THE PHYSIOLOGY OF DEATH. 315 
it a degree of very dim and uncertain sensibility. This is easi- 
ly explained. In life, the slightest perturbation in the cere- 
bral circulation is enough to prevent thought and sensation 
utterly. Now, if afew drops of blood too much or too little 
in the brain of an animal in full health suffice to alter the 
regularity of its psychical manifestations, much more cer- 
tainly will the completeness of the brain’s action be de- 
ranged if it is awakened by an injection of foreign blood, a 
forcible ingress too, which, of necessity, cannot cause the 
blood to circulate with suitable pressure and equipoise. 
Corpse-like rigidity is one of the most characteristic 
phenomena of death. This is a general hardening of the 
muscles, so great that they lose the property of extension 
till even the joints cannot be bent; this phenomenon begins 
some hours after death. The muscles of the lower jaw are 
the first to stiffen; then rigidity invades in succession the 
abdominal muscles, those of the neck, and at last the tho- 
racic ones. This hardening takes place through the coagu- 
lation of the half-fluid albuminoid matter which composes 
the muscular fibres, as the solidification of the blood results 
from coagulation of its fibrine. After a few hours the 
coagulated musculine grows fluid again, rigidity passes 
away, and the muscles relax. Something not dissimilar 
takes place also in the blcod. The globules change, lose 
shape, and suffer the beginning of dissociation. The agents 
of putrefaction, vibrios and bacteria, thus enter upon their 
great work by insidiously breaking up the least seen 
parts. 
At last, when partial revivals are no longer possible, 
when the last flicker of life has gone out and corpse-like 
rigidity has ceased, a new work begins. The living germs 
that had collected on the surface of the body and in the 
digestive canal develop, multiply, pierce into all the points 
of the organism, and produce in it a complete separation 
of the tissues and humors; this is putrefaction, The mo- 
