Footnote 1:
“But there is a particular kind of manslaughter proper to be
considered here, from which the benefit of the clergy is taken away by
_Ja._ 1, _c._ 8.” “Where any person shall stab or thrust any person or
persons that hath not then first striken the party which shall so stab
or thrust, so as the person or persons so stabbed or thrust, shall
thereof die within the space of six months then next following,
although it cannot be proved that the same was done of malice
forethought.” See 1 _Hawk. P. C._ This statute was passed in
consequence of the numerous murders committed by the Scots, who with
their dirks stabbed before an ordinary weapon could be drawn.
For an extraordinary case on this statute, and much learning on the
subject, see the trial of _William Chetwynd_ for the murder of _Thomas
Rickets_. 18 _How St. Tri. p._ 290.
Footnote 2:
Od. Lib. v. lin. 757.
Footnote 3:
Tractat. de Peste Lib. iv. Hist. 85.
Footnote 4:
In returning, the ship was cast away on the island of Zante, when this
unfortunate philosopher perished from hunger.
Footnote 5:
_Bruhier, John_, a physician at Paris, in the middle of the
seventeenth century; he was author of many works, but his principal
celebrity rested on his warnings against burying persons, supposed to
be dead, too early. “Dissertation sur l’Incertitude des signes de la
Mort et l’abus des enterremens, et embaumemens precipites.” Paris,
1742. He was at the pains of collecting histories of persons who had
revived after being supposed to be dead, some of whom had been buried.
Bodies ought not to be interred, he says, until putrefaction has
commenced. “Memoire sur la necessité d’un Reglement general au sujet
des enterremens.” 1745. No one should be buried until the fourth day
from their dying. “Addition aux Memoires,” &c. in which he adds to the
number of examples of persons who had been buried alive, or had
revived after being interred. These works have passed through numerous
editions, and have been translated into several other European
languages.
Footnote 6:
Horrible as it may appear, it was a custom in Persia, at the time that
_Herodotus_ wrote, of _burying alive_; and this historian was informed
that _Amestris_, the wife of _Xerxes_, when she was far advanced in
age, commanded fourteen Persian children of illustrious birth to be
interred alive, in honour of the Deity whom they supposed to exist
under the earth.—_Polyhymnia_, c. xiv.
Footnote 7:
“A Dissertation on the _Disorder of Death_, or that state of the frame
under the signs of Death, called Suspended Animation,” by the Rev.
_Walter Whiter_, Rector of Hardingham. Norwich, 1819. 8vo.
Footnote 8:
_Plin._ Nat. Hist. Lib. vii, c. 52; see also _Valer. Maxim._ Lib. 1,
c. 8. For extraordinary histories of persons roused from the tomb, see
_Diemerbroeck_, Lib, ii; _Joannes Mathæus_, Quæst. Med.; _Hildanus_
Cent. 2. Obs. 95, 96; _Phillip Salmuth_ Cent. 2, Obs. 86, 87, 95.
_Maximilian Misson_ relates in his voyages many curious cases of this
kind. “_Nouveau_ Voyage d’Italie.” But the works of _Bruhier_, before
mentioned, contain the greatest collection of such anecdotes.
Footnote 9:
Thus in the Greek, the most philosophically constructed language with
which we are acquainted, the _alpha_ and _omega_, the first and last
acts of life, are conveyed in the verb αω _spiro_ compounded of those
letters. In Latin we also find _spiro_ and _spiritus_.
Footnote 10:
Lettres sur la certitude des signes de la mort.
Footnote 11:
Recherches Physiologiques sur la Vie et la Mort.
Footnote 12:
Phil. Trans. 1811.
Footnote 13:
Phil. Trans. 1667, vol. ii, p. 539.
Footnote 14:
_Hunter_ on the Blood, p. 54.
Footnote 15:
Medical Reports, p. 75.
Footnote 16:
Zoonomia, vol. 1, p. 40.
Footnote 17:
An Essay on Respiration by _J. Bostock_, M. D.
