126 



TREATMENT OF PERSONS 



by cold and abstinence. An asylum was offered 

 him in a warm apartment of the pharmacy of the 

 hospital. He had scarcely been a few hours in 

 this atmosphere^ so new to him, when his limbs, 

 in which he had lost all feeling, became consi- 

 derably swelled, and he expired soon after- 

 wards in the arms of his son, and one of his 

 colleagues, incapable of uttering a single word. 

 We saw some individuals fall down stiff dead in 

 the fires of the bivouacs, &cc.' 



In describing the treatment of a person in a 

 state of torpor, or suspended animation from 

 cold, Callisen and Richter rigorously adhere to 

 the principle, that caloric should be very gra- 

 dually communicated to the body. The former 

 recommends long continued frictions with snow, 

 or cloths wet with very cold water. This is to 

 be done in a very cold room ; and he advises the 

 surgeon not to let his endeavours cease too 

 soon, as patients, after lying without signs of 

 life for several days, have yet been snatched 

 from the jaws of death. 



