SUGGESTIONS FOR PREVENTION.
THE learned Dr. Vigné, of Rouen, who won the respect of his
fellow-citizens during a long and honourable career, was for many years
engaged in the study of this question, and published the result of his
researches shortly before his death. Convinced that the resources of
science were insufficient to distinguish real from apparent death, he
left testamentary instructions to provide against his own premature
burial. (“Des Inhumations Précipitées, p. 83,” by Lénormand.)
Dr. Winslow, a French physician, who had on two different occasions
very nearly fallen a victim to premature burial, having been laid out
for dead, chose for the subject of his thesis before the Paris Faculty
of Medicine, “Les moyens les plus propres à reconnaître la réalité
de la mort.” Dr. Winslow may be said to have been the pioneer of a
movement in France for exposing the danger of, and educating the public
into the necessity of reforms in, the mode of treating the apparent
dead; and, although his efforts and warnings were as of one crying
in the wilderness or amongst an apathetic people, with a legislature
apparently uninfluenced either by facts or by reason, they were never
relaxed. Numerous writers have since confirmed the truth of Dr.
Winslow’s contention by facts within their own experience, and it is
believed that legislation in France cannot be much longer delayed.
That the risk of premature burial is not an imaginary one, as recently
declared by a leading London medical journal, has been shown by the
citation in this volume of cases of death-like trance which have
baffled the ablest of medical experts; also the instances of numerous
narrow escapes from this terrible occurrence, and of others where the
victims were suffocated before timely aid could be obtained, most of
which are drawn from medical sources, and some from the columns of
the said sceptical journal. The painful reality is also shown by the
multitude of preventive measures suggested by medical authorities, and
by the ingenious contrivances of those who have made this distressing
subject one of patient and laborious research. Several of the remedies
suggested for adoption in cataleptic cases are really homicidal, or
seriously mutilative; many of them are impracticable, and have been
shown by Hufeland, Lénormand, Richardson, Hartmann, Bouchut, Fletcher,
and Gannal to be delusive. The merits and demerits of some of these
methods might be inquired into by the appointment of a Parliamentary
Committee, or a Royal Commission, as a supplement to that appointed in
1893, by Mr. Asquith, on Death-Certification.
CUTANEOUS EXCITATION.
Dr. James Curry, F.R.S., in his “Observations on Apparent Death,” pp.
56, 57, says, concerning the application of stimulants to the skin:--
“To assist in rousing the activity of the vital principle, it has been
customary to apply various stimulating matters to different parts
of the body. But, as some of these applications are in themselves
positively hurtful, and the others serviceable only according to the
time and manner of their employment, it will be proper to consider
them particularly.
“The application of all such matters in cases of apparent death is
founded upon the supposition that the skin still retains sensibility
enough to be affected by them. It is well known, however, that even
during life the skin loses sensibility in proportion as it is deprived
of heat, and does not recover it again until the natural degree of
warmth be restored. Previous to the restoration of heat, therefore, to
a drowned body, all stimulating applications are useless, and, so far
as they interfere with the other measures, are also prejudicial.”
Several writers, besides Dr. Winslow, whose views on premature burial
are cited in this volume, have themselves been the victims of hasty
and erroneous medical diagnosis; and, having had narrow escapes of
premature burial, their experience has prompted them to take a deep
interest in the subject, with the determination to do what they could
to enlighten and safeguard the public from so terrible a danger. In
other cases, members of their families have been the unhappy victims
of mistaken certificates. Mr. George T. Angell, the editor of “_Dumb
Animals_,” Boston, U.S., whose father was pronounced by his physician
dead, and returned to consciousness after preparations for the funeral
had been made, has repeatedly alluded to the subject in his paper,
and published preventive suggestions at various times, including the
following from a physician:--
“When I arrived, the man had been dead twenty-four hours. I empanelled
a jury; the family of the deceased testified to the extent of their
knowledge; but I was unable to find he had any disease sufficient
to kill him. I looked at the body and examined it carefully. Then I
lighted a match, and applied it to the end of one of the fingers of
the corpse. Immediately a blister formed. I had the man put back into
his bed, applied various restoratives, and to-day he is alive and
well.