Footnote 18:
A question has arisen, says _Mr. Brodie_, (_Manuscript Notes_) whether
the whole of the brain is essential to the function of respiration, or
whether the power of calling the respiratory muscles into action may
not reside in some particular part of that organ? It has been stated
by _Le Gallois_ that if you expose the cavity of the cranium, and
remove the upper part of the brain, the muscles of respiration
continue to act as usual; if, however, the dissection be continued, as
soon as that portion of the _Medulla Oblongata_ is removed which
corresponds to the _Corpora Olivaria_, their action is immediately
suspended. The theory which such an experiment naturally establishes
has received no inconsiderable support from the history of a fœtus,
published by _Mr. Lawrence_ in the Medico Chirurgical Transactions: in
this monster the _Cerebrum_ and _Cerebellum_ were entirely absent, but
the _Medulla Spinalis_ was continued for about an inch above the
_Foramen Magnum_ of the occiput, so as to form an imperfect _Medulla
Oblongata_, and to give origin to several nerves. Death did not take
place immediately after birth, as in other instances of cerebral
deficiency, but the child breathed for four days after it had been
expelled from the uterus.
Footnote 19:
_Lower_, as early as the year 1667, shewed that if the nerves which go
to the diaphragm in a dog be divided, he breathes “like a
broken-winded horse.” _Phil. Trans._ vol. ii, p. 544.
Footnote 20:
While this work was in progress we have read an account of a person
who, being in a state of debility, died suddenly from the shock of a
shower bath at Brighton. In this case Syncope was probably occasioned
in the same manner as by a blow on the head.
Footnote 21:
_Trance._ Although this term is extremely familiar, it does not appear
that any precise meaning is attached to it; the popular notion is that
the body may for a time be abandoned by the soul, and remain for a
certain period in a deep sleep, during which the exercise of the vital
functions is so obscure, that the individual is reduced to a state of
close simulation of death.
Footnote 22:
A great question has arisen upon this subject, whether rupture of the
heart ever takes place in the sound state of that organ? And it has
been answered by several pathologists in the affirmative. Fischer’s
case from the JOURNAL DER PRACTISCHEN HEILKUNDE, may be seen in the
MEDICAL REPOSITORY, Vol. 11, p. 427, and Vol. 12, p. 164. HARVEY found
in a male subject a rupture in the aortic ventricle, capable of
admitting a finger, and remarked that the parietes of the cavity
possessed their natural strength and thickness (Exercitat III. De
Circulo Sanguinis, T. p. 1. 281.) BOHN also gives a case of a man who
had died suddenly, when a fissure was discovered in the _Ostium
Aortæ_. PORTAL has informed us, that in a rupture of the basis of the
heart, which he examined, the structure of the organ was as firm and
compact as in the natural state, and that in another case the parietes
of the heart displayed their natural solidity. (Memoires de l’Academie
des Sciences, a Paris, 1784, p. 51.) SOEMERING considers it as having
been very correctly remarked by Portal, that the Aortic ventricle
commonly bursts without any previous weakening of the substance of the
heart. (See Soemering’s German Translation of Baillie’s Morbid
Anatomy, with Additions.) DR. WHYTT has likewise seen the heart burst
from protracted grief, and therefore does not regard the term, “BROKEN
HEART,” in the light of a mere metaphor. On the contrary, BOERHAAVE
has recorded two cases, and believes that the rupture was occasioned
by the morbid accumulation of fat; KREYSIG suspects that in most of
these cases of ruptured heart an insidious inflammation had been
established, and he considers that the quantity of adipose substance
in which ruptured hearts are so commonly found enveloped, furnishes an
evidence of this inflammatory state (Sopra i Malattée del cuore.) We
are decidedly of opinion that such ruptures take place in consequence
of a morbid state of the heart capable of diminishing the cohesive
power of its fibres. See a Treatise on the Diseases of the Chest by
_R. T. H. Laennec, M. D._ translated by _J. Forbes, M. D._ London,
1821.
Footnote 23: