Some time since an article appeared in the _Times_, quoted from the
_Brisbane Courier_ (an Australian paper of good credit), stating that
one Signor Rotura had devised a plan by which animals might be congealed
for weeks or months without being actually deprived of life, so that
they might be shipped from Australia for English ports as dead meat, yet
on their arrival here be restored to full life and activity. Many
regarded this account as intended to be received seriously, though a few
days later an article appeared, the opening words of which implied that
only persons from north of the Tweed should have taken the article _au
grand serieux_. Of course it was a hoax; but it is worthy of notice that
the editor of the _Brisbane Courier_ had really been misled, as he
admitted a few weeks later, with a candour which did him credit.[70]
This wonderful discovery, however, besides being worth publishing as a
joke (though rather a mischievous one, as will presently be shown), did
good service also by eliciting from a distinguished physician certain
statements respecting the possibility of suspending animation, which
otherwise might have remained for some time unpublished. I propose here
to consider these statements, and the strange possibilities which some
of them seem to suggest. In the first place, however, it may be worth
while to recall the chief statements in the clever Australian story, as
some of Dr. Richardson's statements refer specially to that narrative. I
shall take the opportunity of indicating certain curious features of
resemblance between the Australian story, which really had its origin in
America (I am assured that it was published a year earlier in a New York
paper), and an American hoax which acquired a wide celebrity some forty
years ago, the so-called Lunar Hoax. As it is certain that the two
stories came from different persons, the resemblance referred to seems
to suggest that the special mental qualities (defects, _bien entendu_)
which cause some to take delight in such inventions, are commonly
associated with a characteristic style of writing. If Buffon was right,
indeed, in saying, _Le style c'est de l'homme meme_, we can readily
understand that clever hoaxers should thus have a style peculiar to
themselves.
It can hardly be considered essential to the right comprehension of
scientific experiments that a picturesque account should be given of the
place where the experiments were made. The history of the wonderful
Australian discovery opens nevertheless as follows:--"Many of the
readers of the _Brisbane Courier_ who know Sydney Harbour will remember
the long inlet opposite the heads known as Middle Harbour, which, in a
succession of land-locked reaches, stretches away like a chain of lakes
for over twenty miles. On one of these reaches, made more than
ordinarily picturesque by the bold headlands that drop almost sheer into
the water, stand, on about an acre of grassy flat, fringed by white
beach on which the clear waters of the harbour lap, two low brick
buildings. Here, in perfect seclusion, and with a careful avoidance of
publicity, is being conducted an experiment, the success of which, now
established beyond any doubt, must have a wider effect upon the future
prosperity of Australia than any project ever contemplated." It was
precisely in this tone that the author of the "Lunar Hoax"[71] opened
his account of those "recent discoveries in astronomy which will build
an imperishable monument to the age in which we live, and confer upon
the present generation of the human race a proud distinction through all
future time." "It has been poetically said," he remarks--though probably
he would have found some difficulty in saying where or by whom this had
been said,--"that the stars of heaven are the hereditary regalia of man,
as the intellectual sovereign of the animal creation; he may now fold
the zodiac around him with a loftier consciousness of his mental
supremacy" (a sublime idea, irresistibly suggestive of the description
which an American humourist gave of a certain actor's representation of
the death of Richard III., "he wrapped the star-spangled banner round
him, and died like the son of a hoss").
It next becomes necessary to describe the persons engaged in pursuing
the experiments by which the art of freezing animals alive is to be
attained. "The gentlemen engaged in this enterprise are Signor Rotura,
whose researches into the botany and natural history of South America
have rendered his name eminent; and Mr. James Grant, a pupil of the late
Mr. Nicolle, so long associated with Mr. Thomas Mort in his freezing
process. Next to the late Mr. Nicolle, Mr. James Grant can claim
pre-eminence of knowledge in the science of generating cold, and his
freezing chamber at Woolhara has long been known as the seat of valuable
experiments originated in his, Mr. Nicolle's, lifetime." Is it merely an
accident, by the way, or is it due to the circumstance that exceptional
powers of invention in general matters are often found in company with
singular poverty of invention as to details, that two of the names here
mentioned closely resemble names connected with the Lunar Hoax? It was
Nicollet who in reality devised the Lunar Hoax, though Richard Alton
Locke, the reputed author, probably gave to the story its final form;
and, again, the story purported to come from Dr. Grant, of Glasgow. In
the earlier narrative, again, as in the later, due care was taken to
impress readers with the belief that those who had made the discovery,
or taken part in the work, were worthy of all confidence. Sir W.
Herschel was the inventor of the optical device by which the inhabitants
of the moon were to be rendered visible, a plan which "evinced the most
profound research in optical science, and the most dexterous ingenuity
in mechanical contrivance. But his son, Sir John Herschel, nursed and
cradled in the observatory, and a practical astronomer from his boyhood,
determined upon testing it at whatever cost." Among his companions he
had "Dr. Andrew Grant, Lieutenant Drummond of the Royal Engineers, and a
large party of the best English mechanics."
The accounts of preliminary researches, doubts, and difficulties are in
both cases very similar in tone. "It appears that five months ago," says
the narrator of the Australian hoax, "Signor Rotura called upon Mr.
Grant to invoke his assistance in a scheme for the transmission of live
stock to Europe. Signor Rotura averred that he had discovered a South
American vegetable poison, allied to the well-known _woolara_ (_sic_)
that had the power of perfectly suspending animation, and that the
trance thus produced continued until the application of another
vegetable essence caused the blood to resume its circulation and the
heart its functions. So perfect, moreover, was this suspension of life
that Signor Rotura had found in a warm climate decomposition set in at
the extremities after a week of this living death, and he imagined that
if the body in this inert state were reduced to a temperature
sufficiently low to arrest decomposition, the trance might be kept up
for months, possibly for years. He frankly owned that he had never tried
this preserving of the tissues by cold, and could not confidently speak
as to its effect upon the after-restoration of the animal operated on.
