; '. THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 042 WHITE R'S (W.) Disorder of Death, or the State of the Frame under the Signs of Death called Suspended Anima- tion, 8vo. hf. calf gilt, Is &d 1819 A curious work, with recommendation of Remedies for Resuscitation in Natural Death as in cases of Violent Death, &c. Dissertation OK THE DISORDER OF DEATH DISSERTATION ON THE DISORDER OF DEATH; Or that State of the Frame under the Signs of Death CALLED SUSPENDED ANIMATION; TO WHICH Have been sometimes successfully applied, as in other Disorders, In which it is recommended, that the same Remedies of the JRtsussitative Process should be applied to cases of NATURAL DEATH, As they are to cases of Violent Dath, Drowning, $c. under the same hope of sometimes succeeding in the attempt, B V T HE REV. WALTER WHITER, RECTOR OF HARDINGHAM, NORFOLK, " Death may usurp on nature many hours, And yet the fire of Life kindle again The o'erpressed spirits." fSHAKsPEARE.J PRINTED FOE THE AUTHOR. OLD BY S. HATES, KING STREET, COVENT GARDENT, LONDON J DKIGHTOff AND SON, CAMBRIDGE; AND W. BOOTH, NOR W I CM. 1819. Booth & Ball, Printer*, Norwich. PREFACE. has afforded a frequent topic of observation, that a train of ideas, wholly remote from the general course of our studies or pursuits, sometimes seizes upon the mind, and continues in different periods of life, under various degrees of interest or effect, to excite our feel- ings and to occupy our reflections. Powerful impress- ions of this kind have long possessed the Writer of the present Work, and they have at last been exhibited un- der a visible form in the discussion of a theme, which is wholly foreign to the familiar object of his daily me- ditations. On such an occasion, it may be necessary perhaps briefly to commemorate c, few facts, which are connected with the compilation and appearance of the present Volume. A period o f twenty years has now almost elapsed, since the materials of the work were collected at a time favourable IV. favourable for the purpose, when the writer enjoyed aft opportunity of consulting the Medical Libraries in our Capital a spot so abundant in the means of acquir- ing and of exercising every species of human know- ledge. These materials lay almost neglected, without addition or arrangement,during that period, till a strong impulse urged the Writer to place a new value on the conceptions, which he had formed on this subject, and to prepare his collections for the Public eye, with all the care and diligence, which such an impulse demanded. The combination, which I have adopted in the title w cfmy Work, the DISORDER OF DEATH, can startle only for a moment the most unfurnished and superfi- cial of readers. All agree that Death) or a frame under the Signs of Death, may sometimes admit the benefit of Remedy, as the same frame may be delivered from any other Disorder, with which it is afflicted. All likewise will acknowledge, who are accustomed to reason or to think,the propriety or expediency of a combination, which under a new and brief form may render familiar an important fact, remotely or imperfectly understood. The subject, which is discussed in thisVoIumejhas often passed before the attention of the Public, in various Languages PREFACE. V. Languages; and there is a well-known French work by Bruhier, published in the middle of the last centu- ry, on the Uncertainty of the Signs of Death,in which many examples are collected of persons, who have re- turned to Life, after a full exhibition of the Signs of Death. The Works, which have been written on this subject, appear at various times to have excited violent alarms on the danger of Premature Interment; yet they seem never to have represented the matter under a just point of view ; and it is certain, that they have never produ- ced an important effect on the institutions of any coun- try, in which these fears have been excited. The only change, which has ever been pretended to be effected, and which the writers on this subject appear ever to have projected, is the delay of Interment,and it will not be difficult to understand, that a more extraordinary device cannot well be imagined. This project does not consist in attempting to preserve the good, which these alarms suppose and proclaim, the possibility of Life ; but it is directed to intercept the existence^ of that good, by securing the opposite evil Death) or in Dther words, the alarms have not operated in endea- vouring VI. PREFACE. vouring to cherish and revive latent Life, but to pro- vide for its extinction, and to secure absolute and Pu- trefactive Death. I have produced in the present Volume a few ex- traordinary Stories relating to the subject, which I dis- cuss ; yet I have purposely refrained from introducing any Narratives but those, which were absolutely ne- cessary for the elucidation of my argument. A collec- tion of these Narratives might supply the contents of another Volume, by detailingjamong other matters, the history of those persons, who have retained their perceptions under the Signs of Death,or who have re- vived when these signs have been exhibited, sometime* before, but commonly after Interment. The warm ge- nial Earth possesses, I believe, mighty virtues for as- sisting the Resuscitative process,and I grievously fear, that the examples of revival in the Grave are more fre- quent than the World, amidst all their alarms existing on Premature Interment,has yet ventured to conceive. Everyone is enabled to form some judgment on this matter from the same species of evidence, which has considerably operated in impressing such an opinion on th Writer of these Enquiries. I may safely affirm, that PREFACE. Vil. that 1 scarcely ever communicated with any intelligent person on the subject, who has not been able to supply a Narrative applicable to the occasion, either by per- lonal knowledge, or by connections more immediate or remote with the object of the Narrative. If the curiosity of the Public should be excited into due attention from the appearance of this Work, ano- ther Volume might be published at some future period, of great interest and importance. It might contain a col- lection of these Stories, which should be derived from printed documents of authority, already extant, or from the private accounts of individuals, if they were communicated to the Author of this Work, or publish- ed for the common benefit of enquirers into this subject. The story of the German -Lady, detailed in the follow ing pages, ( 201. ) who was witness to the prepara- tions for her own funeral, may be illustrated,! fear,by many Narratives of a similar kind ; and I have already heard, that our own country can supply us with some portentous examples of a similar nature. I have endeavoured, in the course of my enquiries, to explain the pretensions, by which a Writer,not en- rolled Vlll. PREFACE* veiled in the Medical order, has ventured to deliver his opinions on the doctrines of that Art. I have con- ceived that a freedom from this Professional yoke has not imposed the disabilities of a penalty, but has con- ferred even the immunities of a privilege, and I have imagined, that I am from hence enabled to address the Public on this subject, in a form more unrestrain- ed, and in a tone of discussion more plain, intelligible, and efficient. I look with full confidence to the co- operation of this enlightened order of men ; though I cannot but foresee some impediments, which may arise on the occasion, and which may obstruct some portion of my hopes. The fear of deserting the accustomed path, and of pursuing what some might consider as a wild and visionary conception, may perhaps deter the Practiti- oner,more advanced in age and more established in his fortune, from engaging in a new project, as yet un- sanctioned by Professional authority. But to the young Artist, zealous in his pursuit and unestablished in his practice, such a Project opens to the view a splendid commencement of his career, at once most propitious to his fame and to his fortune. The PHEFACE. IS. The Artist, who shall first recall to life a Human being in a case of Natural Death, by the same Resus- citative process, which is applied to cases of Violent Death, becomes the Founder of a new aera and of a new name in the annals of Humanity of Medicine and of Science. In such a cause we may be permitted to indulge the zeal of proselytism, without any fears of delusion in. our estimate of the possible evil, which may be annex- ed to the probable good. Some difficulties are to be encountered, and some prejudices are perhaps to be subdued ; but I still apply with confidence to the tri- bunal of Public sense andPublic feeling. I look around on every side, and t call' for co-operation and support in the adoption of my Project, on all Professions, and all Orders of the Community. It is a great cause, on which hang the issues of Life and Death : It is a cause alike common to all. and it is established by an argument, which is alike intelligible to all^simple in its form and invincible in its force. If Life be the greatest of blessings, as all confess by the dread of losing it, and by their arts and devices to preserve X. 1> H E F A C B . preserve it, which are sometimes doubtful and sortie* times dangerous, that Project must surely stand pre- eminently distinguished,which seeks this blessing, when the good may possibly be attained,and when no evil can possibly be incurred. If ever Project was received among men, assuredly such a Project should be hailed -with universal acceptance, and be admitted to a fair and full trial of its effect, which,cheered by some pros- pect* of hope and secured from all dangers of hazard, professes not to commence its operation, till the last evil has already occurred, and till every other Art, adopted for the prevention of that evil, has been exhausted in vain. WALTER WHITER Hardingham- Parsonage, Norfolk, May 3d. 1819, CONTENTS OF THE WORK. Introduction. 1-56 Alarms about Premature Interment. 57-84 The SLEEP OF DEATH and the DEATH OF SLEEP compared. 85-98 Description from the Poets of the lovely countenance assumed by the young and beautiful after Death. 98-112 Lightening before Death. 113-116 Death may sometimes be only the Crisis of the Disorder. 115-121 Death may sometimes operate as the Cure of the Disorder Opinions of Dr. Darwin and Dr. Fothergill on this *at>ject. Solomon appears to have discovered a Remedy for Epilepsy. The nonstration of this truth, and should at once destroy all our confidence in that authority, which has been supposed to arise from the universal testimony and experience of Mankind. We are now convinced, that the most false and fatal opi- nions have prevailed in every former age of the world on the properties of Life and the appearances of Death ; and we look with ineffable horror on some practices, which have been founded on such delusive concep- tions. We find however, that these emotions, strong 1 and impressive as they may seem, have been exerted only within the most con- tracted sphere ; nor have they operated be- yond the few objects by which they were excited. The conceptions of the past times, on the momentous distinction between Life and Death, still continue to predominate in the opinions and institutions of the present. No reflections have been excited, which might conduct the understanding to broad and ge- neral views of a subject, at once so inter- esting- to our feelings, and so abundant in materials of important meditation. The writer of the present work is Desirous of DISORDER OF DEATH. 7 of enlarging the boundaries of a question, which promises so much, and on which so little has been performed. He is anxious to convince mankind, that an equal horror should be excited at practices of a similar kind, which still universally prevail, and which are pregnant, as he conceives, with enormities, the most repugnant to our reason and revolt- ing to our nature. Though we may marvel at that slow progress, by which the mind ad- vances in forming broad and general deduc- tions from the materials, which are spread before it ; let us be grateful that such materi- als have been supplied, and that these sources of knowledge have been unfolded to our view. Let us rejoice, that some great and funda- mental truths have already been established, which, when duly pursued, may conduct the understanding to the most extensive and im- portant conclusions. We have been witness to a display of the most extraordinary facts, which have overturned in certain cases the conceptions of all former times, on the subject of Life and Death, and they may suggest to us, that other cases may perhaps be found, in which opinions equally false and pernicious are still universally adopted. A new world furnished A DISSERTATION ON TJ1JC furnished with spectacles of wonder has been unfolded to our view : Nature has assumed new forms, and demands even a new language to describe her operations. We now live 'in times, in which we may boldly affirm, that the Dead have been raised to Life. We have now seen, that the Dead, as they have been denominated in all former periods of the world, may again be recalled to the functions of Life, and be again invested with all the privileges and blessings of exis- tence. It has now been demonstrated, beyond all possibility of doubt and error, that the appearances of Motion and Sensation are not, necessary to indicate the presence of Vitality ; and that the powers of Life may remain, though the signs of Death according to all former notions on the subject, may be unequi- vocally apparent. The most successful and brilliant proofs of this fact have been exhibi- ted by the Humane Societies, established for the recovery of the drowned, and a new era has arisen, which has overturned the expe- rience, as it has been called of all former ages in every region of the globe. We now learn that this boasted experience of DISORDER OF DEATH. 