PROFESSOR MEISER'S WILL IN FAVOR OF THE DESICCATED COLONEL.
On this 20th day of January, 1824, being worn down by a cruel malady and
feeling the approach of the time when my person shall be absorbed in the
Great All;
I have written with my own hand this testament which is the expression
of my last will.
I appoint as executor my nephew Nicholas Meiser, a wealthy brewer in the
city of Dantzic.
I bequeath my books, papers and scientific collections of all kinds,
except item 3712, to my very estimable and learned friend, Herr Von
Humboldt.
I bequeath all the rest of my effects, real and personal, valued at
100,000 Prussian thalers or 375,000 francs, to Colonel Pierre Victor
Fougas, at present desiccated, but living, and entered in my catalogue
opposite No. 3712 (Zoology).
I trust that he will accept this feeble compensation for the ordeals he
has undergone in my laboratory, and the service he has rendered to
science.
Finally, in order that my nephew Nicholas Meiser may exactly understand
the duties I leave him to perform, I have resolved to inscribe here a
detailed account of the desiccation of Colonel Fougas, my sole heir.
It was on the 11th of November in that unhappy year 1813, that my
relations with this brave young man began. I had long since quitted
Dantzic, where the noise of cannon and the danger from bombs had
rendered all labor impossible, and retired with my instruments and books
under the protection of the Allied Armies in the fortified town of
Liebenfeld. The French garrisons of Dantzic, Stettin, Custrin, Glogau,
Hamburg and several other German towns could not communicate with each
other or with their native land; meanwhile General Rapp was obstinately
defending himself against the English fleet and the Russian army.
Colonel Fougas was taken by a detachment of the Barclay de Tolly corps,
as he was trying to pass the Vistula on the ice, on the way to Dantzic.
They brought him prisoner to Liebenfeld on the 11th of November, just at
my supper time, and Sergeant Garok, who commanded in the village, forced
me to be present at the examination and act as interpreter.
The open countenance, manly voice, proud firmness and fine carriage of
the unfortunate young man won my heart. He had made the sacrifice of his
life. His only regret, he said, was having stranded so near port, after
passing through four armies; and being unable to carry out the Emperor's
orders. He appeared animated by that French fanaticism which has done
so much harm to our beloved Germany. Nevertheless I could not help
defending him; and I translated his words less as an interpreter than as
an advocate. Unhappily, they found upon him a letter from Napoleon to
General Rapp, of which I preserved a copy:
"Abandon Dantzic, break the blockade, unite with the
garrisons of Stettin, Custrin and Glogau, march along
the Elbe, arrange with St. Cyr and Davoust to
concentrate the forces scattered at Dresden, Forgau,
Wittenberg, Magdeburg and Hamburg; roll up an army like
a snow ball; cross Westphalia, which is open, and come
to defend the line of the Rhine with an army of 170,000
Frenchmen which you will have saved!
"NAPOLEON."
This letter was sent to the headquarters of the Russian army, whilst a
half-dozen illiterate soldiers, drunk with joy and bad brandy, condemned
the brave Colonel of the 23d of the line to the death of a spy and a
traitor. The execution was fixed for the next day, the 12th, and M.
Pierre Victor Fougas, after having thanked and embraced me with the most
touching sensibility, (He is a husband and a father.) was shut up in the
little battlemented tower of Liebenfeld, where the wind whistles
terribly through all the loopholes.
The night of the 11th and 12th of November was one of the severest of
that terrible winter. My self-registering thermometer, which hung
outside my window with a southeast exposure, marked nineteen degrees
below zero, centigrade. I went early in the morning to bid the Colonel a
last farewell, and met Sergeant Garok, who said to me in bad German:
"We won't have to kill the Frantzouski, he is frozen to death."
I ran to the prison. The colonel was lying on his back, rigid. But I
found after a few minutes' examination, that the rigidity of the body
was not that of death. The joints, though they had not their ordinary
suppleness, could be bent and extended without any great effort. The
limbs, the face, and the chest gave my hands a sensation of cold, but
very different from that which I had often experienced from contact with
corpses.