“That is the test. Do you see the philosophy of it? If you are alive,
you cannot burn your hand without raising a blister. Nature, in the
effort to protect the inner tissues, throws a covering of water, a
non-conductor of heat, between the fire and the flesh. If you were
dead, and flames should come in contact with any part of your body, no
blister would appear, and the flesh would be burned.
“All you have to do is to apply a match to any part of the supposed
corpse. If life remains, however little, a blister will at once form.”
The test, like the following one, is deceptive, because life may be so
torpid and inactive as to be unable to respond to the irritation of
heat, or even to the application of red hot irons.
THE BLISTER TEST.
The _British Medical Journal_, January 18, 1896, p. 180, under the head
of “Living or Dead?” prints the following communication concerning this
test:--
[THE BLISTER TEST.]
“Sir,--Burial alive, though of exceedingly rare occurrence, sometimes
does happen, and calls for increased attention to the means of
detecting with certainty the presence of vitality, however feeble.
The ordinary means of deciding the vital question are known to all
persons. Auscultation may detect the enfeebled heart-beat, while the
electric battery can elicit any existing muscular contractility.
Conditions of trance are occasionally almost mystical in their
profundity (Brahmin trance), and a simple and ready-to-hand test to
decide whether death has occurred is of prime importance. We can
ascertain whether or not life still lingers in uncertain cases by
applying (say) to the back of the forearm a small stream of boiling
water directly from the kettle. If life is present, the boiling water
will soon and unfailingly raise a blister where applied, and the
blister will contain fluid, the serum of the blood. The production of
the serum blister being essentially a vital process, its production
or non-production becomes an infallible test, and determines the
question. This test, not generally known, should be widely proclaimed.
“J. MILFORD BARNETT, M.D., Edin.
“Belfast, January 11, 1896.”
This test has frequently failed, and should not be relied upon.
[AUSCULTATION.]
AUSCULTATION.
The stethoscope, which is regarded by many medical practitioners as an
infallible means of preventing premature burial, has proved a broken
reed in hundreds of cases, and can be of use only when applied with
other tests. Dr. Roger S. Chew, of Calcutta, writes to me, February,
1896:--
“The _British Medical Journal_ (September 28, 1895) tells us that the
careful use of the stethoscope will enable a medical man to distinguish
a living from a dead body. Auscultation may give startling results,
and the body yet be absolutely dead. I recollect an instance of death
from cobra-bite, when, though decomposition had set in, the relatives
refused to believe she was dead, because one of them declared that,
though he did not see her chest rise and fall, he had distinctly heard
her sigh. A medical man was called in, applied the stethoscope over
her thorax, and declared he could hear sounds from her lungs, and a
peculiar ‘_sough_,’ ‘_sough_’ towards the apex of the heart. So far he
was right, but, as the girl had already been dead some fourteen hours,
and the weather was warm, the sounds he heard were those of the escape
of the putrefactive gases bubbling upward and unable to find exit, as
her mouth was closed with a chin-bandage, and her nostrils plugged with
mucus. To convince the parents that the girl was really dead, I offered
to perform artificial respiration, to which end I untied the bandage,
prized open her jaws, and pressed _heavily_ on her thorax, when some of
the imprisoned gases escaped, emitting an abominable odour that brought
conviction of the girl being beyond all hope.
“In another case, that of my son, aged two years, after a series of
brain symptoms and severe clonic convulsions preceding an outbreak
of confluent small-pox, the stethoscope told me and a medical friend
who was present that my little boy had ceased to exist; but a liberal
application of ice to his head and cardiac region, together with
violent friction and artificial respiration vigorously employed for
_forty_ minutes, restored the child to me, and I thanked God that I had
refused to accept the evidence of the stethoscope as final.”
ELECTRICITY.
The application of the electric current is a powerful restorative agent
in cases of suspended animation, if judiciously applied. Struve in
his essay, “Suspended Animation,” p. 151, under the head of “Apparent
death from a fall,” says:--“A girl, three years of age, fell from a
window two stories high upon the pavement. Though she was considered
as lifeless, Mr. Squires, a natural philosopher, applied electricity.
