THE PHYSIOLOGY OF DEATH. 311 
can be excited anew, awakened out of their torpor, and 
animated to extremely remarkable vital manifestations. 
This subject we now proceed to consider. 
II. 
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. Jt 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 