Knowing that he had passed several nights without sleep, and endured
extraordinary fatigues, I did not doubt that he had fallen into that
profound and lethargic sleep which is superinduced by intense cold, and
which if too far prolonged slackens respiration and circulation to a
point where the most delicate physiological tests are necessary to
discover the continuance of life. The pulse was insensible; at least my
fingers, benumbed with cold, could not feel it. My hardness of hearing
(I was then in my sixty-ninth year) prevented my determining by
auscultation whether the beats of the heart still aroused those feeble
though prolonged vibrations which the ear continues to hear some time
after the hand fails to detect them.
The colonel had reached that point of torpor produced by cold, where to
revive a man without causing him to die, requires numerous and delicate
attentions. Some hours after, congelation would supervene, and with it,
impossibility of restoration to life.
I was in the greatest perplexity. On the one hand I knew that he was
dying on my hands by congelation; on the other, I could not, by myself,
bestow upon him the attentions that were indispensable. If I were to
administer stimulants without having him, at the same time, rubbed on
the trunk and limbs by three or four vigorous assistants, I would revive
him only to see him die. I had still before my eyes the spectacle of
that lovely young girl asphyxiated in a fire, whom I succeeded in
reviving by placing burning coals under the clavicles, but who could
only call her mother, and died almost immediately, in spite of the
administration of internal stimulants and electricity for inducing
contractions of the diaphragm and heart.
And even if I should succeed in bringing him back to health and
strength, was not he condemned by court-martial? Did not humanity forbid
my rousing him from this repose akin to death, to deliver him to the
horrors of execution?
I must confess that in the presence of this organism where life was
suspended, my ideas on reanimation took, as it were, fresh hold upon me.
I had so often desiccated and revived beings quite elevated in the
animal scale, that I did not doubt the success of the operation, even on
a man. By myself alone I could not revive and save the Colonel; but I
had in my laboratory, all the instruments necessary to desiccate him
without assistance.
To sum up, three alternatives offered themselves to me. I. To leave the
Colonel in the crenellated tower, where he would have died the same day
of congelation. II. To revive him by stimulants, at the risk of killing
him. And for what? To give him up, in case of success, to inevitable
execution. III. To desiccate him in my laboratory with the quasi
certainty of resuscitating him after the restoration of peace. All
friends of humanity will doubtless comprehend that I could not hesitate
long.
I had Sergeant Garok called, and I begged him to sell me the body of the
Colonel. It was not the first time that I had bought a corpse for
dissection, so my request excited no suspicion. The bargain concluded, I
gave him four bottles of kirsch-wasser, and soon two Russian soldiers
brought me Colonel Fougas on a stretcher.
As soon as I was alone with him, I pricked one of his fingers: pressure
forced out a drop of blood. To place it under a microscope between two
plates of glass was the work of a minute. Oh, joy! The fibrin was not
coagulated. The red globules appeared cleanly circular, flattened,
biconcave, and without notches, indentations or spheroidal swellings.
The white globules changed their shape, taking at intervals the
spherical form, and varying their shapes again by delicate expansions. I
was not deceived then, it was a torpid man that I had under my eyes, and
not a dead one!
I placed him on a pair of scales. He weighed one hundred and forty
pounds, clothing included. I did not care to undress him, for I had
noticed that animals desiccated directly in contact with the air, died
oftener than those which remained covered with moss and other soft
materials, during the ordeal of desiccation.
My great air-pump, with its immense platform, its enormous oval
wrought-iron receiver, which a rope running on a pulley firmly fixed in
the ceiling easily raised and lowered by means of a windlass--all these
thousand and one contrivances which I had so laboriously prepared in
spite of the railleries of those who envied me, and which I felt
desolate at seeing unemployed, were going to find their use! Unexpected
circumstances had arisen at last to procure me such a subject for
experiment, as I had in vain endeavored to procure, while I was
attempting to reduce to torpidity dogs, rabbits, sheep and other mammals
by the aid of freezing mixtures. Long ago, without doubt, would these
results have been attained if I had been aided by those who surrounded
me, instead of being made the butt of their railleries; if our
authorities had sustained me with their influence instead of treating me
as a subversive spirit.
I shut myself up _tête-à-tête_ with the Colonel, and took care that even
old Getchen, my housekeeper, now deceased, should not trouble me during
my work. I had substituted for the wearisome lever of the old fashioned
air-pumps, a wheel arranged with an eccentric which transformed the
circular movement of the axis into the rectilinear movement required by
the pistons: the wheel, the eccentric, the connecting rod, and the
joints of the apparatus all worked admirably, and enabled me to do
everything by myself. The cold did not impede the play of the machine,
and the lubricating oil was not gummed: I had refined it myself by a new
process founded on the then recent discoveries of the French _savant_ M.