Before he left Mr. Grant he had turned that gentleman's doubts into
wondering curiosity by experimenting on his dog." The account of this
experiment I defer for a moment till I have shown how closely in several
respects this portion of the Australian hoax resembles the corresponding
part of the American story. It will be observed that the great discovery
is presented as simply a very surprising development of a process which
is strictly within the limits, not only of what is possible, but of what
is known. So also in the case of the Lunar Hoax, the amazing magnifying
power by which living creatures in the moon were said to have been
rendered visible, was presented as simply a very remarkable development
of the familiar properties of the telescope. In both cases, the
circumstances which in reality limit the possible extension of the
properties in question were kept conveniently concealed from view. In
both cases, doubts and difficulties were urged with an apparent
frankness intended to disarm suspicion. In both cases, also, the
inventor of the new method by which difficulties were to be overcome is
represented as in conference with a man of nearly equal skill, who urges
the doubts naturally suggested by the wonderful nature of the promised
achievements. In the Lunar Hoax, Sir John Herschel and Sir David
Brewster are thus represented in conference. Herschel asks whether the
difficulty arising from deficient illumination may not be overcome by
effecting a transfusion of artificial light through the focal image.
Brewster, startled at the novel thought, as he well might be,
hesitatingly refers "to the refrangibility of rays and the angle of
incidence," which is effective though glorious in its absurdity. (Yet it
has been gravely asserted that this nonsense deceived Arago.) "Sir John,
grown more confident, adduced the example of the Newtonian reflector, in
which the refrangibility was arrested by the second speculum and the
angle of incidence restored by the third" (a bewilderingly ridiculous
statement). "'And,' continued he, 'why cannot the illuminated
microscope, say the hydro-oxygen, be applied to render distinct, and if
necessary even to magnify, the focal object?' Sir David sprang from his
chair in an ecstasy of conviction, and leaping half-way to the ceiling"
(from which we may infer that he was somewhat more than _tete montee_),
"exclaimed, 'Thou art the man!'"
The method devised in each case being once accepted as sound, the rest
of course readily follows. In the case of the Lunar Hoax a number of
discoveries are made which need not here be described[72] (though I
shall take occasion presently to quote some passages relating to them
which closely resemble in style certain passages in the Australian
narrative). In the later hoax, the illustrative experiments are
forthwith introduced. Signor Rotura, having so far persuaded Mr. Grant
of the validity of the plan as to induce him to allow a favourite dog to
be experimented upon, "injected two drops of his liquid, mixed with a
little glycerine, into a small puncture made in the dog's ear. In three
or four minutes the animal was perfectly rigid, the four legs stretched
backward, eyes wide open, pupils very much dilated, and exhibiting
symptoms very similar to those caused by strychnine, except that there
had been no previous struggle or pain. Begging his owner to have no
apprehension for the life of his favourite animal, Signor Rotura lifted
the dog carefully and placed him on a shelf in a cupboard, where he
begged he might be left till the following day, when he promised to call
at ten o'clock and revive the apparently dead brute. Mr. Grant
continually during that day and night visited the cupboard, and so
perfectly was life suspended in his favourite--no motion of the pulse or
heart giving any indication of the possibility of revival--that he
confesses he felt all the sharpest reproaches of remorse at having
sacrificed a faithful friend to a doubtful and dangerous experiment. The
temperature of the body, too, in the first four hours gradually lowered
to 25 degrees Fahrenheit below ordinary blood temperature, which
increased his fears as to the result; and by morning the body was as
cold as in natural death. At ten o'clock next morning, according to
promise, Signor Rotura presented himself, and laughing at Mr. Grant's
fears, requested a tub of warm water to be brought. He tested this with
the thermometer at 32 degrees Fahrenheit" (which, being the temperature
of freezing water, can hardly be called warm), "and in this laid the
dog, head under." In reply to Mr. Grant's objections Signor Rotura
assured him that, as animation must remain entirely suspended until the
administration of the antidote, no water could be drawn into the lungs,
and that the immersion of the body was simply to bring it again to a
blood-heat. After about ten minutes of this bath the body was taken out,
and another liquid injected in a puncture made in the neck. "Mr. Grant
tells me," proceeds the veracious narrator, "that the revival of Turk
was the most startling thing he ever witnessed; and having since seen
the experiment made upon a sheep, I can fully confirm his statement. The
dog first showed the return of life in the eye" (winking, doubtless, at
the joke), "and after five and a half minutes he drew a long breath, and
the rigidity left his limbs. In a few minutes more he commenced gently
wagging his tail, and then slowly got up, stretched himself, and trotted
off as though nothing had happened." From this moment Mr. Grant had full
faith in Signor Rotura's discovery, and promised him all the assistance
in his power. They next determined to try freezing the body. But the
first two experiments were not encouraging. Mr. Grant fortunately did
not allow his favourite dog to be experimented upon further, so a
strange dog was put into the freezing room at Mr. Grant's works for four
days, after having in the first place had his animation suspended by
Signor Rotura. Although this animal survived so far as to draw a long
breath, the vital energies appeared too exhausted for a complete rally,
and the animal died. So also did the next two animals experimented on,
a cat and a dog. "In the meantime, however, Dr. Barker had been taken
into their counsels, and at his suggestion respiration was encouraged,
as in the case of persons drowned, by artificial compression and
expansion of the lungs. Dr. Barker was of opinion that, as the heart in
every case began to beat, it was a want of vital force to set the lungs
in proper motion that caused death. The result showed his surmises to be
entirely correct. A number of animals whose lives had been sealed up in
this artificial death have been kept in the freezing chamber from one to
five weeks, and it is found that though the shock to the system from
this freezing is very great, it is not increased by duration of time."
