THE PHENOMENA OF DEATH IN BATTLE. 203 



and a slight degree of acidity in the muscle juice lowers the tem- 

 perature for coagulation ; so that hard-worked and heated mus- 

 cles are, upon chemical grounds, susceptible to the onset of rigor. 

 The most remarkable cases of battlefield rigor seem to develop 

 under extraordinary heat. Given heat and the release of blood 

 pressure, the sudden check of muscular energy consequent upon 

 the wound cuts off from the protoplasm all healthy expenditure 

 of waste, and its action may be brought to a halt so sudden and 

 so effectual as to preclude the slightest change of attitude beyond 

 what may be caused by external forces. Reduced to its plainest 

 terms the idea is as follows : Muscular action and excitement de- 

 velop heat and chemical action. The myosin, or muscle juice, 

 normally alkaline, is by hard work and excitement rendered acid. 

 Heat and acidity being present in the muscles, tetanic or early 

 rigor-mortis contractions might be expected in case of sudden 

 death. 



Again, the outstretched hand of the soldier, the grasp of weap- 

 ons — even the fixing of the eyeballs in angry stare — are acts of 

 the will. If death cuts short the power to will a reaction in the 

 muscles involved by instantly destroying the nerve centers con- 

 trolling the expanded member, why should the muscles contract 

 any more than they would expand, if death came at the moment 

 of contraction ? 



The immediate effect of an electric current of lethal energy 

 comes nearest to what must be supposed as the manifestations 

 attending instantaneous death in the heat of individual action. 

 In an electric chair, at the moment of contact with the deadly 

 current, the entire muscular system of the victim is thrown into 

 a state of sudden and severe rigidity, lasting until the electrode 

 is removed. All bodily sensation, motion, and consciousness are 

 suspended at the same time ; that is to say, the cessation of con- 

 sciousness and the physical death — " total paralysis of all the vital 

 organs and the nervous centers by which they are directly or in- 

 directly vitalized, and by which the muscles of the extremities 

 are actuated so that when the current is broken there can be no 

 reflex action of the muscles, such as would indicate the presence 

 of residual life energy or the possibility of resuscitation" — are 

 synchronous. In the case of McElvaine, executed at Sing Sing, 

 February 8, 1892, the reflex action of the voluntary muscles was 

 tested approximately two or three minutes after the breaking of 

 the current, and was found to be " absolutely unresponsive to 

 ordinary mechanical stimuli." Dr. Van Gieson, in his report of 

 the experiment, says: "This tends to show how superlatively 

 complete and far-reaching the effects of the current are in abol- 

 ishing life, not only in the concrete form, but also in the integral 

 activities of the body, which, in other forms of sudden and vio- 