9 of mankind was not the product of truth, but an experience of their own creation ; an experience, at which we now recoil with ineffable horror and amazement. We now at last understand and feel, that from this ex- perience can only be deduced a portentous fact in the History of Man ; that there is no abomination, which may not be engrafted among* the customs of the Human Race, as conformable to the Laws of Nature and as con- firmed by the universal testimony and autho- rity of mankind. It is now acknowledged, that the most illustrious sages in the art of me- dicine and the grossest of the people, in all former times, have gazed with the same eye of fatal and unsuspecting ignorance on various appearances of Death; and that they have committed their fellow creatures to the grave, who. were still instinct with the principles of Life, and possessed even with the powers of a sound and healthy frame, ready at once to resume in all its former vigour, the various offices of motion sensation and reflection. While we look back with consternation and dismay on the ravages, which so baleful a de- lusion must have of necessity produced among the inhabitants of the earth; we are still to- tally ignorant of the extent to which this C delusion 10 A DISSERTATION ON THE delusion has been spread, nor can we form any notion of that wide sphere of action, in which these ravages may have operated. Our attention has at present been directed only to peculiar cases of sudden and violent Death, and in these alone have the false con- ceptions of former ages been detected, and their enormities partially corrected. We know not however, whether innumerable other instances do not still remain, in which our own ignorance may be equally fatal and our own practices equally pernicious. The facts y which the Humane Societies have established, conspire in suggesting to our minds, that we probably are still deeply involved in the same labyrinth of error, and that we differ only from the past times by the strength and ob- stinacy of our delusions, which still continue to pervert the understanding, when new lights have been afforded to guide and direct its wan- derings. The experiments which these Soci- eties have exhibited, concur to excite alarms, to infuse doubts, and to destroy all confidence in the rectitude of our Opinions and practices on a subject, in which nothing certain ha* been discovered but the ignorance and errors of mankind. The knowledge, which we have acquired DISORDER OF DEATH H acquired from these Societies, is indeed of the most valuable and important nature ; if we are contented to appreciate its excellence, not so much by that which they have discovered, as by that which they have abolished not by the practices which they have induced us to adopt, but by those which they have taught us to reject with abhorrence, or to regard with suspicion. The great discovery, which has been made by the Humane Societies, does not consist in supplying any new principles, by which we can infallibly decide, that the powers of life are totally and irrecoverably annihi- lated. On the contrary, they have taught us, that those ordinary signs of Death, which have ever been regarded as infallible criteri- ons of the absolute extinction of the vital prin- ciple are all doubtful and fallacious, and that they afford us no evidence whatever on which our decisions can be formed. They have proclaimed to mankind in the most express and unequivocal manner, at least from the force and spirit of their discoveries, that the only evidence on the total extinction of Life is to be found in that mode of decision, to which they have themselves resorted in those k -. C2 peculiar 12 A DISSERTATION ON T1IJS peculiar instances, which they have under- taken to examine. This evidence consists in actual experiment on every case, which is pre- sented to the attention ; and we are not autho- rised to pronounce our sentence on the ques- tion of absolute and irremediable Death, till all the arts of resuscitation have been applied without effect, which are at present to be found within the sphere of our knowledge. Though the facts, which the Humane So- cieties have supplied, directly conduct the understanding to this important inference ; yet we do not find, that a conclusion so ob- vious has at all operated either on their minds, or on the opinions of the public, to whom they have appealed. The truth which they have established, remains an insulated fact, and confined within the narrow limits of the particular cases, by which it has been proved. It has not been adopted as the basis of a general conclusion, nor has it operated on the customs and institutions of mankind. In vain have these Societies demonstrated to the [most perfect satisfaction of themselves and the public, that the absence of apparent motion and sensation affords no criterion whatever' DISORDER OP DEATH. 13 whatever of the annihilation of Life. The artists, who have exhibited the most nume- rous and brilliant proofs of this truth, and the people, who have been convinced by the demonstration, still continue to regulate their ordinary practice by a maxim directly op- posite, just as if no such Societies had exis-* ted, and no such truth had been established. The absence of apparent motion and sensati- on still continues in these times as in all the past, to be regarded in our ordinary practice as an infallible criterion of the annihilation of Life y and on this conclusion at this mo- ment, through the whole extent of the globe, we consign our fellow creatures to their graves, without reflection or remorse. Nothing surely can exceed our astonish- ment, when we cast our eyes on this unquesti- onable fact, and consider the period in which it still continues to prevail. The time how- ever is, I trust, at last arrived, in which the attention of mankind will no longer slumber over a theme, pregnant with such mighty consequences. The time, I trust, is at last arrived, in which a series of conclusions will be adopted, commensurate with the impor- tance of the materials, which have been sup- plied 14 A DISSERTATION ON THE plied for our reflection. It is surely no com- mon aera in the history of our destiny, when even Death itself may admit the consolations of Hope, and gladden our hearts with the prospects of Life. Death itself has now as- sumed an aspect and a name less direful and terrific. Death, in some of its most alarming 1 forms, has now lost a portion of its terrors, and has been hailed by the cheering name of Suspended Animation. We are now assured, that the frame may be restored to the full possession of its functions, under the signs of Death, as it might be under the signs or symptoms of any other disorder, with which the vital energies may be oppressed. This extraordinary fact, so unknown to all former ages, demands a new language to express its operation ; and the writer of the present vo- lume has for the first time presented to the attention of the public, researches on the DISORDER OF DEATH. I am prepared to expect that this mode of expression will be regarded by some as a quaint, or perhaps even as an idle combina- tion of discordant terms : Yet I must observe that these objectors are but little acquainted with k the nature of the Human mind or the principles DISORDER OF DEATH. 15 principles of Science, who do not understand the importance of a new Language in impres- sing a new train of ideas. I have been indu- ced therefore to consider that state of the frame, which has been distinguished by the name of DEATH, as a Disorder only ; because like other states of the frame, to which the term Disorder is familiarly applied, it has been sometimes cured by the resources of art ; and under this designation, which is at once accordant with the usages of Language and the maxims of Science, I am desirous of ex- citing the curiosity of the public to the exami- nation of a question, which appeals to their Attention alike by the novelty of the enquiry and the importance of its purpose. The modes of speaking, which . are here adopted, Suspended Animation, and The Disorder of Death, express only, by a just and philosophical induction, the possibility and the hopes of a case, placed within the sphere of Art, without presuming to adopt a tone of confidence on the final issue of the event, which can alone be decided by the process of experiment, skilfully directed and diligently pursued. The Animation, which we had flattered ourselves to be Suspended only, may; be 16 A DISSERTATION ON THE be gone for ever, and the Disorder of Death, like any other Disorder, may be unfortunate- ly placed beyond the powers of our art, and may terminate in that extreme and irreme- diable condition of the frame, where its va- rious parts are dissolved, and life totally annihilated. This fatal termination in the Disorder of Death, as in all other Diseases, must be regarded under the same point of view, and must be alike referred either to the incurable state of the malady itself, or to the inadequate remedies, which were applied for its relief. It will be conceived perhaps by those, to whom the combination, which I have ventu- red to adopt, may appear strange and discor- dant, that the word Disorder does not express an attack upon the frame sufficiently violent and formidable, to be associated with DEATH, that terrific term, expressing in our perver- ted conceptions a condition of the frame, which is placed beyond the reach of remedy and which terminates, as if by a necessary consequence, in final and putrefactive disso- lution. Now that these conceptions have been admitted from false and confused noti- ons *n the subject wifl, an a more deliberate view D1SORBE& OF DEATH. 17 view of the question, be fully understood and acknowledged ; as all must agree from the most ample and indisputable testimony, that Death, as we are wont to call it, does not necessari- ly terminate in final and putrefactive Disso- lution ; and it is our business to remove from the mind this confusion of ideas, which leads to reasonings so false and to consequences so fatal. This evil must be combated, not only by bringing the testimony of facts perpetu- ally before the view, but by resorting like- wise to a more powerful agency, the com- bination of new forms in our familiar Lan- guage, which may impress us with new no- tions and more correct conceptions. I use the word Death, in the same popu- lar sense, which all persons at all times have annexed to the same term, as denoting The ab- sence of apparent motion and sensation that state of Death on the testimony of which alone, without any other evidence, men have in every period of the world committed their fellow creatures to their graves. Though I agree with all in the familiar and received sense, which has been annexed to the word Death, yet I am compelled by a variety of facts, which all acknowledge, but on which D none 18 A DISSERTATION ON T none reason or act, beyond the pale of a few examples, totally to differ from all who have gone before me on the deductions which are to be drawn, and on the practices which ought to be adopted, when a being passes from the condition of Life, and assumes that form of Death, which consists only in the absence of apparent Motion and Sensation. I cannot persuade myself to consider and to treat, as men are accustomed to do, under the same point of view, and in the same manner, every state of the frame, which is alike designated by the general name of Death, from the mo- ment at which apparent Motion and Sensation cease, till that period, when the compages of the frame is at last totally dissolved by putrefactive dissolution. I regard it as a sad delusion among the practices of men to commit the body of a Fellow Creature to the grave, only because that body appears to the view, under the condition, which is call- ed Death, or the absence of apparent mo- tion and sensation ; as I well know, and as all well know and acknowledge, that various states or stages in this condition of the frame bearing the name of Death, are under certain circumstances curable by the application? of Art, and that they sometimes terminate in the full enjoyment of Health and Life. DISORDER OF DEATH. 1.9 I am therefore justified in considering these curable states of the frame as a Disor- der only, however terrific may be the name of Death by which that Disorder is designated, and however dangerous such a Disorder may in fact be, under a peculiar treatment ; nor is it necessary for the purposes of my argu- ment, to define the various stages of the frame, in which it may possibly remain un- der the controul of Art during its progress to that final state of irremediable Death, which is displayed in the total dissolution of the organic System. I agree too with all those, who have gone before me, in considering Death, under one point of view, as referred to the present state of our conceptions and our practice, to be the most hopeless and dangerous of all Dis- orders and that, whenever it seizes upon the frame, it ever has been and still continues to be, in the most preeminent degree a terri- fic Disease, which even naturally, if I may so say, though not necessarily, is found to be connected with final and putrefactive Death I say naturally, because we learn from the universal experience of mankind, that Death of absence of apparent motion and sensation, o 3 when 20 A DISSERTATION DN THE when it is unequivocally exhibited, almost always terminates in final and putrefactive Death, if Mature is left to her own opera- tions, unassisted by the resources of Art. The history of the Human Race has indeed supplied us with some extraordinary cases, in which revival after Death has been effected by the sole efforts of Nature, operating for her own preservation. These cases are in truth examples of mighty import ; which, while they strike us with ineffable horror, cannot but rouse our attention to the consi- deration of a subject, so interesting to our feelings ; but the notorious and visible exam- ples of this change from Death to Life, when nature has not been assisted by Art, are so rare, that they affect the mind only as miraculous occurrences. They annihilate all hopes, in the ordinary course of events, and they operate, as rare exceptions are wont to do in all other cases, serving rather to confirm and establish, what may be considered, as the universal law of the Animal ceconomy. When the familiar and acknowledged criterion of Death, the absence of apparent motion and sensation, is once stamped upon the frame ; all hopes are justly banished from all breasts of DISOKBI2R OF BEATH. 21 of that prodigious or miraculous event, in which the Dead will be again restored to Life, by the sole .process of Nature exciting her own powers for her own, recovery. Thus then every state of Death naturally terminates in the extreme and final Death of putrefactive dissolution, and thus under one point of view, all those, who have been im- pressed with the signs of Death from drown- ing, and who have been afterwards recovered by the processes of Art, may be considered as absolutely and really Dead, according to the use of the term on all other occasions, both as applied to the appearance and the consequence. That is, without the assistance of Art, they would have remained still Dead, and would have passed into the last state of a dissolved frame and of putrified matter. Some howevei* on considering the subject un- der another point of view, and observing that the same frame, though impressed with the Signs of Death, had been restored to the func- tions of Life, might he inclined to call such a state of the frame Apparent Death only, as it did not terminate in that state of things, which they have been accustomed to call Death, or as they might express it, real Death-, in 22 A DISSERTATION ON THE in reference to the final event of putrefactive dissolution, which has been perpetually con- nected in their minds with the name of Death. Others perhaps, on more enlarged views of the subject, as unfolded by some indispu- table facts, would be inclined perhaps to extend the same combination Apparent Death to aJl cases, in which they could indulge a hope, that the same favourable event might possibly happen. This state of the frame, within the sphere of hope, under the name of Apparent Death, they might consider to be that condition of the animal ceconomy, in which the Principle of animation the Vital principle the Vital energy, or by what other mode they should wish to describe it, was not finally extinct but quiescent, or as they might call it, Suspended only. To these expressions, and to this mode of considering the subject, I bavenothng to ob- ject; if their force and import be duly ex- plained and understood. Different expressions and different modes of conceiving a subject may be properly adopted, if the facts, rela- ting to these expressions and modes of conception are distinctly explained and ac- knowledged. I most repeat however, that the DISORDER OF DEATH 23 the state of the frame, which some might call Apparent Death or J Suspended Animation. is absolute, real Death, or Animation gone and lost, both in its visible signs of want of motion and sensation, and in its natural con- sequences. It can only be called with any reason or propriety, Apparent Death or Suspended Animation, from certain facts, that such a state has sometimes