I need not follow the hoaxer's account of the buildings erected for the
further prosecution of these researches. One point, however, may be
mentioned illustrating the resemblance to which I have already referred
as existing between this Australian narrative and the Lunar Hoax. In
describing the works erected at Middle Harbour, the Australian account
carefully notes that the necessary funds were provided by Mr.
Christopher Newton, of Pitt Street. In like manner, in the Lunar Hoax we
are told that the plate-glass required for the optical arrangement
devised by Sir J. Herschel was "obtained, by consent be it observed,
from the shop-window of M. Desanges, the jeweller to his ex-majesty
Charles X., in High Street."
Now comes the culminating experiment, the circumstances of which are the
more worthy of being carefully noted, because it is distinctly stated by
Dr. Richardson that none of the experiments described in this narrative,
apocryphal though they may really be, can be regarded as beyond the
range of scientific possibilities:--"Arrived at the works in Middle
Harbour, I was taken into the building that contains Mr. Grant's
apparatus for generating cold.... Attached to this is the freezing
chamber, a small, dark room, about eight feet by ten. Here were fourteen
sheep, four lambs, and three pigs, stacked on their sides in a heap,
_alive_, which Mr. Grant told me had been in their present position for
nineteen days, and were to remain there for another three months.
Selecting one of the lambs, Signor Rotura put it on his shoulder, and
carried it outside into the other building, where a number of shallow
cemented tanks were in the floor, having hot and cold water taps to each
tank, with a thermometer hanging alongside. One of these tanks was
quickly filled, and its temperature tested by the Signor, I meantime
examining with the greatest curiosity and wonder the nineteen-days-dead
lamb. The days of miracles truly seem to have come back to us, and many
of those stories discarded as absurdities seem to me less improbable
than this fact, witnessed by myself. There was the lamb, to all
appearance dead, and as hard almost as a stone, the only difference
perceptible to me between his condition and actual death being the
absence of dull glassiness about the eye, which still retained its
brilliant transparency. Indeed, this brilliancy of the eye, which is
heightened by the enlargement of the pupil, is very striking, and lends
a rather weird appearance to the bodies. The lamb was gently dropped
into the warm bath, and was allowed to remain in it about twenty-three
minutes, its head being raised above the water twice for the
introduction of the thermometer into its mouth, and then it was taken
out and placed on its side on the floor, Signor Rotura quickly dividing
the wool on its neck, and inserting the sharp point of a small silver
syringe under the skin and injecting the antidote. This was a pale green
liquid, and, as I believe, a decoction from the root of the
_Astracharlis_, found in South America. The lamb was then turned on its
back, Signor Rotura standing across it, gently compressing its ribs with
his knees and hands in such a manner as to imitate their natural
depression and expansion during breathing. In ten minutes the animal was
struggling to free itself, and when released skipped out through the
door and went gambolling and bleating over the little garden in front.
Nothing has ever impressed me so entirely with a sense of the
marvellous. One is almost tempted to ask, in the presence of such a
discovery, whether death itself may not ultimately be baffled by
scientific investigation." In the Lunar Hoax there is a passage
resembling in tone the lively account of the lamb's behaviour when
released. Herds of agile creatures like antelopes were seen in the moon,
"abounding in the acclivitous glades of the woods." "This beautiful
creature afforded us," says the narrator, "the most exquisite amusement.
The mimicry of its movements upon our white-painted canvas was as
faithful and luminous as that of animals within a few yards of the
_camera obscura_. Frequently, when attempting to put our fingers upon
its beard, it would suddenly bound away, as if conscious of our earthly
impertinence; but then others would appear, whom we could not prevent
nibbling the herbage, say or do to them what we would." And again, a
little further on, "We fairly laughed at the recognition of so familiar
an acquaintance as a sheep in so distant a land--a good large sheep,
which would not have disgraced the farms of Leicestershire or the
shambles of Leadenhall Market; presently they appeared in great numbers,
and on reducing the lenses we found them in flocks over a great part of
the valley. I need not say how desirous we were of finding shepherds to
these flocks, and even a man with blue apron and rolled-up sleeves would
have been a welcome sight to us, if not to the sheep; but they fed in
peace, lords of their own pastures, without either protector or
destroyer in human shape."
Not less amusing, though more gravely written, is the account of the
benefits likely to follow from the use of the wonderful process for
freezing animals alive. Cargoes of live sheep can be readily sent from
Australia to Europe. Any that cannot be restored to life will still be
good meat; while the rest can be turned to pasture or driven alive to
market. With bullocks the case would not be quite so simple, because of
their greater size and weight, which would render them more difficult
to handle with safety. The carcass being rendered brittle by freezing,
they are so much the more liable to injury. "It sounded odd to hear Mr.
Grant and Signor Rotura laying stress upon the danger of breakage in a
long voyage." This one can readily imagine.