Almost twenty minutes elapsed before the shocks produced any effect. At
last when some of the electric force pervaded the breast he observed a
slight motion of the heart. The child soon after began to breathe and
groan with great difficulty, and after some minutes a vomiting ensued.
For a few days the patient remained in a state of stupefaction, but in
the course of a week she was perfectly restored to health.”
[THE ELECTRICAL TEST.]
Referring to the subject of premature burial, Dr. W. S. Hedley, writing
to the _Lancet_, October 5, 1895, says:--“Forty years ago the subject
was investigated by Crimotel, twenty years later by Rosenthal, and more
recently by Onimus. It seems safe to say that in no disease, certainly
in none of those conditions usually enumerated as likely to be mistaken
for death, is galvanic and faradaic excitability abolished in every
muscle of the body. On the other hand, electro-muscular contractility
disappears in all the muscles within a few hours after death
(generally ninety minutes to three hours, according to Rosenthal), its
persistence varying to some extent with the particular muscle examined
(1), and with the mode of death (2). Therefore, if electro-muscular
contractility be present in any muscle, it means life or death only
a few hours before. It is clear that no interment or _post-mortem_
examination ought to take place so long as there is any flicker of
electric excitability. To me it seems almost equally obvious that in
all doubtful cases, sometimes in sudden death, and often to allay the
anxiety of friends, this test ought to be applied, and applied by
one who is accustomed to handle electric currents for purposes of
diagnosis.”
The _Medical Record_, New York, March 30, 1895, contains the
following:--“In a case reported by M. D’Arsonval, a man was struck with
a current of four thousand five hundred volts. The current entered at
his hand and issued at his back. Half an hour or more elapsed before
any attempts at resuscitation were made, but, on artificial respiration
being practised on Silvester’s method, recovery took place. Dr.
Donnellan reports a case of the passage of a current of one thousand
volts through a man, which instantly caused coma, dilated pupils,
pallor of the face, and sweating; delirium and tonic, alternating
with clonic, spasms followed. The pulse was eighty. The respiration,
at first stertorous, passed into the Cheyne-Stokes type. After the
injection, first of morphia, and then of strychnia, the patient fell
into a deep sleep, from which he awoke convalescent.--_Centralblatt für
die medicinischen Wissenschaften._”
The apparatus for applying electrical currents, long used by the
Humane Society for restoration of the drowned, might with advantage
be kept at public mortuaries, for use in cases of apparent death due
to other causes, where decomposition has not manifested itself. The
Weather Bureau at Washington advises those who are in the neighbourhood
of persons struck by lightning to make immediate efforts to restore
consciousness, because the effect of lightning is to suspend animation
rather than to produce death. Respiration and circulation should be
stimulated, and the usual remedies for relief in such cases should be
administered for at least an hour before giving up the victim as dead.
Dr. Moore Russell Fletcher says:--“When persons without pulse or
breathing are found in bed, in the field, or elsewhere, treat them
in such manner as will restore from stroke of lightning, paralysis,
or suspended animation from catalepsy, trance, or somnambulism, and
continue the treatment until resuscitation rewards the exertions, or
decomposition is evident.”--_Suspended Animation, pp. 7, 8._
HYPODERMIC INJECTIONS.
Mr. E. E. Carpmael, of the Medical Department, Berkeley University,
U.S.A., recommends, in the _Morning Post_, London, September 19,
1895, the injection of strychnine in “a supposed corpse;” while
“Medicus,” in the _Daily Chronicle_, September 17, 1895, considers
that _post-mortems_ “would be to the advantage of the patient, to
his relations, to science, and the community at large.” No doubt
either of these plans would prevent live sepulture, by killing the
cataleptic subject; while “M.R.C.S.,” in _Morning Post_, September
20, says:--“Obviously the simplest and best proof of death is
putrefaction--shown chiefly by the discolouration of the abdomen.”
[HYPODERMIC INJECTIONS.]
A correspondent in the _English Mechanic_, October 25, 1895, says:--“I
have long advised hypodermic injection of morphia before placing in
coffin for burial. _Ex hypothesi_, the vital spark is not supposed to
have expired, and the circulatory system not finally stopped. Hence the
hypodermic injection cannot be futile.”