terminated in Life, under the applications of Art and from the hope, formed on some analogical deductions that it may again terminate in the same manner. When the Reader and the Writer have become intelligible to each other on the import of these modes of speaking, there can be no difficulty in their use and application ; und thus Suspended Animation, Apparent Death, and the Disorder of Death, may be employed with safety to express certain states of the frame, without attempting pre- cisely to define what those states may be, in w r hich J Mr. Colemanhaa objected to the phrase Suspended Animatior. *nd prefers Suspended Respiration, on which Mr. Wilkinson justly observes that there are greater objections to the latter phrase tha-* the former, "In that particular state of the system," (saji ""Mr. Wilkinson, )*'ln which all the animal functions are quiescent, "not only the respiration, but also all the secretions are inactive. ''The change induced is better expreBsed by the general term f "Suspended! Animation than by particularising the suspension " *'oae organ only. The term Speniion cannot imply either abo- lition 24 A DISSERTATION Ofc Tlilu which there existed a hope, that a frame under the signs of Death might, with the assistance of Art, be again restored to the functions of Life. But of thesj different ex- pressions, P am induced by various reason* to prefer the new combination which 1 have ventured to adopt, THE DISORDER oy IXEATH, as the most just, impressive, and scientific. Even its novelty affords a source of recommendation ; as it at once imparts to the most unfurnished mind a new mode of conceiving the subject, and it introduce* likewise into the discussion of the question a term appropriate to every derangement of the frame, hostile to health or life, which can- not fail of supplying both to the writer and to the reader, abundant materials of illustra- tion in a series of analogies and comparisons, deduced (abolition or total destruction; and hence, incases, 10 which the 'powers of life are not destroyed, but merely dormant, the "word Susptnsion very clearly expresses that particular state of the "animal functions." (Wilkinson on Galvanbm, Vol 2. p. 460.) The word Suspended appeals to be the best, which could have keen adopted, a? it is quite removed from any idea, which re- lates to the cause or mode of operation connected with the case, aud a& it expresses moreover a recurrence to the original stal v and the privation or absence of the former functions for a time uly. In the case where animation has really been recalled, Suspended Animation declares a fact aud from hence its use is ex- tended to rasei, in which the hopuoi pvnibility of iucu a fact u expressed. DISORDER OF DEATH. 25 deduced from known facts or established theories, through the whole compass of the Medical Art. 1 have thought it necessary to be thus full and explicit in the explanation of the phraseology which has been adopted in the discussion of the subject, that no possi- ble misunderstanding might arise on this head in the course of our enquiries, and that the statement of a fact might not be con- founded with the proposition of a theory, or an opinion, As the phrase DISORDER OP DEATH is now, I trust, fully understood ; I shall next proceed to contrast the two great points, in which it differs from all other Diseases. To those, who might imagine, that in this com- bination, which I have ventured to adopt, the term Disorder does not express an attack upon the frame sufficiently violent and for- midable to be associated with Death, I have so far conceded as to allow, that in one point Of view THE DISORDER OF DEATH IS the most terrific of all Disorders ; as it almost invariably terminates in final and putrefac- tive Dissolution. But the fatal termination of THE DISORDER OF DEATH, in every state of the frame, arises, as we have seen E from 26 A DISSERTATION ON THE from this circumstance, that no remedies are applied for its relief ; or in other words, from a circumstance of our own creation, in having excluded this Disorder from the pale of all other Diseases, which have never failed to receive from us the benefit of Art, and the application of Remedies. If therefore the combination, which I have adopted, THE DISORDER OF DEATH, can be considered under one point of view as unduly formed ; this must not be attributed to the author of the present work, who has applied a language warranted by facts and deductions, but to a practice arising from the negligence, the folly or the ignorance of mankind, who in their established customs have never treated Death under the benefit of a Disorder; and who, when they have so treated it in particular cases, have not been able to extend their views from one known series of facts to other possible results of a similar kind, by deducti- ons and analogies. Let us now then examine, what THE DIS- ORDER OF DEATH is, when it is treated like all other Diseases by being received within the precincts of medical regard. We have seen from the most unquestionable facts, that this Disorder BISORDER OF DEATH. 27 Disorder has been cured: We shall find like- wise, that it has not only been cured, and therefore that it is not so terrific as the prac- tice of mankind would persuade us to believe ; but that, when it has been cured, it can scarcely be regarded as a Disorder at all. If the malignity of a curable Disease is to be estimated by the time, which is necessary for its cure, and by the injury sustained by the frame from its attack ; the Disorder of Death) I must again repeat, can scarcely in some cases be regarded, as a Disorder at all ; or at least, it must be considered, according to our present experience, as the most slight and harmless of all Diseases, assuming a for- midable appearance, with which the frame can be attacked. Thus the term Disorder, in the combination Disorder of DEATH, which under one point of view may appear a term of too weak an import to be attached to such an associate, may under another view of the question, be regarded as a term, almost too strong for the occasion, to which it is applied. Now it is extremely curious, that accord- ing to our recent discoveries on the nature of E 2 the 28 A DISSERTATION ON THE the DISORDER OF DEATH, the mildness of the Disease is most manifest and most mar- vellous. We commonly find in the various instances of revival after Death, which are recorded by the Humane Societies, that the persons, who have recovered from this Disorder, were cured by the application of Remedies continued only for a short time within the space of a few hours ; and that they experienced no evil whatever in their future health from its attack upon the frame. We find only, that they appeared somewhat ex- hausted, and were inclined to the repose of sleep, which was sound, unembarrassed, natural, and refreshing. It is moreover com- monly recorded, that they awoke the next morning 1 in their ordinary state of health, just as if no such Disorder had occurred, and almost unconscious of the accident, which they had suffered on the preceding 1 day. It is likewise frequently added, as a prominent event in the history of the recovery, that the only effect of the Disease, which appeared to remain, was that of a violent appetite for food, in which the Patient was permitted to indulge, and the narrative of the DISORDER OF DEATH commonly closes with the infor- mation, that a hearty Breakfast terminated the DISORDER OF DEATH. 29 the afflictions of the sufferer and completed the cure of his malady. Such is the language, in which the expe- ence of the eighteenth Century has taught us to describe the issue of a Disorder, which in every former age was considered under all circumstances, as the most terrific and irre- mediable of all Diseases, and as perpetually terminating in the final Death of putrefactive Dissolution. Thus we see, that the Disorder of Death differs from all other Disorders, which are considered as formidable, in this most essential and important point, that, when the Remedies applied for its relief, have been successful in their operation, it is per- pectly cured in the space of a few hours, and likewise that no traces of it remain to injure or annoy the constitution, at any future feriod. The Disorder of Death likewise differs from all other Diseases, to which the art of Medicine is applied, in this important circumstance, that it may be justly considered as always attended by the fatal termination of putrefactive dissolution, when no remedies are applied to its relief. If 30 A DISSERTATION ON THE If then Death be a Disorder which has been sometimes cured by the resources of Art, but which in the ordinary course of nature, may be said perpetually to terminate in the annihi- lation of life, when we do not afford our assistance to its relief ; we shall at once see, that this Disorder of Death presents to us a case, which is peculiarly adapted for the attention of the artist, and in which he is sin- gularly interested to employ all the devices of his skill, with vigour and perseverance. In a great variety of Disorders, Nature will operate in effecting her own cure, and she may therefore be safely neglected, and left quietly to the efforts of her own resources. Nay, in some> cases it has been shrewdly sus- pected, that the Artist would have done more wisely, if he had forborne to interpose his officious cares for her assistance, and had per- mitted her to work out her own preservation by her own process. But in the Disorder of Death all will be lost, unless the operations of nature are invi- gorated by the contrivances of art, and the Practitioner is summoned to her aid by every motive, which can excite the feelings or en- gage the understanding of man : He can- not DISORDER OK DEATH 31 not justly be blamed under the present expe- rience of mankind, with having 1 interposed the officious exertions of destructive Art, and he is roused by the hope, or the possibility of producing good, without the chance or the possibility of incurring" evil. When we con- sider the question under this obvious and in- telligible point of view, we shall at once un- derstand that Suspended Animation, or the Disorder of Death presents to the Practiti- oner, one of the most safe, proper and urgent cases ; to which the inventions of his art can possibly be applied. It is here, where the wildest suggestions of Theory may be exhi- bited at least with security, if ,not with efficacy and success. It is here, where all the tricks and devices of Experiment may be exhausted, under every variety of form and uncertainty of operation. It is here and here only, where the frame may be safely con- signed to the licentious applications of the hardy Practitioner or the desperate nostrums of -the ignorant and adventurous Empiric. Such however is the wondrous perverse- ness of the human mind, that here and here only, neither theory, nor device, nor inven- tion have been found to exercise their powers. It 32 A DISSERTATION ON TtlU It might have been imagined, that tlie Resuscitative Doctrine would at least have obtained a place amidst that variety of prac- tises and opinions, which have prevailed among the Professors of Medicine ; and how- ever wild and absurd such a doctrine may appear, we shall not suppose that any rea- son of this kind operated against its admission into the code of Medical theory. On many ocasions, (I must again suggest,) this race of Artists has not been able to escape from the reproaches of those, who have suffered under the inflictions of their Art; and it can- not be denied, that these reproaches have been sometimes urged with considerable evidence of probability and truth. Here only, where no dangers are to be incurred, and where some glimpses of hope might be presented to the view ; here only the bold- ness of resource does not venture to interfere, the hardihood of experiment has not dared to interpose. It is assuredly believed, that the most wild and extravagant opinions have been formed by the professors, or the follow- ers of Medicine, and that these opinions have been sometimes maintained, not only with all the absurdity of theoretical reasoning, but have been adopted likewise into practice, and effect BISQRDEK OF DEATH, ^3 effect, with all the perseverance of fatal and unfeeling obstinacy. In this case only, no latitude has been allowed to conjecture: No theories have been adopted, or proposed, or even conceived : No inferences have been drawn from those known and established facts, which have lately been presented to our view ; or from those familiar stories common to all times, which, though relating only to a few instances, were so interesting and so impressive. It might have been imagined, that the Professors of Medicine would have rejoiced to discover and to adopt, in so perilous a science, at least one mode of practice, in which there is a possibility of producing some good, and none of producing evil. To this fundamen- tal idea we must perpetually recur in our observations on this subject, as it is the great and essential point, from which it is distin- guished from almost all other Medical Theo- ries, which have ever been exhibited. It is the business "of these discussions to excite the attention of the Public and the Professors of Medicine to the practice of the Resuscitative process, as an object worthy F of A DISSERTATION ON THE of universal adoption ; and to take up the doctrine of Suspended Animation at the point, where the Humane Societies appear to have left it. It is th*e purpose of this Treatise to urge in the most strong and unqualified terms, that the process of attempting to revive Sus- pended Animation, which has been adopted only under particular accidents, should be applied to all cases of Death, under all cir- cumstances, and upon all occasions. When I place my Proposition on this broad basis, I do not mean to insinuate to the reader any idea, which may at all lead him to conceive, that I expect a success commensurate with the extent, to which I am desirous of enlar- ging the practice of this art. On the final success, with which this process may be at- tended, I presume to conjecture nothing, in a tone of confident expectation: I mean only to assert, to maintain and to urge, that a fair, full and compleat trial of its efficacy, as a general principle, ought to be adopted; and we shall all, I trust, agree, that in the prosecution of an experiment, so important and so circumstanced, it would be contrary to every maxim of Philosophy and good sense, to prescribe any limits for its application, when we are ignorant in what cases it may succeed DISORDER OF DEATH. fr> succeed, and when we know likewise, that even in its failure, we have lost nothing but the labour employed in the experiment. By asserting", that Remedies should be ap- plied to the Disorder of Death on all oc- casions and under all circumstances, I mean only to propose, that the Remedies should be as universally applied in this Disorder, as they are in nil other Diseases, by which the frame may be attacked. As the Practitioner conceives it to be his bounden duty to ad- minister Remedies in every other Disorder, and on every other occasion, however hope- less the case may appear, because such mala- dies have been sometimes unexpectedly cured under circumstances the most unpromising 1 ; so in this Disorder likewise, where the same event has been known to happen, he should consider it as a bounden and indispensable duty, to perform the same office with the same diligence and the same zeal. The author of these discussions has no vi sionary Theories to propose for the prolonga- tion of Human Life by Elixirs of sovereign virtue, which may repair and invigorate the System, when the materials most important F 2 for 36 ' A DISSERTATION ON THE for the support of the frame are decayed, the powers of the Vital energy are exhausted. The object of the present enquirer is remote from speculations of this nature, whatever inay be their value and importance ; and his labours are directed to a more humble and more intelligible purpose : His projects are not destined to recall the principle of vi- tality, when it is altogether decayed or ex- hausted, but to revive and retain its power, ^vhile it remains surrounded by the materials* either sounder not violently impaired, whicli are the instruments of its action. It is not intended to introduce refinements in Medical practice, which are connected with remote and baseless theories of ideal good, but to remove an abomination, at which our nature recoils with ineffable horror. It is the object of this appeal to the public sense and the public feeling to provide, that our fellow creatures are not buried alive ; and this alone is the purpose of the present enquiry ? under the different senses in which that pro position may be applied. Others, who havepre- ceded me in enquiries of this nature, have fully expressed their alarms about their Fellow crea- tures being buried alive, and they have endca voured DISORDER OF DEATH. 