Bakewell. — On infiammaiory Action in dead Animal Bodies. Il3 



Art. XII. — On the Production of Inflammatory Action in detached Portions of 

 dead Animal Bodies. By Robert Hall Bakewell, M.D., Fellow of 

 the Eoyal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London ; formerly 

 President of the Medical Board of Trinidad, etc., etc. 

 [Read before the Westland Institute, 1st November, 1881.] 

 The question, " What is death ? " is one not so easily answered as might be 

 supposed. The popular idea that death in animals is a sudden and instan- 

 taneous change, is of couurse not held by physiologists, who have long 

 recognized the distinction between somatic death, or that of the animal body 

 as a whole, and molecular death, or that of the elementary structures of 

 which it is built up. It is difficult to find a good and terse definition of 

 death. In the following article, somatic death may be defined as the 'perma- 

 nent arrest of all the functions and ^joivers of the body. The only certain proof 

 of death, as thus defined, is the commencement of chemical decomposition 

 in the whole of the body. 



It will be at once apparent that this definition of death leaves a con- 

 siderable interval between that cessation of respiration and circulation, 

 accompanied by entire unconsciousness, which is the popular idea of death, 

 and the commencement of chemical decomposition. During this interval 

 the only vital actions* generally supposed to continue, are that peculiar 

 state of muscular action called the i-igor mortis, and the growth of the hair. 

 Some writers consider even the latter as not a true growth, but only an 

 appearance produced by the shrinking of the skin. 



It is the purpose of this paper to give a very brief epitome of a series of 

 experiments which have been performed during the last ten years, showing 

 that, in so far as inflammation may be considered as an evidence of life, 

 molecular life exists with a vigour and for a length of time hitherto unsus- 

 pected, after somatic death has taken place. 



It may just be mentioned that, when in medical charge of a smallpox 

 hospital some ten years ago, in the West Indies, I was engaged in micro- 

 scopical investigations into the growth and development of the variolous 

 vesicle, which were published at the time in the " Medical Times and 

 Gazette," 1871-2, in a series of j)apers on the Pathology and Treatment of 

 Smallpox. I then observed that in my quarters, a small wooden building 

 of inch planks, where the temperature in the middle of the day was often 

 100° F., changes took place in the variolous matter, kept in the ordinary 

 capillary glass tubes. I was thus induced to try the cultivation of variolous 



* I use this term for convenience' sake. 