Some of the remoter consequences of the discovery are touched on by the
narrator, though but lightly, as if he saw the necessity of keeping his
wonders within reasonable limits. Signor Rotura, "though he had never
attempted his experiment on a human being," which was considerate on his
part, "had no doubt at all as to its perfect safety." He had requested
Sir Henry Parkes to allow him to operate on the next felon under capital
sentence. This, by the way, was a compromising statement on our hoaxer's
part. It requires very little acquaintance with our laws to know that no
one could allow a felon condemned to death to be experimented on in this
or in any other manner. Such a man is condemned to die, and to die
without any preliminary tortures, bodily or mental, other than those
inseparable from the legally adopted method of bringing death about. He
can neither be allowed to remain alive after an experiment, and
necessarily free (because he has not been condemned to other punishment
than the death penalty), nor can he be first experimented upon and then
hanged. So that that single sentence in the narrative should have shown
every one that it was a hoax, even if the inherent absurdity of many
other parts of the story had not shown this very clearly. As to whether
a temporary suspension of the vital faculties would affect the longevity
of the patient, Signor Rotura expressed himself somewhat doubtful; he
believed, however, that the duration of life might in this way be
prolonged for years. "I was anxious," says the hoaxer, "to know if a
period of, say, five years of this inertness were submitted to, whether
it would be so much cut out of one's life, or if it would be simply five
years of unconscious existence tacked on to one's sentient life. Signor
Rotura could give no positive answer, but he believes, as no change
takes place or can take place while this frozen trance continues, no
consumption, destruction, or reparation of tissue being possible, it
would be so many unvalued and profitless years added to a lifetime." Of
some of the strange ideas suggested by this conception I shall take
occasion to speak further on; I must for the present turn, however, from
the consideration of this ingenious hoax to discuss the scientific
possibilities which underlie the narrative, or at least some parts of
the narrative.
In the first place, it must be noticed that in the phenomena of
hibernation we have what at a first view seems closely to resemble the
results of Signor Rotura's apocryphal experiments. As was remarked in
the _Times_, the idea underlying the Australian story is that the
hibernation of animals can be artificially imitated and extended, so
that as certain animals lie in a state of torpor and insensibility
throughout the winter months, all animals also may perhaps be caused to
lie in such a state for an indefinite length of time, if only a suitable
degree of cold is maintained, and some special contrivance adopted to
prevent insensibility from passing into death. The phenomena of
hibernation are indeed so surprising, when rightly understood, that
inexperienced persons might well believe in almost any wonders resulting
from the artificial production (which, be it remembered, is altogether
possible) of the hibernating condition, and the artificial extension of
this condition to other animals than those which at present hibernate,
and to long periods of time. It has been justly said, that if
hibernation had only been noticed among cold-blooded animals, its
possibility in the case of mammals would have seemed inconceivable. The
first news that the bat and hedgehog pass into the state of complete
hibernation, would probably have bean received as either a daring hoax
or a very gross blunder.
Let us consider what hibernation really is. When, as winter approaches
and their insect food disappears, the bat and the hedgehog resign
themselves to torpor, the processes which we are in the habit of
associating with vitality gradually diminish in activity. The breathing
becomes slower and slower, the heart beats more and more slowly, more
and more feebly. At last the breathing ceases altogether. The
circulation does not wholly cease, however. So far as is known, the life
of warm-blooded animals cannot continue after the circulation has
entirely ceased for more than a certain not very considerable length of
time.[73] The chemical changes on which animal heat depends, and without
which there can be no active vitality, cease with the cessation of
respiration. But dormant vitality is still maintained in hibernation,
because the heart's fibre, excited to contract by the carbonized blood,
continues to propel the blood through the torpid body. This slow
circulation of venous blood continues during the whole period of
hibernation. It is the only vital process which can be recognised; and
it is not easy to understand how the life of any warm-blooded animal can
be maintained in this way. The explanation usually offered is that the
material conveyed by the absorbents suffices to counterbalance the
process of waste occasioned by the slow circulation. But this does not
in reality touch the chief difficulty presented by the phenomena of
hibernation. So far as mere waste is concerned (as I have elsewhere
pointed out) the imagined Australian process is as effectual as
hibernation; in that process, of course the circulation would be as
completely checked as the respiration; thus there would be no waste, and
the absorbents (which would also be absolutely dormant) would not have
to do even that slight amount of work which they accomplish during
hibernation. Science can only say that the known cases of hibernation
among warm-blooded animals show that the vital forces may be reduced
much lower without destroying life, than but for them we should have
deemed conceivable.
But next let us consider what science has to say as to the artificial
suspension of vitality. In Dr. Richardson's paper on this subject there
is much which seems almost as surprising as anything in the Australian
story. Indeed, he seems scarcely to have felt assured that that story
really was a hoax. "The statements," he says, "which, under the head of
'A Wonderful Discovery,' are copied from the _Brisbane Courier_, seem
greatly to have astonished the reading public. To what extent the
statements are true or untrue it is impossible to say. The whole may be
a cleverly-written fiction, and certain of the words and names used
seem, according to some readers, to suggest that view; but be this so or
not, I wish to indicate that some part at all events of what is stated
might be true, and is certainly within the range of possibility." "The
discovery," he proceeds, "which is described in the communication under
notice, is not in principle new; on the subject of suspension of
animation I have myself been making experimental inquiries for
twenty-five years at least, and have communicated to the scientific
world many essays, lectures, and demonstrations, relating to it. I have
twice read papers bearing on this inquiry to the Royal Society, once to
the British Association for the Advancement of Science, two or three
times in my lectures on Experimental and Practical Medicine, and
published one in _Nature_. In respect to the particular point of the
preservation of animal bodies for food, I dwelt on this topic in the
lectures delivered before the Society of Arts, in April and May of last
year (1878), explaining very definitely that the course of research in
the direction of preservation must ultimately lead to a process by which
we should keep the structures of animals in a form of suspended
molecular life." In other words, Dr. Richardson had indicated the
possibility of doing precisely that which would have constituted the
chief value of the Australian discovery, if this had been real.