37 voured to prevent this evil by declaiming against the abomination of early and prema- ture burial. We may justly however affirm that men are buried alive, when they are consigned to the condition of the dead, and suffered to sink into final and putrefactive Death, while the powers of Life are per- haps unexlinguished within the frame, and might be ready at our command to resume all the properties of existence. The remedy, which former enquirers on this subject have proposed against the evil of men reviving* in their graves is,, that of suffering persons, under apparent Death, to die a real Death, before they are buried ; which 1 consider to be an abomination as great as that, which it is intended to prevent. My project is, that all attempts should be tnade to convert apparent Death into real Life, by all the means which art and diligence can devize, and not to con- vert apparent Death into absolute putretac- tive Death by our supiness and neglect. Every one instantly understands the unsuc- cessful cases, in which our Remedies to the Disorder of Death will be applied ; nor is it necessary to proclaim to my reader a truth, of which Philip of Macedon thought it expedi- ent 38 A DISSERTATION ox THJ: ent to be informed by a nightly monitor, that man is destined to die, and that we all con- tain within our own persons an example, in which the Arts of Resuscitation will be for once exercised in vain. Yet in this, the Dis- order of Death differs nothing from all other Diseases to which we are accustomed to ap- ply remedies, which are sometimes, as we know, attended with success, and sometimes are applied in vain. Though we acknow- ledge, that in this Disorder, as in all other maladies, sometimes terminating in Death, our Remedies will not always be efficacious ; yet we still continue to apply those Remedies^ because we do not know how often they may succeed. In applying Remedies to the Disorder of Dealh, though our experience has been but little, our success has been great. We have been encouraged by the most brilliant triumphs of art in those cases, which seem to be most adverse to our hopes, and most re- moved from the power of our Remedies. The Disorder of Death, as it appears in the accident of drowning, assumes in some cases one of its most terrific forms, and it is cer- tainly attended by some circumstances most destructive DISORDER OF DEATH. 39 destructive to the vital principle. All will understand, that the Cold, which is most indicative of Death, is produced more sud- denly, and is more strongly impressed upon the frame under this accident, than in those cases, which take place in our beds. Other circumstances sometimes co-operate likewise in rendering* this case the most unpromising and most unfavorable; such as the injury which the body often receives in being reco- vered from the water, and in the injudicious management of the persons employed in the business, before the artist arrives. Now the iirst view of the question is enough to shew us, that out' experience, though small, has probably been employed on one of the most difficult cases; and the success, which has attended our efforts, will lead us to extend our practice, cheered by good presages of other cases, more favorable to our views and more pliant to our purposes. The hopes and the exertions of the Philo- sopher will be alike roused by the knowledge and by the ignorance of mankind. He will learn from their experience, that much has been performed in cases, which are probably most unpropitious to his art, and even their ignorance 40 A DISSERTATION ON XM * ignorance, in an argument like this, may supply him with the most important topics of reflection, which will be excited by confi- dence and by hope.- We know nothing of those subtle operations, by which life is generated and preserved, and the adepts in the art of medicine are furnished with no ex- periments and even with no theories, which can at all discourage our efforts in the prac- tice of the Resuscitative process. The pro- found and the ignorant the wise and the foolish are alike removed from all knowledge on this subject, and they are equally destitute* of any information respecting the nature of those first principles, on which the presence or the extinction of vitality necessarily depends. The greatest Sages in the Art of Medicine have not a single idea to impart to us on the various modes, by which in different Diseases, Death is produced: They are not supplied with any maxims, by which they can decide on the irrecoverable state of a person under the appearance of Death, nor how one Disorder is distinguished from an- other, by the fearful property of necessarily and finally producing in spite of all the efforts and DISORDER OP DEATH. 41 and devices of art, putrefactive Death, when it has once superinduced upon the frame the signs of apparent Death. They see only with the most ignorant, that animation is suspended, or in other Words, that the Lungs no longer perform their usual office in the process of perceptible breathing. This is all which they see, and all which they know, in the ordinary cases, where Death has en- sued after the process of preceding Disorder : The reader cannot be too strongly impressed with the ignorance of all Medical Practitioners on the state of apparent Death. No series of experiments, I must again urge, has been at all instituted on the subject, and there- fore nothing can be more remote from the power of the Medical art in its present state, than the faculty of deciding or of forming conjectures on the nature of those Diseases, which certainly annihilate the vital princi- ple at the moment, when such Diseases sus- pend its manifest exhibition. No artist has presumed to decide or even pretends ever to have meditated on those mysterious limits, at which the essential properties of Life and Death terminate and commence ; those awful boundaries of existence, on the one side of which the creature still keeps within the terge G of 42 A DISSERTATION ON THtf of Life and may still be conscious of the blessings of being ; on the other side of which the whole frame is doomed to dissolution, and consigned for ever to the condition of cloddish, unconcious, and unfeeling matter. All this is wholly removed from the know- ledge or the thoughts of our greatest adepts in the Art of Medicine. Putrefaction alone is the test, with which they are acquainted, and this is alike visible to the most ignorant of mankind. But even incipient Putrefac- tion is not demanded as an essential criterion of Death previous to interment, whatever caution may be professed or pretended by some appearances of decent delay in commit- ting the body to the ground. It may some- times happen indeed, that signs of incipient putrefaction will precede the ceremony of interment, but this is all accident, and not the consequence of delay protracted for that express purpose, On the whole we may safely affirm, that in the ordinary practice of Mankind our fellow creatures are commit- ted to their graves, without any other mark of Death visible on the frame, than such, which present themselves to the view, in the accident of Drowning, DISORDER OF DEATH 48 Thus then we perceive, that in the pursuit of this new species of knowledge, we are alike encouraged by that, which we have learnt, and by that of which we are ignorant. It is enough for the enquiring mind to have been assured, that the good, which it pro- poses, is not decidedly placed out of the reach of art; but that on the contrary, the experience, which we have obtained, at once brief and satisfactory, has the two-fold advantage of ascertaining much, far remote from all former opinions and practises of mankind, and of promising more> still far-* ther removed beyond all the present concep-^ tions, which men have ventured to admit on a subject* so new to their thoughts and so foreign from the objects of their science. The prospect will open to our view* as we proceed forward in our course, by slow, yet by advancing steps, and the mind will be cheered by the progress, which it may pos- sibly make in its pursuit, without anticipa- ting the limits, by which it may be bounded. It is agreed, that as our knowledge in the art of Healing is enlarged, various Diseases and different stages of the same Disease, which were before deemed incurable, become F2 obedient 44 A JOiSSERTATION ON THE obedient to the resources of Art and the skill of the Practitioner, who is ready to believe that others may proced in the same science, with the same success, and who justly looks forward to progressive advancements of future artists, by which his own deficiencies will be supplied, and his own errors be cor- rected. In all former ages the art of resto- ring the Dead to Life, or applying Remedies to the Disorder of Death, never appeared among the inventions of men, and we can readily conceive, if we may judge from the course of all other new discoveries, that in so early a period after its adoption, no pro- gress has yet been made,, which is at all com- mensurate with its future possible and pro- bable advancement, among artists roused to exertions by the most important of all pur- suits, where every thing is to be hoped and nothing to be feared. The writer might perhaps be permitted to contemplate amidst the acquisitions of a future age, the state of perfection, to which the Resuscitative Process may finally arrive, and to express his confidence, or his hope, that a darling project, which had long seized on his imagination, might be at last crown- ed DISORDER OP DEATH. 43 ed with a process adequate to its importance and its purposes. The writer might hope even, that he shall be enabled to excite the ardor of the present age in the same pursuit, and if he should be fortunate enough to gain at any period, the concurrence of mankind iu the same cause, he will be enabled to boas I of an advantage in the adoption of his project to which few other projectors can pretend i:i their appeals to public regard. The writer may assuredly boast, that the zeal of man- kind cannot be abused, nor their expecta- tions deceived, by the possibility of incur- ring an unforeseen evil at the hazard of any visible or present good. In this project, th*-, activity of our zeal does not commence, till the extremity of the evil belonging to the case has been incurred, and when that period is arrived at which no danger is to be feared from the theories of the enthusiast, or the practices of the credulous. This cannot bx* too often repeated or too strongly urged ; and if the project should be wholly unsuccess- ful in all its parts, still an important point will have been duly examined, and finally ascertained. The disappointment of our hopes whatever they might be, will be alleviated by the reflection, that a question of high preten- sions 45 A DISSERTATION ON TH& sions, affording some promise of success, ha ; been decided by full and unequivocal experi- ments, to be placed beyond the sphere of Art ? and the powers of our skill. It is on this ground, that I appeal to a great portion of the community, whose imaginations are not pre- engaged in the cause, and who want only to be convinced or reminded, that the question is not so much a point of Philosophical enquiry, as of Moral Duty and Civil Policy* The time, we may hope, is at last arrived, when the attention of mankind will no longer slumber over a theme pregnant with such mighty consequences, and the nature of the duty will be at once felt and acknowledged, when the understanding shall have been duly excited to the consideration of the question. The wildness of the project, or the miraculous termination of the event, as it might have been considered in some periods, can afford only a topic of objection to the most ordinary capa- city, as the event of wonder has become fa- miliar, and the miracle exists no more. We have already seen recorded some thousands oi instances, in which the Dead have been raised to life, and it will add nothing to the miracle, if we see many thousands more restored like- wise OF DEATH. 47 wise to existence, who have presented to the view the same appearances of Death* and who differ only from the examples of the re- vived Dead already exhibited by the diversity of accidents, by which the same appearances were produced. It is the change from Death to Life, which operates on the mind, as a mi- raculous event ; but when that change has become familiar, we are soon taught to con- sider it as an event, obedient to the laws of Nature, preceding in their due course; tho' they operated under new combinations parti- ally and imperfectly understood. We then pass forward without additional amazement, from one series of examples to another, diffe- ring only in circumstances ; and this compari- son of similar cases ought surely to diminish. the wonder of the event, and to soften if not to subdue the mind to the conception of the project and the devices of the projector. There is however one supposition, which would indeed conduct us to a miraculous event, and would establish a case, in which the acknowledged principl s of analogical reasoning, would be false and delusive. It will be indeed a miracle, which removes us altogether from the sphere of natural opera- tions 18 A DISSERTATION ON THE tions, if the project, which I now offer to attention of the Public, should after a fair trial prove to be entirely unsuc- cesful ; or in other words, if an event, which had already happened by means of a certain process, in some thousands of instan- ces under one species of accident, attended hy a certain appearance, should never again be produced under other accidents, bearing* the same appearance, and submitted to the same process. It will be indeed a miracle of the most extraordinary kind, in which, as we may justly conclude, the Laws of Nature have ceased to operate, without any concei- vable cause to suspend their action, if the effects of the Resuscitative Process should not be felt beyond the boundaries, to which the practice has already been advanced, and that an Art so fortunately commenced, should at these limits be an Art no more. We surely cannot believe, that amidst the infinite variety of accidents and causes, by which the suspension of the Vital Powers, iiiay be produced, attended by the same appearances ; there should be found but one or two Species belonging to one class only, in which a numerous series of the most de- arid brilKant experiments attest the success BISOKBEB OP DEATH. 