A medical correspondent writing from Dresden, August 18, 1895, sends me
the following as showing the value of
ARTIFICIAL RESPIRATION.
“Major J. H. Patzki, Surgeon, U.S. Army, reports that in 1882, at St.
Augustine, Florida, a lady patient of his had an attack of tetanus,
caused by a scratch upon her foot by a nail while bathing. The
convulsive symptoms commenced in the muscles of the face, and increased
in violence in spite of energetic treatment, until the fifth day, when
the respiratory muscles became involved. The breathing was completely
suspended by the spasmodic action, and the radial and carotid pulse
ceased. The cardiac sounds became utterly inaudible to careful
stethoscopic examination repeatedly employed. The lady assumed all
the appearances of death, and there was _rigor mortis_, the result of
muscular spasm. Artificial respiration was resorted to, but not until
after the expiration of eighteen minutes did the first faint efforts
of respiration, and a feeble action of the heart, become perceptible.
Artificial respiration was continued for an hour afterwards, and the
life of the patient was saved, although the muscular spasms continued
to some extent for six days.
“This case is instructive in showing that tetanus, when it involves the
chest, may produce a state of apparent death, by interfering with the
respiratory and cardiac functions; and that artificial respiration, if
persistently employed, may rescue patients so affected from the perils
of apparent death.”
[DR. JOHN OSWALD’S OPINION.]
Dr. John Oswald, in “Suspended Animal Life,” Philadelphia, 1802, p.
65, says:--“The books of authors on this subject are replete with
criteria to judge of the existence or non-existence of the vital
principle. It is not necessary to take a separate view of the propriety
or impropriety of adopting any of these ambiguous signs, when we have
the accomplishment of so great an end as that of restoring suspended
life! Our exertions should never be influenced by any of them, but
continued with ardour and unremitted attention for a length of time.
It would be more happy for our unfortunate patients, and a source of
greater satisfaction to ourselves, were they expunged altogether. They
are all fallacious to a certain degree, and ought never to have the
smallest influence on the propriety or impropriety of persevering in
our attempts to revive the latent spark; for it is an unfortunate fact,
in consequence of an ignorant confidence placed in them, that persons
who might have been restored to life, to their friends, and to society
have been consigned to the grave.... This important subject has been
anxiously investigated by philosophers, to discover a just criterion of
judging with more certainty in these cases whether life is extinct, and
our patient a mass of dead matter, or whether, by our perseverance, he
may not be again recovered. The most indubitable sign is allowed to be
putrefaction of the body, or disorganisation of the fibre.”
The following extracts from an instructive but apparently forgotten
article in Dickens’ “All the Year Round,” July, 1869 (_à propos_ of a
pamphlet, “Lettre sur la Mort Apparente, les Conséquences Réelles des
Inhumations Précipitées, et le Temps pendant lequel peut persister
l’Aptitude à être rappellé à la Vie,” by the late regretted Dr.
Charles Londe), afford valuable suggestions:--
“Suffocation by foul air and mephitical gas is not a rare form of
death in the United Kingdom. It is possible that suspended animation
may now and then have been mistaken for the absolute extinction
of life. Dr. Londe gives an instructive case to the purpose. At
the extremity of a large grocer’s shop, a close, narrow corner, or
rather hole, was the sleeping-place of the shopman who managed the
night sale till the shop was closed, and who opened the shutters at
four in the morning. On the 16th of January, 1825, there were loud
knocks at the grocer’s door. As nobody stirred to open it, the grocer
rose himself, grumbling at the shopman’s laziness, and, proceeding
to his sleeping-hole to scold him, he found him motionless in bed,
completely deprived of consciousness. Terror-struck by the idea of
sudden death, he immediately sent in search of a doctor, who suspected
a case of asphyxia by mephitism. His suspicions were confirmed by
the sight of a night-lamp, which had gone out, although supplied
with oil and wick, and by a portable stove containing the remains
of charcoal partly reduced to ashes. In spite of a severe frost, he
immediately had the patient taken into the open air, and kept on a
chair in a position as nearly vertical as possible. The limbs of the
sufferer hung loose and drooping, the pupils were motionless, with
no trace either of breathing or pulsation of the heart or arteries;
in short, there were all the signs of death. The most approved modes
of restoring animation were persisted in for a long while without
success. At last, about three in the afternoon--that is, after _eleven
hours’_ continued exertion--a slight movement was heard in the region
of the heart. A few hours afterwards the patient opened his eyes,
regained consciousness, and was able to converse with the spectators
attracted by his resurrection. Dr. Londe draws the same conclusions
as before--namely, that persons suffocated by mephitism are not
unfrequently buried when they might be saved.”
