Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/293

Rh bathing, in the Ganges, by the ladies of Calcutta, seize one of them by the legs, drown her, and rob her of her rings. It was supposed that a crocodile carried her off. One of his intended victims succeeding in escaping, the assassin was seized and executed in 1817. He confessed that he had practised the horrible business for seven years. Another instance is that of a spy, who, seeing preparations making for his execution, endeavored to escape it by feigning death. He held his breath, and suspended all voluntary motions for twelve hours, and endured all the tests applied to him to put the reality of his death beyond doubt. Anæsthetics, too, like chloroform and ether, sometimes produce stronger effects than the surgeons using them desire, and occasion a state of seeming death instead of temporary insensibility.

It is easy to recall persons to life who are in a state of seeming death; it is only needful to stimulate powerfully the two mechanical systems that are more or less completely suspended in action, namely those of respiration and circulation. Such movements are communicated to the frame of the chest, that the lungs are alternately compressed and dilated. A sort of shampooing is applied over the whole body, which restores the capillary circulation; chemical stimulants, such as ammonia or acetic acid, are brought under the patient's nostrils. This is the mode of treatment for drowned persons, whose condition is brought on by ceasing to breathe the air, not by taking in too much water. A very effective method in cases of apparent death, caused by inhaling a poisonous gas, such as carbonic acid or sulphuretted hydrogen, consists in making the patient draw in large quantities of pure oxygen. And, again, it has very lately been proposed, as Hallé suggested without success early in this century, to adopt the use of strong electric currents for stimulating movement in persons who are in a state of syncope.

In all the cases of seeming death we have just mentioned, one mark of vitality persistently remains, that is, pulsation of the heart. Its throbs are less strong and frequent, but they continue perceptible on auscultation. They are regularly discernible in the deepest fainting-fits, in the various kinds of asphyxia, in poisonings by the most violent narcotics, in hysteria, in the torpor of epilepsy, in short, in the most diverse and protracted states of lethargy and seeming death.

Yet, this result, now a practical certainty, was unknown to physicians of old, and it cannot be denied that, in former times, seeming death was quite often mistaken for true death. The annals of science have recorded a certain number of errors of this kind, many of which have resulted in the interment of unfortunate wretches who were not dead. And for one of these mistakes that chance has brought to light either too late, or in time for the rescue, even then, of the victim, how many are there, particularly in times of ignorance and carelessness, that no one has ever known! How many live men have only given