Let us next consider what is known respecting the possibility of
suspending a conscious and active life. This is first stated in general
terms by Dr. Richardson, as follows:--"If an animal perfectly free from
disease be subjected to the action of some chemical agents or physical
agencies which have the property of reducing to the extremest limit the
motor forces of the body, the muscular irritability, and the nervous
stimulus to muscular action, and if the suspension of the muscular
irritability and of the nervous excitation be made at once and equally,
the body even of a warm-blooded animal may be brought down to a
condition so closely resembling death, that the most careful examination
may fail to detect any signs of life." This general statement must be
carefully studied if the reader desires thoroughly to understand at once
the power and the limits of the power of science in this direction. The
motor forces, the muscular irritability, and the nervous stimulus to
muscular action, can be reduced to a certain extent without destroying
life, but not absolutely without destroying life. The reduction of the
muscular irritability must be made at once and equally; if the muscular
irritability is reduced to its lowest limit while the nervous
excitation remains unaltered, or is less reduced, death ensues; and
_vice versa_, if the nervous excitation is reduced to its lowest limits
while the muscular irritability remains unaltered, or is little reduced,
death equally follows. Then it is to be noticed that though when the
state of seeming death is brought about, the most careful examination
may fail to detect any signs of life, it does not follow that science
may not find perfectly sure means of detecting cases where life still
exists but is at its very lowest. Of course all the ordinary tests, in
which so many place complete reliance--a mirror placed close to the
mouth, a finger on the pulse, hand, or ear applied to the breast[74]
over the heart, and so forth--would be utterly inadequate, in such a
case, to reveal any signs of life. That doctors have been deceived by
cases of suspended vitality not artificially produced, but presenting
similar phenomena, is well known. A case in point may not be out of
place here, as illustrating well certain features of suspended
animation, and showing the possibility that in _some_ cases
consciousness may remain, even when the most careful examination detects
no traces of life. The case is described by Dr. Alexander Crichton, in
his "Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Mental Derangement." "A young
lady, who had seemed gradually to sink until she died, had been placed
in her coffin, careful scrutiny revealing no signs of vitality. On the
day appointed for her funeral, several hymns were sung before her door.
She was conscious of all that happened around her, and heard her friends
lamenting her death. She felt them put on the dead-clothes, and lay her
in the coffin, which produced an indescribable mental anxiety. She tried
to cry, but her mind was without power, and could not act on the body.
It was equally impossible to her to stretch out her arms or to open her
eyes or to cry, although she continually endeavoured to do so. The
internal anguish of her mind was, however, at its utmost height when the
funeral hymns began to be sung and when the lid of the coffin was about
to be nailed on. The thought that she was to be buried alive was the
first one which gave activity to her mind, and caused it to operate on
her corporeal frame. Just as the people were about to nail on the lid,
a kind of perspiration was observed to appear on the surface of the
body. It grew greater every moment, and at last a kind of convulsive
motion was observed in the hands and feet of the corpse. A few minutes
after, during which fresh signs of returning life appeared, she at once
opened her eyes, and uttered a most pitiable shriek." In this case it
was considered that the state of trance had been brought about by the
excessive contractile action of the nervous centres. St. Augustine, by
the way, remarks in his "De Civitate Dei" on the case of a certain
priest called Restitutus (appropriately enough), who could when he
wished withdraw himself from life in such sort that he did not feel when
twitched or stung, but might even be burned without suffering pain
except afterwards from the wound so produced. Not only did he not
struggle or even move, but like a dead person he did not breathe, yet
afterwards he said that he could hear the voices of those around him (if
they spoke loudly) as if from a great distance (_de longinquo_).
To return, however, to Dr. Richardson's discussion of the artificial
suspension of active life.
He recognises three degrees of muscular irritability, to which he has
given the names of active efficient, passive efficient, and
negative,--though doubtless he would recognize the probability that the
line separating the first from the second may not always be easily
traced, and that, though there is a most definite distinction between
the second and the third, the actual position of the boundary line has
not as yet been determined. In other words, so far as the first and
second states are concerned, there are not two degrees only, but many.
As regards the third or negative state, which is only another way of
describing death, there is, of course, only one degree, though the
evidence as to the existence of this state may be more or less complete
and obvious. Dr. Richardson defines the active efficient state of
muscular irritability as that "represented in the ordinary living muscle
in which the heart is working at full tension, and all parts of the body
are thoroughly supplied with blood, with perfection of consciousness in
waking hours, and, in a word, full life." The second, or passive
efficient state, "is represented in suspended animation, in which the
heart is working regularly but at low tension, supplying the muscles and
other parts with sufficient blood to maintain the molecular life, but no
more." The third of these states--the negative--"is represented when
there is no motion whatever of blood through the body, as in an animal
entirely frozen."
With the first and third of these states I have in reality nothing to
do, unless indeed it could be shown that the third or negative state can
be produced without causing death. Perhaps in assuming, as I did above,
that this state is identical with the state of the dead, I was, in fact,
assuming what science has yet to demonstrate. I may at any rate,
however, say without fear of valid contradiction, that science has as
yet never succeeded in showing that this negative state may be attained
even for a moment without death ensuing; and the probability (almost
amounting to certainty) is that death and this change of state have in
every instance been simultaneous. Dr. Richardson speaks of the second
stage as that in which animation is _usually_ suspended; but he does not
show that the third stage can even possibly be attained without death.
The second stage, or stage of passive efficiency, closely resembles the
third, "but differs from it in that, under favouring circumstances, the
whole of the phenomena of the active efficient stage may be perfectly
resumed, the heart suddenly enlarging in volume from its filling with
blood, and reanimating the whole organism by the force of its renewed
stroke in full tension. So far as we have yet proceeded," continues Dr.
