the impurity must be removed first, the hand antisepticized after. 

 Some physicians, when intending to drain dropsical legs by acu- 

 puncture or other methods, are very careful to use antiseptic 

 dressings, and in such cases have the feet and toe-nails purified 

 and rendered aseptic as far as possible. It is sometimes said that 

 the scratch of a nail is poisonous. There is no reason to suspect 

 the nail-tissue: it is more likely the germs laid in a wound from a 

 bacterial nest under the nail. Children are very apt to neglect to 

 purify their nails when washing hands; and this matter is not 

 always sufficiently attended to among surgical patients. Personal 

 cleanliness is a part of civic duty, and, as Dr. Abbott well expressed 

 the matter in his address to teachers, should be taught to school- 

 children, and insisted on in practice. The facts we have recorded 

 might well form the text for a school homily, especially when 

 any epidemic was in the neighborhood. 



Some Cases of Prolonged Want of Food. 



A correspondent of The Lancet writes as follows on this subject: 

 "The name of Gen. Coiletta, author of the 'History of the King- 

 dom of Naples from 1734 to 1825,' is one of the most respected in 

 the annals of modern Italy, and his reputation for discernment 

 and veracity may fairly be placed on a level with that of the Duke 



of Wellington in our own country. His description of the terrible- 

 earthquake which in 1783 devastated Calabria, and was severely 

 felt throughout the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, is of unques- 

 tioned authority, and from it the following incidents are ex- 

 tracted. They refer only to persons and animals imprisoned 

 beneath the ruins caused by the earthquake. It is only necessary 

 to add that the facts were ascertained by Gen. CoUetta's personal 

 investigations at the scene of the catastrophe. 1. A female child, 

 eleven years of age, was extricated on the sixth day and lived ;: 

 and another girl, sixteen years of age, Eloisa Basili, remained? 

 underground for eleven days, holding in her arms an infant whicb 

 bad died on the fourth day, so that it was decomposed and putre- 

 fied at the time of her rescue. She was unable to free herseir 

 from the shocking burden in her arms, so closely were they 

 hemmed in by the fallen wreckage. 3. More wonderful still, as^ 

 regards duration of life, were certain cases that occurred among 

 animals. Two she- mules existed under a heap of ruins, the one 

 twenty- two days, the other twenty-three; a fowl lived for twenty- 

 two days; and a pair of hogs, which were completely entombed,. 

 remained alive thirty-two days. The human beings who had un- 

 dergone these unwonted privations, when interrogated as to their 

 sensations, replied, 'I can recollect only up to a certain point, and 

 then I fell asleep.' When it is remembered that all the creatures- 

 thus circumstanced were deprived entirely of water or other 

 liquids, it is hardly to be wondered at, that, though there was no 

 desire for solid food, they displayed on their liberation an insatia- 

 ble thirst, and, the author adds, partial bhndness, — sete inestin- 

 guibile e quasi cecitd." 



E- Long-Immersed Human Subjecst. 



A very interesting report has just been issued by Dr. Konig- 

 of Hermannstadt, on the state in which the human subject, after 

 forty years' immersion in water, may be found by the physiologists 

 In the revolutionary upheaval of 1849, a company of Hcnvgds, as^ 

 the Hungarian militia are called, having fallen in the vicissitudes- 

 of war, were consigned to the waters of the Echoschacht, a pool 

 of considerable depth not far from Hermannstadt. Their bodies^ 

 as we learn from the Lancet of Aug. 9, 1890, have recently been 

 brought up to the light of day, and subjected to a careful and' 

 minute investigation from the physiologist's point of view. Dr^ 

 Konig found them in perfect preservation, without a single trace 

 of any decomposing process. Externally they had the appearance 

 of having been kept in spirit. The epidermis was of a whitish- 

 gi'ay color; the muscles, rose-red, feeling to the touch like freshly 

 slaughtered butcher's meat. The lungs, heari^ liver, spleen, kid- 

 neys, bladder, stomach, and alimentary canal were of the con- 

 sistence of those in a newly deceased corpse; while the brain was 

 hard and of a dirty-gray color, as if preserved in spirit. Structu- 

 rally the organs retained their outline perfectly, and were so 

 easily recognizable in tissue as well as configuration, that, accord- 

 ing to Dr. Konig, they might have been exhibited for " demonstra- 

 tion '■ in an anatomical lectui-e-room. After forty-one years under 

 water, these are indeed remarkable phenomena. The large in- 

 testine contained f»ces of a yellowish-brown color, quite unal- 

 tered and inodorous; while the bladder was partially filled with- 

 straw-colored urine. But perhaps the most significant feature 

 disclosed by these corpses is the following: in their interior 3- 

 large amoimt of chloride of sodium, crystallized in cubes, had 

 been deposited and fixed on the several tissues and organs, and 

 this salt had not penetrated mechanically into the dead bodies from 

 without. In the completely closed and jierfectly unimpaired peri- 

 cardium, and also on the outer surface of the heart itself, crystals- 

 of the same kind were found. This, according to Dr. Konig, 

 clearly shows, that, in the water, particles held in solution may 

 pass through the skin and the muscles, and find their way into- 

 the most deeply seated organs. Herein, he adds, we have con- 

 firmatory proof, if such were needed, that the specific virtues of 

 mineral baths exercise in this way their salutary elfect on the 

 internal economy of the bather. There is a notable difference, 

 however, between the time spent in the bath by an ordinary bather 

 at a " Curort'' and the forty-one years during which the Honveds 

 remained under water. The phenomenal quietness of the Echo- 

 schacht may also have been a material factor in this impregnatioir. 