Chevreul.
Having extended the body on the platform of the air-pump, lowered the
receiver and luted the rim, I undertook to submit it gradually to the
influence of a dry vacuum and cold. Capsules filled with chloride of
calcium were placed around the Colonel to absorb the water which should
evaporate from the body, and to promote the desiccation.
I certainly found myself in the best possible situation for subjecting
the human body to a process of gradual desiccation without sudden
interruption of the functions, or disorganization of the tissues or
fluids. Seldom had my experiments on rotifers and tardigrades been
surrounded with equal chances of success, yet they had always succeeded.
But the particular nature of the subject and the special scruples
imposed upon my conscience, obliged me to employ a certain number of new
conditions, which I had long since, in other connections, foreseen the
expediency of. I had taken the pains to arrange an opening at each end
of my oval receiver, and fit into it a heavy glass, which enabled me to
follow with my eye the effects of the vacuum on the Colonel. I was
entirely prevented from shutting the windows of my laboratory, from fear
that a too elevated temperature might put an end to the lethargy of the
subject, or induce some change in the fluids. If a thaw had come on, all
would have been over with my experiment. But the thermometer kept for
several days between six and eight degrees below zero, and I was very
happy in seeing the lethargic sleep continue, without having to fear
congelation of the tissues.
I commenced to produce the vacuum with extreme slowness, for fear that
the gases distributed through the blood, becoming free on account of the
difference of their tension from that of rarified air, might escape in
the vessels and so bring on immediate death. Moreover, I watched, every
moment, the effects of the vacuum on the intestinal gases, for by
expanding inside in proportion as the pressure of the air diminished
outside of the body, they could have caused serious disorders. The
tissues might not have been entirely ruptured by them, but an internal
lesion would have been enough to occasion death in a few hours after
reanimation. One observes this quite frequently in animals carelessly
desiccated.
Several times, too rapid a protrusion of the abdomen put me on my guard
against the danger which I feared, and I was obliged to let in a little
air under the receiver. At last, the cessation of all phenomena of this
kind satisfied me that the gases had disappeared by exosmose or had been
expelled by the spontaneous contraction of the viscera. It was not until
the end of the first day that I could give up these minute precautions,
and carry the vacuum a little further.
The next day, the 13th, I pushed the vacuum to a point where the
barometer fell to five millimetres. As no change had taken place in the
position of the body or limbs, I was sure that no convulsion had been
produced. The colonel had been desiccated, had become immobile, had lost
the power of performing the functions of life, without death having
supervened, and without the possibility of returning to activity having
departed. His life was suspended, not extinguished.
Each time that a surplus of watery vapor caused the barometer to ascend,
I pumped. On the 14th, the door of my laboratory was literally broken in
by the Russian General, Count Trollohub, who had been sent from
headquarters. This distinguished officer had run in all haste to
prevent the execution of the colonel and to conduct him into the
presence of the Commander in Chief. I loyally confessed to him what I
had done under the inspiration of my conscience; I showed him the body
through one of the bull's-eyes of the air-pump; I told him that I was
happy to have preserved a man who could furnish useful information to
the liberators of my country; and I offered to resuscitate him at my own
expense if they would promise me to respect his life and liberty. The
General, Count Trollohub, unquestionably a distinguished man, but one of
an exclusively military education, thought that I was not speaking
seriously. He went out slamming the door in my face, and treating me
like an old fool.
I set myself to pumping again, and kept the vacuum at a pressure of from
three to five millimetres for the space of three months. I knew by
experience that animals can revive after being submitted to a dry vacuum
and cold for eighty days.
On the 12th of February 1814, having observed that for a month no
modification had taken place in the shrinking of the flesh, I resolved
to submit the Colonel to another series of operations, in order to
insure more perfect preservation by complete desiccation. I let the air
re-enter by the stop-cock arranged for the purpose, and, after raising
the receiver, proceeded at once to my experiment.