Richardson, "the whole phenomena of restoration from death are
accomplished during this stage;" meaning, it would seem, that in all
instances of restoration the restoration has been from the second, never
from the third stage. "To those who are not accustomed to see them they
are no doubt very wonderful, looking like veritable restorations from
death. They surprise even medical men the first time they are witnessed
by them." He gives an interesting illustration. At a meeting of the
British Medical Association at Leeds, "a member of the Association was
showing to a large audience the action of nitrous oxide gas, using a
rabbit as the subject of his demonstration. The animal was removed from
the narcotizing chamber a little too late, for it had ceased to breathe,
and it was placed on the table to all appearance dead." "At this stage,"
he proceeds, "I went to the table, and by use of a small pair of
double-acting bellows restored respiration. In about four minutes there
was revival of active irritability in the abdominal muscles, and two
minutes later the animal leaped again into life, as if it had merely
been asleep. There was nothing remarkable in the fact; but it excited,
even in so cultivated an audience as was then present, the liveliest
surprise."
But when we learn the condition necessary that a body which has once
been reduced to the state of passive efficiency should be restored to
active life, we recognise that even when science has learned how to
reduce vitality to a minimum without destroying it, few will care to
risk the process, either in their own persons or in the case of those
dear to them. Besides the condition already indicated, that the muscular
irritability and the nervous excitation must be simultaneously and
equally reduced, it is essential that the blood, the muscular fluid, and
the nervous fluid should all three remain in what Dr. Richardson calls
the aqueous condition, and not become what he calls pectous, a word
which we must understand to bear the same relation to the word solid or
crystalline that the word "aqueous," as used by Dr. Richardson, bears to
the word watery. If all three fluids remain in the aqueous condition,
"the period during which life may be restored is left undefined. It may
be a very long period, including weeks, and possibly months, granting
that decomposition of the tissues is not established; and even after a
limited process of decomposition, there may be renewal of life in
cold-blooded animals. But if pectous change begins in any one of the
structures I have named, it extends like a crystallization quickly
through all the structures, and thereupon recovery is impossible, for
the change in one of the parts is sufficient to prevent the restoration
of all. Thus the heart may be beating, but the blood being pectous it
beats in vain; or the heart may beat and the blood may flow, but the
voluntary muscles being pectous the circulating action is vain; or the
heart may beat, the blood may flow, and the muscles may remain in the
aqueous condition, but the nerves being pectous the circulating action
is in vain; or sometimes the heart may come to rest, and the other parts
may remain susceptible, but the motion of the heart and blood not being
present to quicken them into activity, their life is in vain." Add to
this, that the restoration of the motor forces, of the muscular
irritability, and of the nervous excitation, must be as simultaneous and
as equal as their reduction had been, and we begin to recognise decided
objections to the too frequent suspension of animation, even when the
most perfect artificial means have been devised for bringing about that
interesting result.
Although, however, we may not feel encouraged to believe that many will
care to have experiments tried on themselves in this direction, we may
still examine with interest the results of experimental research and
experience. These agree in showing that there are means by which active
life may be suspended, while at the same time the aqueous condition of
the fluids mentioned above (the blood, the muscular fluid, and the
nervous fluid, the two latter of which are for convenience called the
colloidal animal fluids, and are derived from the blood) is retained.
The first and in some respects the most efficient of these means is
cold. The blood and the colloidal fluids remain in the aqueous condition
when the body is exposed to cold at freezing-point. "At this same point
all vital acts, excepting perhaps the motion of the heart" (it is Dr.
Richardson, be it remembered, who thus uses the significant word
"perhaps"), "may be temporarily arrested in an animal, and then some
animals may continue apparently dead for long intervals of time, and may
yet return to life under conditions favourable to recovery." Dr.
Richardson gives a singular illustration of this, describing an
experiment which must have appeared even more surprising to those who
witnessed it than that in which the rabbit was restored to life. "In one
of my lectures on death from cold," he says, "which I delivered in the
winter session of 1867, some fish which during a hard frost had been
frozen in a tank at Newcastle-on-Tyne, were sent up to me by rail. They
were produced in the completely frozen state at the lecture, and by
careful thawing many of them were restored to perfect life. At my
Croomian lecture on muscular irritability after systemic death, a
similar fact was illustrated from frogs." It would appear, indeed, that
so far as cold-blooded animals are concerned, there is no recognisable
limit to the time during which they may remain thus frozen yet
afterwards recover. But, even in their case, much skill is required to
make the recovery sure. "If in thawing them the utmost care is not taken
to thaw gradually, and at a temperature always below the natural
temperature of the living animal, the fluids will pass from the frozen
state through the aqueous into the pectous so rapidly that death from
pectous change will be pronounced without perceiving any intermediate or
life stage at all." Naturally it is much more difficult to restore life
in the case of warm-blooded animals. Indeed, Dr. Richardson remarks,
that in the case of the more complex and differently shielded organs of
warm-blooded animals, it is next to impossible to thaw equally and
simultaneously all the colloidal fluids. "In very young animals it can
be done. Young kittens, a day or two old, that have been drowned in
ice-cold water, will recover after two hours' immersion almost to a
certainty, if brought into dry air at a temperature of 98 degrees
Fahrenheit. The gentlest motion of the body will be sufficient to
re-start the respiration, and therewith the life."
Remarking on such cases as these, Dr. Richardson notes that the nearest
natural approach to the stage of passive efficiency is seen in
hibernating animals. He states, however, that in hibernation the
complete state of passive efficiency is not produced. He does not accept
the opinion of those who consider that in true hibernation breathing
ceases as above described. A slow respiration continues, he believes, as
well as that low stage of active efficiency of circulation which we have
already indicated. "The hibernating animal sleeps only; and while
sleeping it consumes or wastes; and if the cold be prolonged it may die
from waking." More decisive, because surer, is the evidence derived from
the possibility of waking the hibernating animals by the common methods
used for waking a sleeper. This certainly seems to show that animation
is not positively suspended.
He asks next the question whether an animal like a fish, frozen equally
through all its structures, is to be regarded as actually dead in the
strict sense of the word or not, seeing that if it be uniformly and
equally thawed it may recover from this perfectly frozen state. "In like
manner," he says, "it may be doubted whether a healthy warm-blooded
animal suddenly and equally frozen through all its parts is dead,
although it is not recoverable." If, as seems certainly to be the case,
the animal dies because in the very act of trying to restore it some
inequality in the process is almost sure to determine a fatal issue,
some vital centre passing into the pectous state, the animal could not
have been dead before restoration was attempted; for the dead cannot die
again. Albeit, the outlook is not encouraging, at any rate so far as the
use of cold alone for maintaining suspended animation in full-grown
warm-blooded animals is concerned. Cold will, however, for a long time
maintain ready for motion active organs locally subject to it Even after
death this effect of cold "may be locally demonstrated," Dr. Richardson
tells us, "and has sometimes been so demonstrated to the wonder of the
world." "For instance, on January 17, in the year 1803, Aldini, the
nephew of Galvani, created the greatest astonishment in London by a
series of experiments which he conducted on a malefactor, twenty-six
years old, named John Forster, who was executed at Newgate, and whose
body, an hour after execution, was delivered over to Mr. Keate, Master
of the College of Surgeons, for research. The body had been exposed for
an hour to an atmosphere two degrees below freezing-point,[75] and from
that cause, though Aldini does not seem to have recognised the fact, the
voluntary muscles retained their irritability to such a degree that when
Aldini began to pass voltaic currents through the body, some of the
bystanders seem to have concluded that the unfortunate malefactor had
come again to life. It is significant also that Aldini in his report
says that his object was not to produce reanimation, but to obtain a
practical knowledge how far galvanism might be employed as an auxiliary
to revive persons who were accidentally suffocated, _as though he
himself were in some doubt_,"--that is, not in doubt only about the
power of galvanism, but in doubt whether Forster had been restored to
life for a while, or not! Dr. Richardson has himself repeated, on lower
animals, these experiments of Aldini's, except that the animals on which
he has experimented have passed into death under chloroform, not through
suffocation. His object, in fact, was to determine the best treatment
for human beings who sink under chloroform and other anaesthetics. He
finds that in warm weather he fails to get the same results. Noticing
this, he says, "I experimented at and below the freezing-point, and then
found that both by the electrical discharge, and by injection of water
heated to 130 degrees" (again this terrible inexactness of expression)
"into the muscles through the arteries, active muscular movements could
be produced in warm-blooded animals many hours after death. Thus, for
lecture experiment, I have removed one muscle from the body of an animal
that had slept to death from chloroform, and putting the muscle in a
glass tube surrounded with ice and salt, I have kept it for several days
in a condition for its making a final muscular contraction, and, by
gently thawing it, have made it, in the act of final contraction, do
some mechanical work, such as moving a long needle on the face of a
dial, or discharging a pistol. In muscles so removed from the body and
preserved ready for motion there is, however, only one final act. For
as the blood and nervous supply are both cut off from it, there is
nothing left in it but the reserved something that was fixed by the
cold. But I do not see any reason why this should not be maintained in
reservation for weeks or months, as easily as for days, in a fixed cold
atmosphere."
Cold being, however, obviously insufficient of itself for the suspension
of active life in warm-blooded animals, at least if such life is
eventually to be restored, let us next consider some of the agencies
which either alone or aided by cold may suspend without destroying life.
The first known of all such agencies was mandragora. Dioscorides
describes a wine, called _morion_, which was made from the leaves and
the root of mandragora, and possessed properties resembling those of
chloral hydrate. That it must have been an effective narcotic is shown
by the circumstance that painful operations were performed on patients
subjected to its influence, without their suffering the least pain, or
even feeling. The sleep thus produced lasted several hours. Dr.
Richardson considers that the use of this agent was probably continued
until the twelfth or thirteenth century. "From the use of it doubtless
came," he says, "the Shaksperian legend of Juliet." He strangely omits
to notice that Shakspeare elsewhere speaks of this narcotic by name,
where Iago says of Othello:
"Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever med'cine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou own'dst yesterday."
Probably the use of mandragora as a narcotic may have continued much
later than the thirteenth century. In earlier times it was certainly
used as opium is now used, not for medicinal purposes, but to produce
for a while an agreeable sensation of dreamy drowsiness. "There were
those," says Dr. Richardson, in his interesting article on Narcotics in
the CONTEMPORARY REVIEW for July last, "who drank of it for taste or
pleasure, and who were spoken of as 'mandragorites,' as we might speak
of 'alcoholists' or 'chloralists.' They passed into the land of sleep
and dream, and waking up in scare and alarm were the screaming mandrakes
of an ancient civilization." He has himself made the "morion" of the
ancients, dispensing the prescription of Dioscorides and Pliny. "The
same chemist, Mr. Hanbury," he says, "who first put chloral into my
hands for experiment, also procured for me the root of the true
mandragora. From that root I made the morion, tested it on myself, tried
its effects, and re-proved, after a lapse perhaps of four or five
centuries, that it had all the properties originally ascribed to it."