[DANGER TO CHOLERA PATIENTS.]
“We have had cholera in Great Britain, and we may have it again.
At such trying times, if ever, hurried interments are not merely
excusable, but almost unavoidable. Nevertheless, one of the
peculiarities of that fearful disease is to bring on some of the
symptoms of death--the prostration, the coldness, and the dull livid
hues--long before life has taken its departure. Now, Dr. Londe states,
as an acknowledged fact, that patients pronounced dead of cholera have
been repeatedly seen to move one or more of their limbs after death.
While M. Trachez (who had been sent to Poland to study the cholera)
was opening a subject in the dead-house of the Bagatelle Hospital, in
Warsaw, he saw another body (that of a woman of fifty, who had died
in two days, having her eyes still bright, her joints supple, but
the whole surface extremely cold) which vividly moved its left foot
ten or twelve times in the course of an hour. Afterwards, the right
foot participated in the same movement, but very feebly. M. Trachez
sent for Mr. Searle, an English surgeon, to direct his attention
to the phenomenon. Mr. Searle _had often remarked it_. The woman,
nevertheless, was left in the dissecting-room, and thence taken to the
cemetery. Several other medical men stated that they had made similar
observations. From which M. Trachez draws the inference: ‘It is
allowable to think that many cholera patients have been buried alive.’”
“Dr. Veyrat, attached to the Bath Establishment, Aix, Savoy, was
sent for to La Roche (Department of the Yonne), to visit a cholera
patient, Thérèse X., who had lost all the members of her family by
the same disease. He found her in a complete state of asphyxia. He
opened a vein; not a drop of blood flowed. He applied leeches; they
bit, and immediately loosed their hold. He covered the body with
stimulant applications, and went to take a little rest, requesting to
be called if the patient manifested any signs of life. The night and
next day passed without any change. While making preparations for the
burial, they noticed a little blood oozing out of the leech-bites.
Dr. Veyrat, informed of the circumstance, entered the chamber just as
the nurse was about to wrap the corpse in its winding-sheet. Suddenly
a rattling noise issued from Thérèse’s chest. She opened her eyes,
and in a hollow voice said to the nurse: ‘What are you doing here?
I am not dead. Get away with you.’ She recovered, and felt no other
inconvenience than a deafness, which lasted about two months.”
“Exposure to cold may also induce a suspension of vitality liable to
be mistaken for actual death. This year the French Senate has again
received several petitions relative to premature interments.... And,
considering the length of time that trances, catalepsies, lethargies,
and cases of suspended animation have been known occasionally to
continue, it is scarcely, in England, less interesting to us, though
public feeling, which is only an expression of natural affection,
approves, and indeed almost compels, a longer delay. The attention
of the French Government being once more directed to the subject,
there is little doubt that all reasonable grounds for fear will be
removed.[20]
“The petitioners have requested, as a precaution, that all burials for
the future should, in the first instance, be only provisional. Before
filling a grave, a communication is to be made between the coffin and
the upper atmosphere by means of a respiratory tube; and the grave is
not to be finally closed until all hope of life is abandoned. These
precautions, it will be seen at once, however good in theory, are
scarcely practicable. Others have demanded the general establishment
of mortuary chambers, or dead-houses, like those in Germany. And not
only the petitioners, but several senators, seem to consider that
measure the full solution of the problem. Article 77 of the Civil Code
prescribes a delay of twenty-four hours only, which appears to them
to be insufficient, since, they urge, it admits the certainty that
death has taken place only after putrefactive decomposition has set
in. Now, a much longer time than twenty-four hours may elapse before
that decomposition manifests itself. Deposit, therefore, your dead in
a mortuary chapel, until you are perfectly sure, from the evidence of
your senses, that life is utterly and hopelessly extinct.