49 success of* the Resuscitative Process, and that on all other occasions, the efficacy of the same Process, though employed on the same appearances, should at once lose all its pow- ers, and be visible no more. It is surely impos- sible for us to believe, that all the resources of the Art have already been discovered, detail- ed and exhausted, and that every thing beyond these limits is the idle the officious and the ineffective project, of a wild and vi- sionary enthusiast. In unfolding 1 to the Public a new train of ideas, it is difficult to select, in an introduc tion to the work, those topics, which are best calculated to arrest the attention, and to im- press a conviction, that all the former concepti- 0ns of mankind on the subject, have been false, or inadequate, or delusive. I have endeavour- ed to collect some of these topics, and to exhibit in a brief manner those points of the argument, which are most prominent and impressive, with the purpose of discussing, under a more detailed form, various parts of the subject in separate articles of the work. It will be necessary in these details to consi- der tfee question, under a Medical point of G view A DISSERTATION ON T&3 and to eng ae e in an enquiry, in which I resort to the ttdricsl laiigi rge ol the Artist, while I discuss the doctrines, which are appro- priated to his .Art. Here perhaps it nnght be thought the duty of the writer, wlo is not enrolled among the Professors of Medicine, to express some diffidence in his own powers, and to exhibit some fears of falling into those errors, which may weaken or pervert the force of his argument in the discussion of a Medical subject. I am unwilling however to express what I find myself unable to feel, nor am I alarmed by any apprehensions of destroying 1 or enfeebling the spirit of these enquiries, by a deficiency in that species of knowledge which is appropriate to the professional artist, I am not only contented to be destitute of such an advantage, but I even consider this defi- ciency as a privilege by which I am entitled to address the Public, with more plainness and freedom, and enabled to pursue my argu ment, through all its relations, with more variety and with more force. There has been no conception so fatal to the progress of Juman knowledge, as the prevailing opinion, which supposes the all sufficiency of the professional character, what- ever OF DEATH* - ver that profession may be, to discuss the topics of his art, and the utter incapacity of all others, who are not within the pale of the order, to engage in the same pursuit, or to acquire any ideas on the same subject. We may justly regard the presumptions of the artist, who claims exclusive or pre-eminent powers in investigating the various branches of his art, as certain proofs of his ignorance in the principles of Human Knowledge, and probable indications of a superficial acquain- tance with the elements of his own profession. The alarms, with which some are seized, on entering the confines of another profession, are equally groundless with the presumption of the artist, who would exclude all others from the same precincts, and they are alike derived from false conceptions on the mode, by which research should be pursued for the benefit of an art, through its various branches and un- der its different relations, with intelligence and effect. The Artist is generally enveloped in the clouds of his professional atmosphere, and he has too frequently lost sight of those first simple principles, on which his Art is founded, and sometimes even of the original purpose, for which it was adopted. It is only by the effort of a superior understanding, pre- 62 serving 52 A DISSERTATION ON THE its original freedom, that the Artist, under the influence of his Professional character, is enabled to recur back to these first prin- ciples and to profit by their application in the exercise of his Art. If the secrets of Nature are to be investigated, her visible operations must be seen by the profound Adept in any science, under the same view, which they present to the ordinary observer ; or he will in vain endeavour to apply the devices of that science, to the developement of her laws and her processes, in the relation of cause and effect. The familiar accident of an apple falling from a tree, to which all eyes are witness, became a fact pregnant with mighty consequences, when it passed from the eye, to the mind of Newton, and from this sim- ple operation he proceeded step by step, with slow, but persevering efforts, till the System of the Universe became unfolded to his view. The art of Medicine in our own country and throughout Europe, before the days of Sydenham, presents to us a series of Artificer which appear totally foreign to any pur- pose, connected with the art of Healing, and altogether remote from the processes of Na- ture, as they are understood, seen, and felt, by all, DISORDER OF BEATH 53 all, in the familiar accidents of Human iife.-^- The practice introduced by Sydenham may be considered as founded on a great discovery indeed, if we regard its consequences, and con- trast it with the state of opinions which then prevailed among the Professors of Medicine This discovery however, consisted only in finding out what every one knew and felt, except the Sages belonging to the Art, who appeared, while they were moving within the pale of their profession, to be wholly uncon- scious of all the ordinary operations of Nature, which were passing in the world around them. Sydenham had the power to discover, and had moreover the hardihood to maintain, that the antidote to heat was Cold that the fury of internal fire in a burning Fever was not cooled, but rendered still more furious by the addition of external fire in a room, from which every breath of fresh air was excluded as if an Hermetical seal had been placed upon the apartment. Monstrous as the practice may appear of adding fuel to flame for the purpose of diminishing the fire ; it is a device which may well proceed from the efforts of Art, working on its own materials, nor must we wonder that maxims equally abhorrent to rea- son should prevail at any time, in any system of Art, 54 A DISSERTATION ON TM1L Art, however enlightened the period may ap - pear, in which such opinions are to be found I shall proceed therefore in the course of my Enquiries, fearless of any consequences, \vhich may be supposed by some to arise from not being initiated into the mysteries of the Medical Profession, and I shall endeavour to collect from the stores of others, whatever may contribute to strengthen the force of my argument. I shall profit by the facts and the experiments, which these Artists have ex- hibited in records alike visible to all, with- out being confined within tfoose trammels, which might lead me to acquiesce implicitly In their conclusions, or to be guided on every occasion by their principles and their prac- tises. In following this course I persuade myself, that I shall not lose, but -conciliate the favour of the Professors of Medicine, whose good opinion I should be most proud to merit, and whose co-operation I should be most anxious to secure. The Medical order of the present day is furnished with a race of enlightened men, skilled in the sciences, and conversant in the pursuits of the age, ming- ling with the existing world in the habits of social and cultivated life, and alike qualified to OF DEATH. to receive and to impart the good, which pe- riods of enlarged cultivation generate for the advancement of our condition. Under these impressions I submit my cause to the Tribunal of the Public, and I trust that the Professors of the Medical Art will concur in their efforts, for the purpose of ob- taining a full and fair examination of a ques- tion, which all will acknowledge to be a .subject of mighty import, for the due discus- sion of Mankind. If the Writer presents him- self to the Public as a Teacher of new and' strange doctrines, his appeal appears under a favourable and conciliating form, such as few Teachers of strange doctrines ever assum- ed in the promulgation of their projects. The world does wisely, when it receives with caution and suspicion any schemes of untried good; and men are justly alarmed at the pos- sibility of incurring accidents, which might counteract and destroy the good, or even ge- nerate the evil intended to be remedied. But the Projector stands on high ground in- deed, when he can proclaim aloud to the world, with an assurance of conviction from all around him, that every thing most precious to 56 A DISSERTATION ON THE to man may be gained by his projects, if he succeeds ; and that nothing can be lost, if he should fail. It is indeed no common topic oi exultation, when a preacher of strange doc- trine may boast and is believed, that his de- vices are applied on an occasion, when they admit hope and exclude hazard ; when they are so far removed from the power of causing or increasing the dreaded evil, that they do not even commence their action, till the ex- tremity of the evil has already occurred, and till all the arts, employed by others for the preservation of the good, have been abandoned in despair. Rare indeed is the privilege of the Projector in his claims for Public favor and acceptance, when he urges the adoption of Projects, in which he can fail only because he cannot reverse the doom, which Nature has already stamped upon the frame the condi- tion of a lifeless clod ; while perchance he may sometimes succeed in the wonderous work of reanimating Man, and of creating, or re- calling' a soul even under the Ribs of Death. BtSOKt>ER OF DEATH. 57 ALARMS ABOUT Immature Alarms about Premature. Interment, but too well founded; and especially from a cause little under- stood-. Preposterous device of the Alarmists on the dreaded possibility of latent Life, namely, that of delaying Interment, till Putrefaction the sup- posed sign of absolute Death appears ; a device not proposing means to revive latent life, but a plan to secure doubtful Death, sifter all, the test of Putrefaction fallacious : so far from being an in- fallible Sign of Death, that it is in some Disor- ders a favourable Symptom : Sift whatever it may be, our Interments are not regulated by its appearance. ALARMS about Premature Interment appear in latter times to have seized on the imagina- tions of men; tho' these terrors, however well founded they may be, have added nothing to the stock of our knowledge, nor have they produced any important change on the insti- tutions or customs of mankind. The writers, H who A DISSERTATION ON THE who have raised these alarms, have exhibited in the conception of the subject a most extra- ordinary example of an understanding", lost and bewildered amidst the mazes of its own fears. It is said, that Children are so terrified when they are left alone in the same chamber with a corpse, that they rush directly forward to the abject of their terror, and even clasp it in their arms. In the conceptions about Pre- mature Interment, something of this kind ap- pears to have happened, and the terrified in the alarm of fear have encountered and en- deavoured to secure the very evil, which they most shunned, and this too they have done on an occasion, when the alarms, with which they were impressed, if well founded, implied and acknowledged the existence of the good, which they most desired. Nay such have been their perverted conceptions on the subject, that though they confessed and almost pre- dicted the actual possession of such a blessing; their device was directed not to secure the good, or to turn it to a good account, bat even to prevent its existence by securing the opposite evil. Hence it has arisen, that in the Practices which are recommended, one enormity has been DISORDER OF BfiATH. 69 been exchanged for another, and per- haps the enormity, which remains, is grea- ter than that, which has been rejected. We shall assuredly form this opinion, if we regard only the state of the understanding in both ca- ses and consider, that in the first instance the mind was totally unoccupied on the subject, and no evil, was supposed to exist, while in the latter case the mind was awake to the magnitude of the evil, and its faculties were actually employed in devising a practise, by which the enormity might be remedied. In some Countries the time of Interment imme- diately succeeded the time of Death; and men appear to have hurried their fellow crea- tures into their graves, as if to cut off all possible chance of that revival, about which at all times some stories had been related ; or to banish that revival to a spot, about which alarms had been excited as the fearful scene for the accomplishment of such an event. A French writer in the last century published a work of some note, on the Uncertainty of the Signs of Death and he has recorded various stories of recovery under the signs of apparent Death both before and after burial. Alarms, since that period, have prevailed at different times throughout Europe with various degrees H2 60 A DISSERTATION ON THE of force ; as the writers in each Nation have occasionally roused the fears of their country- men by directing- their attention to a topic so adopted to a theme of terror. We shall all, I trust, now agree, who are destined to think and reason in the nineteenth century, that nothing can be more extraordi- nary than the conclusion, which has been drawn from these narratives, of persons reco- vering under the signs of apparent Death, or than the practice, which has been since adop- ted in consequence of this conclusion. The plan, which has been devised on observing these facts of recovery after apparent Death was, that the time of interment should be de- layed till the signs of incipient Putrefaction were visible upon the body, which were then considered as certain and infallible criterions of absolute and irrecoverable Death. This is all, which has been attempted to be perform- ed, but even on this head nothing has been accomplished. It is time, that in some countries the time of Interment has been a little delay- ed; but hasty burials still continue to pre- vail in most Nations of Europe but our own ; wher,e DISORDER OF DEATH. 61 where custom has established a more extended period between the Death and the Burial. We all know however, that this custom only pre- vails, because it has been once established, and not from any regard to the cause, from which it ,vas at first derived. In our or- dinary practise we trouble ourselves but little about the signs of incipient Putrefaction, and our interments are regulated by the conveni- ence of the families, to whom the departed belong. We may justly therefore affirm, that if this conclusion be the just and rational de- duction, which ought to be formed on such an occasion, nothing has yet been accomplish- ed, even on that very point, to which alone mankind have directed their attention. But surely a more extraordinary conclusion was never formed ; and our astonishment will be excited, that the conceptions and practices of mankind were not altogether of an opposite nature. The conclusion, which ought to have been drawn from the stories of persons reco- vering in a state of apparent Death, is assuredly this; that since unassisted nature by force of her own efforts, was sometimes enabled to effect a recovery ; there is great reason to hope, that with some assistance she might often be ena- bled 62 A DISSERTATION ON THE bled to accomplish her purpose and that there- fore it was our bounden duty to afford to her enfeebled powers this assistance, which she seemed by such unequivocal testimonies of recorded and undoubled facts to demand at our hands. We might have imagined, that our reason would have conducted us to hopes and prospects like these, and that some arts of recovery would have been devised and adopted. But strange as it may appear, no- thing but horrors and alarms have been exci- ted, and every thing like Hope has been ba- nished from our conceptions and our practise. The minds of men have been struck with such panic fears, that their friends may possibly recover in their graves, that all hopes of a recovery out of their graves have been totally obliterated from their thoughts. Amidst these fears and precautions about Premature Interment, men acknowledge, that a recovery is possible, and therefore that the Vital Principle may be still extant ; and what is their conclusion ? Not that Remedies should be applied to excite and bring it again into ac- tion, but that it should be suffered to extin- guish itself. Their minds are deeply impres- sed with the possibility of a recovery, but so strangely DISORDER OF DEATH. 68 strangely have they confounded their ideas by the mode of conceiving the matter, that they regard this recovery, not with feelings of joy but of terror, by removing it to a spot, in which it can only be considered with emo- tions of ineffable consternation and dismay. It might hare been imagined, that the idea of a possible recovery would have been associa- ted with a spot, by which it would be regard- ed, as the greatest of blessings, and not as the consummation of Human calamity. It might have been imagined, that this possible Reco- very, would have been referred to a state in which it would be indeed a Recovery attended with the consequences of Life, and not that species of Recovery, which must immediately terminate in Death, under the most terrific and horrible of its forms. It is of great importance, that our perver- ted conceptions on this subject should be pla- ced in various points of view ; as nothing is more fatal to the progress of Human know- ledge than the idea, that in our efforts to re- medy an evil, something has been atchieved for the advancement of our condition, when it has only happened, that one enormity is ex- ckanged for another. The Alarmists in their terrors 64 A DISSERTATION ON THE terrors about Premature Interment, ( it must be again repeated, ) have placed their under- standings in such a state, that their very alarms consist in the dread of possessing the good, which they would most desire, the blessing of Life ; and they actually plan a de- vice, which they proclaim and propagate as a great effort of their skill, for the express purpose of intercepting and destroying its existence. Their imaginations are so entangled with the terrors of the grave, that they cannot conceive Life, in its dubious state, under any other form but as connected with that spot. The possibility of latent Life, which they ac- knowledge, does not fill their minds, as I ob- served, with hope, but with horror : It does not suggest conceptions or devices for the re- covery of that Life, but it inspires them with the desperate project of preventing such a re- covery by its absolute annihilation. Their terrors are not appeased, till they have /ci7- led the object, in whom they suspect this fearful property of Life to be still lurking ; nor are their minds composed, till they have made assurance double sure, and converted doubtful apparent Death into certain unequivocal Putrefactive DISORDER OP DEATH. 65 Putrefactive Death, in which every spark of latent Life is for ever extinguished without the possibility of recovery or recall. Such are the extraordinary and perverted conceptions, which have seized on the imagi- nations of men, and so estranged have they been from all the cheering prospects of hope, and the promising devices of Art, which, as we might have supposed, the recorded facts of latent Life existing under apparent Death would have suggested to their minds, with direct and irresistible effect. If then these narratives of Recovery after Death should at all times have conducted men to the hopes of restoring the vital principle by the resources of Art, with what force and confidence ought the same conclusion to have' been impressed upon the mind of man in the present ag'e, when we have been witness to so many exam* pies, in which Art has recalled to Life the de- voted victims of Death and of the Grave. However perverted may have been the rea- soning of mankind on the facts, which are related of a recovery from Death in the Grave ; their horror at the possibility of this event is but too well founded; tho' they are I little 66 A DISSERTATION ON THE little aware of the true state of the peril, which has excited their alarms. How would that horror have been increased if they had known, that such an event, which they conceived on- ly to be possible from an accident almost of a miraculous kind, may even under one point of view be considered as an occurrence, certainly not unnatural, and perhaps not improbable. In the Language of sentiment we talk of the Earthly receptacle of the Dead, as the cold Grave, but in the Language of Physical truth the Grave is the Warm genial spot of Earth endowed with every property most propitious to the process of Resuscitation. Among the various devices for restoring the warmth of the frame after drowning, it is recommended, that the body should be covered over with warm embers, or warm grains, if any favourable opportunity should occur of procuring this species of assistance. But the Warm Earth is present on all occasions, and if other impor- tant operations in the Riesuscitative process could proceed with facility, when the body was buried up in the Earth; there is assuredly no spot, which would co-operate so efficiently with the purposes of the Artist in his work of reanimating the Dead. The power of fresh Earth in exciting the languid powers of the frame DISORDER OP DEATH. 67 frame is known to all, and a popular writer on Domestic Medicine has conceived that pre- cious property of the Ground under a point of view, which induces him to communicate this truth to the Public, as an article of the most alarming intelligence. He warns the incautious world not to trust the Corpse too soon within the restorative and balmy pre- cincts of the Grave, lest perchance it should recover in a spot, which, under his mode of conception, becomes a portentous scene of horrible efficacy in the process of reanimating 1 the Dead. "Early burial "( observes our "Artist)" was so much enforced during the "plague at Marseilles, that Dr. Arbuthnot, "in his treatise on Air,, asserts, that it was "clearly ascertained many were buried alive ;; "a body apparently dead should not, there- fore, be too hastily consigned to the grave, "the natural heat and pure air of the Earth "being very powerful agents in restoring the " vital functions in case of their suspension." (Recce's Medical Guide P. 1. p. 111-2.) Such are the admonitions of Professional Sa- ges, and such is the operation of the Human mind in the deductions of Science, that the Artist in disclosing a blessed and almost mi- raculous property of the earth, denounces this I 2 quality 68 A DISSERTATION ON THE quality as a mighty evil, exceeding- in terror all that is most terrible in the imagination of man. Incipient "1 Wherever we turn our eyes Putr< faction we s ] la ll still find that the con- with other signs > i j ofDeatk~ \ ceptions the conclusions and Fallacious. 1 the practises, arising from the alarms about recovery after apparent Death, are at once perverted from their due course, and are unavailing in their destined purpose. If even the mode of reasoning on this occasi- on had been justly formed, and if the device of converting apparent into absolute Death, without any attempt to transform it into real Life, had been well imagined; the projectors would still have been unfortunate in their de- vice; Even their great security against the dreaded evil, the appearance of incipient Putrefaction, which they consider to be an unequivocal criterion of absolute Death, is itself on some occasions a sign altogether futile and fallacious. Incipient Putrefaction in certain maladies is so far from being* an infallible Sign of Death, that it is even a fa- vourable symptom in the state of the Disor- der. But whatever may be the /alue of their criterion, the customs of mankind* are not ^regulated by its appearance. I have before observe DISORDER OP DEATH. 69 observed, that tho' some decent appearances of delayed Interment are preferred, the time of burial is commonly decided by the conve- nience of the family, to which the Dead be* long-, nor is it considered as a duty to wait for the appearance of Putrefaction, as a necessary and indispensable sign previous to Interment , The Physicians of a former age appear to have bestowed much attention in considering the various Signs of Death, about which modern Practitioners think and care so little ; though the result of this Professional diligence and neglect, as relating to the fate of the Dead, is in ordinary cases precisely of the same kind in every period. At all times, doubts existed about the certainty of such Signs, and these suspicions prompted the Practitioners of a former age, to make ex- periments and to apply various criterions, by which that dubious point might be more ful- ly ascertained. The modern Practitioners, who entertain or who have reason to enter- tain more doubts on this subject, give them- selves, I believe, no concern about the mat- ter ; and they are in general contented with the intelligence and evidence which they receive 70 A DISSERTATION ON THE receive from the attendants about the sick, that their patients are Dead. The modern Practitioners, believing or ha- ving cause to believe, that all signs are falla- cious, think it perhaps unnecessary to enquire, about a matter in which there are no criteri- ons to ascertain the object of their search ; and thus it happens, that in proportion as the pe- rils of the case are acknowledged to be great- er, less diligence is employed about the ques- tion and less care is adopted to avoid the horrors of the evil. Among the criterions of Death, collected by the ancient Physicians the following are enumerated; the familiar aign of the stoppage of the pulse and respira- tion the cadaverous countenance* the fixed, the flaccid and the glassy eye, the dilated pupil, the intense and universal, cold &c: the evidence arising from applying the flame of a taper, a lock of hair, a mirror to the mouth and nostrils, or a cup of water to the Scrobi- culus cordis &c. &c. [ Kite's Dissertation. ] These tests appear to have been often-times applied by the old Physicians, with that mix- ture of doubt and confidence, which is so fa- miliar to man in every state of his condition, and more particularly, as a creature of Art, at DISORDER OF DEATH. 71 at once alarmed by his fears and elated by the resources of his science, and the devices of his skill. J Their master Celsus, in the true spirit of a wizard proclaiming the powers of his Art, has contributed to bind his disciples in spells of the same delusion, and while they are taught the difficulties which await their deli- beration, they are flattered into a belief of the rectitude of their decisions. Democritus, says he, a man justly of a great name has affirmed, that the signs of Death are uncer- tain, and that Physicians cannot depend on them, as infallible. He acknowledges, that these signs have sometimes indeed been the causes of error, but maintains, that we should not bring a charge against the Art which belongs only to the Artist, and that Asclepiades will discover the truth, while the unskilful Physicians are deluded in their conjectures. (CELS. Lib. 2. C. 8. ) J In the time of Shakspeare the criterions of Death, deri ved from the Looking Glass and the Feather^ were familiar appli- cations. We all remember, how the great Bard has described the fluctuation of the passions, which agitate the conflicting mintf., while these momentous tests are deciding the fate of a darliuf object. Lear. *' Q ! she is gone for ever! " I know when one is dead, and when one lives : '* She'i dead as earth :-> Lend me a Looking Glass, 72 A DISSERTATION ON THE The ignorant and the unpracticed in their art, are not the only Physicians, as Celsus ima-< gines, who have been deceived by the Signs of Death ; but even the greatest of his order in latter times, far exceeding in renown the fame of Asclepiades, has been involved in the same delusion, under circumstances of dis- comfiture, most afflicting and impressive. It is a fact universally known, that one of the greatest Artists in the structure of the Hu- man frame, the celebrated Anatomisf VESAHUS, commenced the operations of dis- section upon a Spanish Gentleman under the signs of Death ; when, to his ineffable conster- nation and dismay, he found the heart of his Patient beating under his knife. The sequel and catastrophe of this trajedy correspond to its commencement, VESALIUS, tho' Physician to Philip the Second of .Spain, was brought before the Tribunal of the Inquisition, and would have fallen a victim to the heaviest of their punishments, if he had not been rescued from "If that her breath will mist or stain the stone, "Why then she lives." Kent. Is this the promised end ? Edg. Or image of that horror ? 4lb. Fall and cease! Lear This Feather stirs, she lives ! if it be so, ** It is a chance that doth redeem all sorrows That ever I have felt," Acr V. Ss. DISORDER OF DEATH. 7*1 their hands by the power of the King-, who could only obtain for him the privilege of expiating his offence by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. At his return to Europe, on the invitation of the Venetians, to supply the place of the celebrated Falopius, he was ship- wrecked, near Zante, where he miserably perished, after wandering about the woods, and enduring the extremities of hunger and the various evils of so desolate a condition. This story is every where to be found in dis- cussions of this kind, and cannot be too often repeated. It affords to succeeding times a les- son of the highest import, which should for ever have suppressed the confidence of all Medical Artists in their decisions on a ques- tion, in which Vesalius himself, with all his science had been so fatally deluded. But whatever doubts may have been occa- sionally entertained on some of the criterions of Death, there seems to have been a concur- rence of opinion, almost universal, in every period that the Sign of Putrefaction was in- fallible. In latter times the fears of the Alarmists on Premature Interment were at once quieted, when the unequivocal test, as they conceived it to be, of incipient K Putrefaction 74 A DISSERTATION ON THE Putrefaction became visible on the frame. It has now however been declared, that this spe- cies of Putrefaction is no infallible criterion, but that on the contrary it is even in some Ma- ladies a favourable circumstance in the prQ- gress of the Disease. On this subject Mr. Kite observes, " Putrefaction has by every "one been deemed a positive and unequi- " vocal sign of absolute Death ; and so most " certainly it is, when far advanced ; but in its *' incipient, early state; even this is to be view- "ed with a doubtful, scrutinizing eye, and " can only be admitted in a certain degree ; for "there are some Diseases, to which the living " body is liable, that so nearly resemble putre- " faction, as I conceive may be easily con- " founded." Mr. Kite records among these disorders the confluent Small Pox and the Sea Scurvy. Dr. Ferriar has remarked, that "the ancients "appear to have acknowledged no difference " between the Putrefaction of the living and "the dead body,and this important distinction " is too much neglected by modern writers." Some have thought, that Living Putridity consists in the corruption of the lympth, and J)ead Putridity in the corruption of the blood/ TU DISORDER OF DEATH. 