The body did not weigh more than forty-six pounds; I had then reduced it
nearly to a third of its original weight. It should be borne in mind
that the clothing had not lost as much water as the other parts. Now the
human body contains nearly four-fifths of its own weight of water, as is
proved by a desiccation thoroughly made in a chemical drying furnace.
I accordingly placed the Colonel on a tray, and, after sliding it into
my great furnace, gradually raised the temperature to 75 degrees,
centigrade. I did not dare to go beyond this heat, from fear of altering
the albumen and rendering it insoluble, and also of taking away from the
tissues the capacity of reabsorbing the water necessary to a return to
their functions.
I had taken care to arrange a convenient apparatus so that the furnace
was constantly traversed by a current of dry air. This air was dried in
traversing a series of jars filled with sulphuric acid, quick-lime and
chloride of calcium.
After a week passed in the furnace, the general appearance of the body
had not changed, but its weight was reduced to forty pounds, clothing
included. Eight days more brought no new decrease of weight. From this,
I concluded that the desiccation was sufficient. I knew very well that
corpses mummified in church vaults for a century or more, end by
weighing no more than a half-score of pounds, but they do not become so
light without a material alteration in their tissues.
On the 27th of February, I myself placed the colonel in the boxes which
I had had made for his occupancy. Since that time, that is to say during
a space of nine years and eleven months, we have never been separated. I
carried him with me to Dantzic. He stays in my house. I have never
placed him, according to his number, in my zoological collection; he
remains by himself, in the chamber of honor. I do not grant any one the
pleasure of re-using his chloride of calcium. I will take care of you
till my dying day, Oh Colonel Fougas, dear and unfortunate friend! But I
shall not have the joy of witnessing your resurrection. I shall not
share the delightful emotions of the warrior returning to life. Your
lachrymal glands, inert to-day, but some day to be reanimated, will not
pour upon the bosom of your old benefactor, the sweet dew of
recognition. For you will not recover your life until a day when mine
will have long since departed! Perhaps you will be astonished that I,
loving you as I do, should have so long delayed to draw you out of this
profound slumber. Who knows but that some bitter reproach may come to
taint the tenderness of the first offices of gratitude that you will
perform over my tomb! Yes! I have prolonged, without any benefit to you,
an experiment of general interest to others. I ought to have remained
faithful to my first intention, and restored your life, immediately
after the signature of peace. But what! Was it well to send you back to
France when the sun of your fatherland was obscured by our soldiers and
allies? I have spared you that spectacle--one so grievous to such a
soul as yours. Without doubt you would have had, in March, 1815, the
consolation of again seeing that fatal man to whom you had consecrated
your devotion; but are you entirely sure that you would not have been
swallowed up with his fortune, in the shipwreck of Waterloo?
For five or six years past, it has not been your welfare nor even the
welfare of science, that prevented me from reanimating you, it has
been.... Forgive me, Colonel, it has been a cowardly attachment to life.
The disorder from which I am suffering, and which will soon carry me
off, is an aneurism of the heart; violent emotions are interdicted to
me. If I were myself to undertake the grand operation whose process I
have traced in a memorandum annexed to this instrument, I would, without
any doubt, succumb before finishing it; my death would be an untoward
accident which might trouble my assistants and cause your resuscitation
to fail.
Rest content! You will not have long to wait, and, moreover, what do you
lose by waiting? You do not grow old, you are always twenty-four years
of age; your children are growing up, you will be almost their
contemporary when you come to life again. You came to Liebenfeld poor,
you are now in my house poor, and my will makes you rich. That you may
be happy also, is my dearest wish.
I direct that, the day after my death, my nephew, Nicholas Meiser,
shall call together, by letter, the ten physicians most illustrious in
the kingdom of Prussia, that he shall read to them my will and the
annexed memorandum, and that he shall cause them to proceed without
delay, in my own laboratory, to the resuscitation of Colonel Fougas. The
expenses of travel, maintenance, etc., etc., shall be deducted from the
assets of my estate. The sum of two thousand thalers shall be devoted to
the publication of the glorious results of the experiment, in German,
French and Latin. A copy of this pamphlet shall be sent to each of the
learned societies then existing in Europe.
In the entirely unexpected event of the efforts of science being unable
to reanimate the Colonel, all my effects shall revert to Nicholas
Meiser, my sole surviving relative.
JOHN MEISER, M. D.