[DIFFICULTY OF DIAGNOSIS.]
“When Article 77 of the Civil Code was under discussion by the Council
of State, Fourcroy added: ‘It shall be specified that the civil
officer be assisted by an officier de santé (a medical man of inferior
rank to a doctor of medicine); because there are cases in which it is
difficult to make certain that death has actually occurred, without a
thorough knowledge of its symptoms, and because there are tolerably
numerous examples to prove that people _have_ been buried alive.’
“In Paris, especially since Baron Hausmann’s administration, Article
77 has been strictly fulfilled; but the same exactitude cannot be
expected in out-of-the-way nooks and corners of the country, where
a doctor cannot always be found at a minute’s warning, to declare
whether death be real or apparent only. It is clear that the
Legislature has hit upon the sole indisputable practical solution; the
difficulty lies in its rigorous and efficient application.
“It has been judiciously remarked that it would be a good plan to
spread the knowledge of the sure and certain characteristics which
enable us to distinguish every form of lethargy from real death. It
cannot be denied that at the present epoch the utmost pains are taken
to popularise every kind of knowledge. Nevertheless, it makes slow way
through the jungles of prejudice and vulgar error. Not long ago it was
over and over again asserted that an infallible mode of ascertaining
whether a person was dead or not was to inflict a burn on the sole of
the foot. If a blister full of water resulted, the individual was not
dead; if the contrary happened, there was no further hope. This error
was unhesitatingly accepted as an item of the popular creed.
“The Council of Hygiene, applied to by the Government, indicated
putrefaction and cadaverous rigidity as infallible signs of actual
death. In respect to the first--putrefaction--a professional man is
not likely to make a mistake; but nothing is more possible than for
non-professionals to confound hospital rottenness (gangrene) with true
_post-mortem_ putrefaction. M. de Parville declines to admit it as a
test adapted for popular application. Moreover, in winter, the time
required for putrefaction to manifest itself is extremely uncertain.
“The cadaverous rigidity--the stiffness of a corpse--offers an
excellent mode of verifying death; but its value and importance are
not yet appreciable by everybody, or by the first comer. Cadaverous
rigidity occurs a few hours after death; the limbs, hitherto supple,
stiffen; and it requires a certain effort to make them bend. But when
once the faculty of bending a joint is forcibly restored--to the
arm, for instance--it will not stiffen again, but will retain its
suppleness. If the death be real, the rigidity is overcome once for
all. But if the death be only apparent, the limbs quickly resume, with
a sudden and jerking movement, the contracted position which they
previously occupied. The stiffness begins at the top, the head and
neck, and descends gradually to the trunk.
“These characteristics are very clearly marked; but they must be
caught in the fact, and at the moment of their appearance, because,
after a time of variable duration, they disappear. The contraction
of the members no longer exists, and the suppleness of the joints
returns. Many other symptoms might be added to the above; but
they demand still greater clearness of perception, more extended
professional knowledge, and more practised habits of observation.
“Although the French Government is anxious to enforce throughout the
whole empire the rules carried out in Paris, it is to be feared that
great difficulties lie in the way. The verification of deaths on so
enormous a scale, with strict minuteness, is almost impracticable.
But, even if it were not, many timid persons would say: ‘Who is
to assure us of the correctness of the doctor’s observations?
Unfortunately, too many terrible examples of their fallibility are on
record. The professional man is pressed for time. He pays a passing
visit; gives a hurried glance; and a fatal mistake is so easily made!’
Public opinion will not be reassured until you can show, every time a
death occurs, an irrefutable demonstration that life has departed.
“M. de Parville now announces the possibility of this great
desideratum. He professes to place in any one’s hands a self-acting
apparatus which would declare not only whether the death be real,
but _would leave in the hands of the experimenter a written proof of
the reality of the death_. The scheme is this: It is well known that
atropine--the active principle of _belladonna_--possesses the property
of considerably dilating the pupil of the eye. Oculists constantly
make use of it when they want to perform an operation, or to examine
the interior of the eye. Now, M. le Docteur Bouchut has shown that
atropine has no action on the pupil when death is real. In a state of
lethargy, the pupil, under the influence of a few drops of atropine,
dilates in the course of a few minutes; the dilatation also takes
place a few instants after death; but it ceases absolutely in a
quarter of an hour, or half an hour at the very longest; consequently
the enlargement of the pupil is a certain sign that death is only
apparent.
[AN INGENIOUS CONTRIVANCE.]
“This premised, imagine a little camera obscura, scarcely so big as an
opera-glass, containing a slip of photographic paper, which is kept
unrolling for five-and-twenty or thirty minutes by means of clockwork.
This apparatus, placed a short distance in front of the dead person’s
eye, will depict on the paper the pupil of the eye, which will have
been previously moistened with a few drops of atropine. It is evident
that, as the paper slides before the eye of the corpse, if the pupil
dilate, its photographic image will be dilated; if, on the contrary,
it remains unchanged, the image will retain its original size. An
inspection of the paper then enables the experimenter to read upon it
whether the death is real or apparent only. This sort of declaration
can be handed to the civil officer, who will give a permit to bury in
return.
“By this simple method a hasty or careless certificate of death
becomes impossible. The instrument applies the test, and counts the
minutes. The doctor and the civil officer are relieved from further
responsibility. The paper gives evidence that the verification has
actually and carefully been made; for suppose that half an hour is
required to produce a test that can be relied on, the length of the
strip of paper unrolled marks the time during which the experiment has
been continued. An apparatus of the kind might be placed in the hands
of the minister or one of the notables of every parish. Such a system
would silence the apprehensions of the most timid; fears--natural
enough--would disappear, and the world would be shocked by no fresh
cases of premature burial.”
The authors have not heard whether this ingenious contrivance had been
put into practice, or with what result.
Various prizes have been offered, and awards made, by scientific and
medical societies, but, with one exception, the so-called proofs of
death for which the awards have been given are deemed unsatisfactory.
The most notable of the prizes is that of the Marquis d’Ourches,
who by his will bequeathed the sum of twenty thousand francs to be
given to the author of the discovery of a simple and common means of
recognising beyond doubt the absolute signs of death, by such a test
as could be adopted by poor villagers without technical instruction.
The Marquis d’Ourches left also a prize of five thousand francs for
a similar discovery, but requiring the intervention of an expert. M.
Pierre Manni, Professor at the University of Rome, offered a prize,
which was awarded to Dr. E. Bouchut, in 1846. And M. Dusgate, by will,
dated January 11, 1872, bequeathed to the French Academy of Sciences
a sufficient sum in French _Rentes_, to found a quinquennial prize of
two thousand five hundred francs to the author of the best work on
the diagnostic signs of death, and the means of preventing premature
interments. A decree of November 27, 1874, authorised the Academy to
accept this legacy.
Dr. Gowers, on “Diseases of the Nervous System,” vol. ii., p. 1037,
says:--“In cases of ‘death-trance,’ in which no sign of vitality can be
recognised, the presence of life may be ascertained (1) by the absence
of any sign of decomposition; (2) by the normal appearance of the
_fundus oculi_ as seen with the ophthalmoscope; (3) by the persistence
of the excitability of the muscles to electricity. This excitability
disappears in three hours after actual death. In a case observed by
Rosenthal, thirty hours after supposed death, the muscles were still
excitable, and the patient awoke.”
The _British Medical Journal_, January 21, 1893, p. 145, reports,
through its Paris correspondent, the first award. “The Académie des
Sciences proposed as the subject for the Dusgate Prize for 1890, ‘The
Signs of Death, and the Means of Preventing Premature Burial.’ The
prize has been awarded to Dr. Maze, who considers that putrefaction is
the only certain sign. He urges that the deaths should be certified
by medical men on oath; also that in every cemetery there should be a
mortuary where dead bodies can be deposited, and that burial should
take place only when putrefactive changes set in. Cremation should be
adopted.”