The "deadly nightshade" has similar properties. (In fact, morion was
originally made from the _Atropa belladonna_, not from its ally the
_Atropa mandragora_.) In 1851, Dr. Richardson attended two children who
were poisoned for a time from eating the berries and chewing the leaves
of the nightshade, which they had gathered near Richmond. They were
brought home insensible, he says, "and they lay in a condition of
suspended life for seven hours, the greatest care being required to
detect either the respiration or the movements of the heart; they
nevertheless recovered."
With the nitrite of amyl, Dr. Richardson has suspended the life of a
frog for nine days, yet the creature was then restored to full and
vigorous life. He has shown also that the same power of suspension,
though in less degree, "could be produced in warm-blooded animals, and
that the heart of a warm-blooded animal would contract for a period of
eighteen hours after apparent death." The action of nitrite of amyl
seems to resemble that of cold. In the pleasing language of the doctors,
"it prevents the pectous change of colloidal matter, and so prevents
_rigor mortis_, coagulation of blood, and solidification of nervous
centres and cords." So long as this change is prevented, active life can
be restored. But when in these experiments "the pectous change occurred,
all was over, and resolution into new forms of matter by putrefaction
was the result." From the analogy of some of the symptoms resulting from
the use of nitrite of amyl with the symptoms of catalepsy, Dr.
Richardson has "ventured to suggest that under some abnormal conditions
the human body itself, in its own chemistry, may produce an agent which
causes the suspended life observed during the cataleptic condition." The
suggestion has an interest apart from the question of the possibility of
safely suspending animation for considerable periods of time: it might
be possible to detect the nature of the agent thus produced by the
chemistry of the human body (if the theory is correct), and thus to
learn how its power might be counteracted.
Chloral hydrate seems singularly efficient in producing the semblance of
death,--so completely, indeed, as to deceive even the elect. Dr.
Richardson states that at the meeting of the British Association at
Exeter, some pigeons which had been put to sleep by the needle injection
of a large dose of chloral, "fell into such complete resemblance of
death that they passed for dead among an audience containing many
physiologists and other men of science. For my own part," he proceeds,
"I could detect no sign of life in them, and they were laid in one of
the out-offices of the museum of the infirmary as dead. In this
condition they were left late at night, but in the following morning
they were found alive, and as well as if nothing hurtful had happened to
them." Similar effects seem to be produced by the deadly poisons
cyanogen gas and hydrocyanic acid, though in the following case,
narrated by Dr. Richardson, the animal experimented upon (not with the
idea of eventually restoring it to life) belonged to a race so specially
tenacious of life that some may consider only one of its proverbial nine
lives to have been affected. In the laboratory of a large drug
establishment a cat, "by request of its owner, was killed, as was
assumed, instantaneously and painlessly by a large dose of Scheele's
acid. The animal appeared to die without a pang, and, presenting every
appearance of death, was laid in a sink to be removed on the next
morning. At night the animal was lying still in form of death in the
tank beneath a tap. In the morning it was found alive and well, but with
the fur wet from the dropping of water from the tap." This fact was
communicated to Dr. Richardson by an eminent chemist under whose direct
observation it occurred, in corroboration of an observation of his own
similar in character.
Our old friend alcohol (if friend it can be called) possesses the power
of suspending active vitality without destroying life, or at any rate
without depriving the muscles of their excitability. Dr. Richardson
records the case of a drunken man who, while on the ice at the Welsh
Harp lake, fell into the water through an opening in the ice, and was
for more than fifteen minutes completely immersed. He was extricated to
all appearance dead, but under artificial respiration was restored to
consciousness, though he did not survive for many hours. On the whole,
alcoholic suspension of life does not appear to be the best method
available. To test it, the patient must first get "very, very drunk,"
and even then, like the soldiers in the old song, must go on drinking,
lest the experiment should terminate simply in the fiasco of a drunken
sleep.
The last agent for suspending life referred to by Dr. Richardson is pure
oxygen. But he has not yet obtained such information on the power of
oxygen in this respect as he hopes to do.
Summing up the results of the various experiments made with narcotics
and other agents for suspending life, Dr. Richardson remarks that much
is already known in the world of science in respect to the suspension of
animal life by artificial means: "cold as well as various chemical
agents has this power, and it is worthy of note that cold, together with
the agents named, is antiseptic, as though whatever suspended living
action, suspended also by some necessary and correlative influence the
process of putrefactive change." He points out that if the news from
Brisbane were reliable, it would be clear that what had been done had
been effected by the combination of one of the chemical agents above
named, or of a similar agent, with cold. The only question which would
remain as of moment is, not whether a new principle has been developed,
but whether in matter of detail a new product has been discovered which,
better than any of the agents we already possess, destroys and suspends
animation. "In organic chemistry," he proceeds, "there are, I doubt not,
hundreds of substances which, like mandragora and nitrite of amyl, would
suspend the vital process, and it may be a new experimenter has met with
such an agent. It is not incredible, indeed, that the Indian Fakirs
possess a vegetable extract or essence which possesses the same power,
and by means of which they perform their as yet unexplained feat of
prolonged living burial." But he is careful to note the weak points of
the Australian story--viz., first, the statement that the method used is
a secret, "for men of true science know no such word;" secondly, that
the experimenter has himself to go to America to procure more supplies
of his agents; and, thirdly, that he requires two agents, one of which
is an antidote to the other. As respects this third point, he asks very
pertinently how an antidote can be absorbed and enter into the
circulation in a body practically dead.
It is, of course, now well known that the whole story was a hoax, and a
mischievous one. Several Australian farmers travelled long distances to
Sydney to make inquiries about a method which promised such important
results, only to find that there was not a particle of truth in the
story.