75 "The distinction between them" (says Dr. Ferriar) "is very obvious in some Diseases : "The last degree of Putrefaction, the absolute "death of the solids, is so far from being "the last stage of Pestilential Disorders that "it is a favourable symptom in Typhus, when "the nails and extremi ties of the fingers mor- "tify : Patients commonly recover with this "appearance, which is the Necrosis of Sau- "vage. And I have been informed," adds this intelligent writer ; "by a very respecta- '*ble friend, who now occupies the Anatomi- "cal chair in one of the Universities of a "neighbouring kingdom, that while lie assis- "tedinthe late Dr. Hunter's dissecting room, "he observed that bodies marked with petech- "iae, therefore probably dead of malignant "fevers, did not putrify so soon, as those, "which were entirely free from petechial "appearances." Dr. Ferriar closes these remarks by observing, that, " the poisons "produced by these two different kinds of "Putridity are communicated generally in "different ways, and give rise to different "symptoms." (Ferriar's Medical Histories, On the origin of contagious and new Disor- ders, p. 229.) K2 We 76 A DISSERTATION ON THE We have here a most extraordinary and important fact, which may supply abundant materials of the most profitable meditation. We see, that Bodies may admit, under the appearances of Death, the signs of Putridity appropriate to the Living Body : We per- ceive moreover, that these marks so far from being the signs of absolute and Putrefactive Death, are even favorable symptoms in the turn of the Disorder, while the Person is alive; and what is more extraordinary, we learn likewise, that when appearances of Death are superinduced upon the frame, this species of Putridity is found to operate as a kind of antidote or remedy, which stops the process of that Deadly Putrefaction, by which the compages of the animal system is utterly dissolved and destroyed. This por- tentous fact presents a most fearful conside- ration to the mind, with which it has, I ima- gine, never yet been duly and fully impres- sed. We have seen the suspicions, which have existed respecting this matter, in the fears of Arbuthnot, that many were buried alive during the Plague at Marseilles, and we shall find on examining the stores, which are collected respecting Recovery, under the signs of apparent Death, that many of them relate DtSORDEK OF DEATH. 77 relate to persons, who had previously labour- ed under the Plague or some Contagious Disorder.* Whether the bodies, which are marked with the signs of Living Putridity, and * Dr. Bree produces an example of this species of recovery, with some remarks, which well deserve to be recorded on the pre- sent occasion. " A Rustic appeared to die of the Plague, and after " three days discovered no signs of respiration, but being carried to ** the grave, recovered, and lived many years afterwards," Dr. Bree, who has diligently studied the subject of disordered Respiration and has justly gained much celebrity for his Treatise on this subject and for his skill in the cure of the Asthma, notices the extraordinary stories, so well established, of Divers in the Pearl Fisheries, who are said to remain in water half an hour, or longer. Instances of ap- parent Death from drowning" says this writer, "are numerous, and H consequent recoveries, since the establishment of the Humane So- ' ciety, are authenticated beyond suspicion or doubt, to the honour " of that invaluable institution: many carious instances are extant of " persons roused from the Tomb of Death, by accident or design, *'and may be seen in Diemerbroek," &c. On the view of such facts, Dr. Bree justly observes, *' It would appear from these circumstan- * ces that the animal oecouomy will admit of greater latitude preserving i( the exercise of its functions, though the quantity of air inspired^ be much ' smaller than it is possible to ascertain." No experiments have been made on this subject which can at all lead us to form any conclusions on so difficult a ques- tion. It might be asked, whether the Diver has acquired, he knows not how, any art of extracting Oxygen from the water. If he has not, we must say, that the left auricle of the heart has been taught to obey the stimulus of black blood. The story of the Blue Boy is well known, and in young Divers the black blood generally becomes, I believe, visible in the countenance. In more experienced Practitioners a different process probably takes place. 75 A DISSERTATION ON TttE which are more able, as it should seem, tcr resist the attacks of dead Putridity, are in a state better adapted to obey the devices of art, employed in their recovery, no ex peri - With respect to Suspended Animation we might ask, whether any respiration of Air, even in the smallest quantity, be at all necessary for preserving the irritability of the fibres, on which alone our hopes of recovery are founded. We might go still further and again ask, whether in some caies, if certain circumstances relating to the frame were operating to the preservation of this irritability, the additional effort of respiration would be even a favourable event, or tend to promote the process of any future attempts, for the re- eall of Suspended Animation. It will perhaps treat last discovered,, that in some cases, as long as the irritability of the fibres can be preserved, unimpaired, our success in the.Resuscitative Process wilT be more probable in proportion as the suspension ol animation itf more complete. A greater accumulation of Sensorial power or a ca- pability of admitting greater Sensorial power may probably be acquired, in the more perfect suspension of the wasting action of breathing* The familiar metaphors of language may furnish Philosophy witk comparisons, if we do not confound ourselves by a perverted applica- tion. The Oxygen, which keeps the Lamp of Life burning, wastes the materials, on which it operates; and if wecould discover any arts to preserve the irritability of the System or the capability f being lighted up ; we shall be little solicitous about the exis- tence of that faint glimmer, which may exhaust, without being useful in the process of kindling. When we have advanced so far, as to have such a controul over the Lamp of Life, we have pro ceeded far indeed ; as we already know in many cases,where to find and how even to apply *' that Promethean heat^ that can its light relumine !" This train of ideas will be pursued kf another part of the work, and 1 shall only here observe, that the discovery of suck a controul over the frame, to a certain extent, has never appeared tome, as at all remote from the resources and devices, which the present state of our knowledge has uufolded to our view. DISORDER OP DEATH. *79 jKients have yet ascertained; nor have any conceptions even been formed on this subject in the theories of Medical Philosophy. We shall at once however acknowledge,according to the fears of Arbuthnot, and from many facts Physical and Historical, that no pro- cess could be imagined more propitious to' revival, than that of placing the victims of contagion so marked, with the signs of Living" Putridity, within the genial precincts of the Balsamic Grave. I have long thought, that the Earth Bath might prove an agent of mighty efficacy in languid conditions, or in Putrid states of the frame, if it was directed to a good purpose under the guidance of sci- ence and of skill No one has yet,, I imagine, formed any due conception of the precious properties and the valuable purposes to which this new auxili- ary might be applied, in the cause of man, against the most formidable and revolting of his maladies. We cannot however but ^ee, even on the first view of the question, what an impenetrable barrier the Earth Bath might prove, in stopping the progress of Pes- tilence, and what a store of blessed balms it contains, potent to sweeten refresh repair revigorate SO A DISSERTATION ON THE revigorate, or even to reanimate the foul and feeble frame sinking or exhausted, under the ravages of contagion. There is one state of the English mind, in which it opposes it* self with singular fastidiousness and repug- nance, against any schemes and devices, how- ever excellent they might possibly prove, which have passed through the hands of mean and despised men, adventurers, jugglers and empirics, as objects of public exhibition. From that moment, we almost banish such objects from the sphere of Physical agency ; and we either imagine, that they can do no- thing, or that nothing is worth having, which they can do. The most authentic of the Me- dical Sages have understood and proclaimed the virtues of Fresh Mould in the cure of Scorbutic Diseases even in the last stage of languor ; and Mead has recorded a remark- able case, in which the cure was effected by the simple process of smelling to a turf cut out of the ground. The same writer re- cords likewise the well known device of those philosophers, who make experiments on the degree of fury,with which Cocks attack each other, and who are accustomed to revive and almost to recall to life the Cock, which has been beaten down and expi- ring*, DISORDER OP DEATH. 81 expiring-, by putting* his head under a turf fresh cut from the Earth. ( Mead's Discourse on the Scurvy. P. 33ti. Ed. 1775.) The properties of fresh Mould or the Earth Bath, though acknowledged by the most approved Physicians, have sunk into contempt, from the exhibitions of a charlatan jn the last age; and many would scarcely dare in the present times to proclaim its virtues, lest they should be numbered among those personages, who are prone to delude, or ready to be deluded. Men however still con- tinue, on other occasions, to preserve their antient respect for the wonder- working Ea?th, and to consider it as the great Bath, in which Nature has infused all her precious gifts, for the revival of her drooping or decayed productions. All these considerations, which I have here unfolded, extend our view of Human Misery beyond its present bounds, and will teach us, that even the ravages of Plagues and Pesti- lential Disorders are accompanied with new horrors, even at the very point, at which, as "we might have hoped, their evils had been consummated. These observations will for- L cibly A DISSERTATION ON cibly impress upon our reflection, what riads may possibly not only have been buried alive, as we should say unnumbered multi-i tudes of the Drowned to have been in all former ages, but even what myriads may have recovered within their graves that spot, which we now learn to be invested with properties, almost sovereign and spe- cific for the revival of the languid powera under the oppression of these Maladies. Though many facts have come to our knowledge of recovery under the appearan- ces of Death in Contagious Disorders, we ought still to remember, that the circum- stances attendant on these Diseases must necessarily have concealed from our view innumerable examples, in which this revival has occurred. The hasty interment, which such maladies demand, buries for ever in ob- livion the victims and their fate, amidst the unrecorded stories of Human woe too hor- rible for the Human ear. But there is another reflection, which these observations will press upon our mind with peculiar force, as connected with an impor- tant subject of future enquiry. It is probable, a* DISORDER OF DEATH. S3 &tf I shall endeavour to shew in a succeeding part of my work, that in many Maladies the eVerit, which we call Death, may in fact only be the crisis of the Disorder; in which its malignancy has spent its force, and the frame become freed from the Disease, though it may have happened, that the powers, before lan- guid, have sunk under the struggle and are no longer able to perform those functions, which exhibit to the view the appearances of motion and sensation. There are various rea- sons, which would lead us to conclude, that this event will more frequently happen in pes- tilential Maladies than in many other Diseas- es, and thus we may understand, that innume- rable victims of the Plague, and other conta- gious Disorders, may have been abandoned by their Friends, and hurried to their graves, at the very moment, when the Malady had run its course, and w hen no other evil was to be combated, but the weakness and debility of the frame. It is thus perhaps that the false conceptions of mankind on the process of Suspended Animation may have converted the Remedies of Nature into causes of her de- struction, and made the efforts of her victory the signals of her defeat. Death, final and putrefactive Death, still closes the scene, whe- L 2 ther 84 A DISSERTATION ON 7 THE whether the Archaeus of the System has been unguarded in the means, by which the remedy has been conducted, or whether Man has been negligent in his search respecting the myste- rious mode, by which the purposes of the directing Principle were intended to be effec- ted. Such is the destiny of our condition sometimes by the laws of nature, and some- times by the perverseness of our own devices that the antidote and the bane are insepe- rably involved with each other that the struggles, which are fctent in ohtaii irg* a good, operate finally in its loss, and that success and miscarriage are consummated at the same moment and by the same means. "These violent' 'conflicts still "have violent ends, "And in their triumphs die." DISORDER OF DEATH THE of AND THE of Introductory Remarks on the Sleep of Death and the Death of Sleep : The superficial notions of Mankind on this resemblance so universal/i/ ac- knowledged Various states of Suspended and Weakened Animatioq detailed, as likewise Dis- turbed actions of the frame tending to these state* or terminating in their appearance. The power offhe frame under suspended animation to recov- er the former coun'cnance, distorted by thestrug* gles of Death : The lovefj/ appearance of the young and beautiful as if sleeping. Descrip- tion of the Po'/ e . 'Various Appearances Diseases Accidents attached to the frame, tending tn,or terminating in Suspended or Weak- ened Animation; as. The state directly preceding and A BISSERTAf ION ON THE end following what is called Death ; &c. fainting Fits, Epilepsy, Nervous or Hysterical Artec* tions fc* The art or accident of Dying exhibited by Women, Enthusiasts, Prophets, Prophetesses; With their Prances, Visions fcj. The uncertain- ty fthe Signs of Death still mire and more illus- trated by these cases $ and the hopes of su< cess from the Resuscitative process more confirmed: The baneful and abominable practices adoptt at ouce wholly auJ radically anni- hilated. It is marvellous most marvellous, that the decisions and practices of mankind on this point should have been so fixed so peremptory and invariable in every age and nation of the world. No doubts no difficul- ties no suspicions were ever excited on the truth of their conclusion and the wisdom of their practice. It was never suggested, among the reflex- ions of mankind, that states so similar to each other in appearance might not possibly in all cases be totally opposite in their nature that visible exhibitions of Life were possibly not necessarily connected with the existence of vital action, in the internal mechanism of the frame, and much less* with the existence of the vital Principle that the senses super- ficially exerted, or unassisted by other guides, may possibly not on all occasions, be certain and infallible judges of the presence of Vitality. In a word, it was never suggested, among the BISORDER OF DEATH. 95 the reflections of mankind, that faint exhibi- tions of Life, imperceptible even to the senses, are possibly not altogether incompatible with its presence in the System, at least in a weak- er state ; when it is known that in a condition most similar to this, where the signs of life are almost, though not altogether impercep- tible to the senses, the process of vitality is proceeding in its strongest and most effici- ent form. As these conditions of Death and Sleep, seem in many most striking and im- pressive cases, where Youth and Beauty dis- play their charms, to differ only in degrees, it is indeed, I must again repeat, most won- derful, that no deductions were formed, which might lead men to conjecture, that the means of recovery from these states might possibly differ only in degree likewise, and consist merely in demanding more strenuous and more continued exertions for the re-appearance of the vital actions. We know so little about the nature or the mode, by which Sleep steals over the Frame, and confines it within the spells of its power, or of the operation, by which the act of dropping into Death produces insensibility to outward objects, that no adept in the secrets of Physiology will venture to distinguish between the different processes, by 96 A DISSERTATION ON THE by which these similar effects and appear- anc?s are produced, or to predict, as from a tripod, on the final consequences,by which in all cases they must be necessarily attended. We may safely affirm that this train of re- flections, obvious and almost inevitable as it may appear, was never fully excited in the minds of men, from the beginning of the y orld to the present moment. In our own times, even when some important facts, relating to the subject have become familiar to our knowledge, this view of tta question may be considered as altogether new, if we regard the conclusions and the consequen- ces, with which it is involved. In delivering this opinion I mean to state, that never at any period, even in our own times, have re- flections of this nature,been so fully and effici- ently familiar to the understandings of men, as to operate with due force on the practices of the people and the Institutions of Society. It is true indeed, that practices have been adopted in our own times, which coincide with the spirit of these observations, though it is probable, that they were not deri- ved from this source ; and it is certain, that they have not advanced beyond the limits of BISOKBER OF HEATH. fc partial and peculiar case, nor have they at all opened into those general consequences, to which this train of reasoning directly con- ducts the understanding. The absence of apparent motion and sen- sation, as it appears to the eye of the ordi* nary observer, however careless and igno- rant he may be, still continues to be regarded in our familiar practice, as an infallible cri- terion of the total and absolute annihilation of Life; and on this conclusion, as I have before observed, through every part of our Globe, barbarous and civilized, do we com- mit our fellow creatures to their graves, with- out any efforts of reflexion, or any compunc- tions of remorse. We have been in vain taught by the most brilliant experiments and the most Public declaration of the doctrine, that the absence of apparent motion and sen- sation, afford no criterion whatever of the an- nihilation of Life : The familiar practices of the people and of their teachers,still continue to be the same in the present times, as in all the past, and to be regulated by a maxim directly opposite to this acknowledged fact, just as if it had been utterly unknown among the inventions of men. N 98 A DISSERTATION ON THB Description from the Poets, of the lovely countenance assumed by the young and beautiful after Dtath, as if sleeping Contrast with the appearance after Death from a violent cause, with reflections thereon relating to the applications of the Remscitatixe Pro- cess. Suggestion, that the fact of the countenance assuming its former features after its distortion from the struggles ofDeath^ may perhaps indicate the re- covery of the person from the previous Dis- order. The Poets, who are supposed to have con- founded and perverted our reason so much by their language and their conceptions, are not such bad Philosophers as many have imagi- ned ; and they may be often summoned to our assistance in the discussions of Science^ if we attend only to the force of their impres- sions, and omit not to draw inferences and to form conclusions for ourselves. We all re- member that our great Bard has described a case of Violent Death, in all its terrors, after the following manner. "But see, his face is black and full of blood, His eye balls further out than when he Hv'd, Staring full ghastly like a strangled man, [gling, His hair uprear'djhisnostrilsstretchM with strug- His hands abroad displayed, as one that grasp'd And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdu'd'* pt. of henry VI. (A. 3. b. 2.) OP DEATH. 99 If a Medical Practitioner were to be sum- moned to a case of Violent Death under a form of horror similar to this, he would con- sider it as his duty to apply the Resuscitative process, with all diligence and zeal ; especi ally if the person, on whom such appearances were impressed, had committed this act of violence upon himself. Yet such is the per- version of the understanding, that it may be doubted, whether any means of recovery would be applied, if the violence had pro- ceeded from other hands. In a case of Suspended Animation, which the same bard has placed before our view with such exquisite effect, how different would have been and how fatal often 'may have been our reasoning and our practice. Bel "Thou blessed thing ! "Thou d'ydit a most rare boy, of melancholy ! "How found you him ? Arv. Stark, as you see : **Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber, "Not as Death's dart being laugh'd at : his right cheek "Reposing on a cushion. Guid. Where? Arv. O'th floor. u |Iis armf thus leagu'd : I thought he slept , & put N9 'My 100 A DISSERTATION ON THIS "M y clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rude- ness *'Ausvver'd my steps too loud. Guid. Why he but sleeps : "If he be gone, he'll make his grave a bed : "With female Fairiei will his tomb be haunted; "And worms will not come to thee !" Cyrribelwr. Act. 4. S. 2. We have here a case of Suspended anima- tion, where appearances of Life in its most lovely tho' placid form are described,of which innumerable examples occur among* the beau- tiful and the young. If this form, resembling* Life in a sweet and gentle sleep, unaccom- panied by visible motion and sensation, should *be exhibited on a person in the flower of youth, and in the highest state of health, after a few days or even a few hours illness ; such an appearance would be considered by the Practitioners, as belonging to an hopeless case of final, irremediable and putrefactive Death. We may safely affirm,that no medical Artist, and indeed that no person whatever, moved either by reflection or by feeling, "Would associate, even in conception, such a case with the devices of the Resuscitative pro- cess, howevf-r promising and inviting the ap- pearances mi^ht bt/aud however impressively they OF DEATH. 101 they might seem to suggest to our minds, that the vital spark was perchance still glow- ing within the frame, and requiring only some friendly assistance from the powers of Art, in order to rekindle its latent force, and to raise it once more into the full flame and vigour of Life. Myriads of beings are committed to their graves, under the ap- pearance described by the Poet, blooming with all the charms of beauty, of youth, and even of health, though under a faint and lan- guid form, and smiling on their relations with ineffable sweetness and complacency, while the Lid of the fatal Coffin is closing for ever upon their doom, and consigning a creature, under every indication of Life, ex- cept a visible exhibition of Motion and Sen- sation, to darkness and the grave, The lovely appearance of beautiful females after Death, seems to have seized on the mind with peculiar force in the days of Shakspeare, and our Poets of that period have displayed this idea, sometimes with great elegance of imagery, and sometimes with the coarseness of licentious Comedy. The Lover, when he laments over the fate of his departed Mistress, assuming this beautiful appearance 102 A DISSERTATION ON THE appearance is feigned to become jealous of Death, who is represented as a Rival or Paramour, retaining the beloved object in his possesion. Our great Bard has fully un- folded this imagery with exquisite effect, when Romeo laments over the fate of Juliet, as she lies entranced in the Tomb, which in the imagination of the Lover, is converted by the sovereign beauty of his Mistress, into the presence chamber of a splendid Court. t a miraculous process; it DISORDER OF DEATH. Ill it might have been conjectured, that the Death of the Patient was the period, at which the struggle of the Disorder with the frame was most violent, that the frame had sunk under the conflict, not indeed so as to destroy the organs, by which the functions of Life are performed, but in such a manner as to stop the visible exhibitions of its existence, and to pro- duce that torpid state of the system, which we conceive under the idea of Suspended Ani- mation. From this view of the question it might be imagined, that the frame now left to itself, and no longer harrassed by a contention with its enemy, had resumed its ususal ap- pearance, and had returned to the state, in which it formerly was placed, before its functions were disturbed and deranged by the violence, of the malady: or, in other words, it might perhaps be conceived, that in some cases, what we call Death was in truth the crisis of the Disorder, in which nature had worked out her own cure by her own process; though the organs had become exhausted by the energy of these efforts, and were no longer able to exhibit those strong and full indications of Life, which are displayed in apparent motion and sen- sation 112 A DISSERTATION ON THE sation. If this mode of conceiving- the mat- ter should be regarded as at all probable *r even possible, it will open into new views of this important subject, and will suggest to us a variety of ideas, which bear no re- lation to the present state of our opinions or our practices in the Medical Science. This conception will be frequently introduced in the progress of my enquiries, in which such portions of it will be occasionally illustra- ted, as belong to the peculiar vein of dis- cussion in the different parts of my work. I suggest the idea, as a theme of meditation for those Artists, who are accustomed to think and to reason in the pursuit of their Art, and I am little solicitous to engage the favour of that order of men, who are prepared to receive with repugnance every new device for the advancement of their Science, however important lay be the object for which these devices are conceived* and however safe may be the process by which they are accompanied. Before I leave the descriptions of the Poets, I cannot omit the opportunity of de- tailing another affection of the system, which they have described according to po- pular opinions, and which will lead me to pursue n OP DEATH. 113 pursue the train of ideas here unfolded. It is a topic most important to the purpose of my argument and demands to be unfolded under every variety of illustration. This affection of the frame, called a Light- ening before Death denotes an unusual de- gree of cheerfulness exhibited by a person, labouring 1 under a Disorder, immediately before the time of Death. In the speech of Romeo, which I have produced, these words occur. t How oft, when men are at the point of Death, "Have they been merry, which their keepers call "A Ligthcning before Death. The commentators have duly observed, that this idea frequently occurs in our anci- ent Dramatic writers, and they have produ- ced various passages, in which it is to be found. " I thought it was a Lightening before Death y 'Too sudden to be certain'! ( Downfal of fr.btrt Earl of Huntingdon 1601. > This affection of the frame agrees well with the suggestion, which I have before expres- sed, and it accords likewise with the Medi- ^ cal Theories both of the ancient and modern Physicians of our Country. The system of Dr. Darwin more especially illustrates this train of ideas, and seems almost directed to P the 114 A DISSERTATION ON THE the explanation of my hypothesis. If we suppose, that Death is in many cases the Cr- is of the Disorder, in which the frame sinks from the debility consequent to the violent effort made by nature for her own recovery; we shall see, how this idea brings us to that affection of the frame, which is called a Lightening before Death. In this condition of the system, the Animal Spirits, as they are called in the popular language of the day, are supposed to be raised to their highest point at a certain stage of the Disorder, and this familiar com- bination, Animal Spirits, has been derived from the Schools of Medical Theory, in which it is used to express the intelligent agents or energies of the Animal economy under the guidance of the Archseus, which exerts their powers for the support and preservation of the Animal. There is however another Law of the System, acting by a kind of libra- tion, by which an exhaustion and debility succeed, proportioned to the violence of the efforts before exerted. Now it is possible, that in some cases the violence of the pre- ceding struggle may have produced an organical injury, by which the frame may have been fatally affected and the principle of DISORDER OF DEATH. 115 of Life destroyed. Still however in a great variety of cases nothing" probably may have happened but the accustomary depression, consequent to the former paroxysm ; except that this depression has been sufficient to produce a state of Suspended Animation, in which the powers of Life are no longer able to discharge their functions in the exhibi- tion of apparent motion and sensation. It must ever be remembered, that these ex- treme states of energy and debility, thus reciprocally existing in the frame, suppose a great power still remaining in its organs, which are at once able thus to act and to suffer rising to such violent exertions, and escaping from such exhausting depressions. Disorders in familiar language are said to run their course, and it has been agreed from the age of Hippocrates to the present moment, that such is the fact ; and the peri- ods of this course in many Diseases have been arranged with great diligence and some- times with compleat success. In this course then, after various alternate librations of energy and depression, a period must at last arrive, if the patient should be enabled to survive these struggles, in which the Disor- P2 der 116 A DISSERTATION ON THE der quits the frame and no other evil remains, if an organical injury hns not been inflicted, but the debility attached to such disturbed actions in the system. Now it is not an im- probable hypothesis to suppose, that the last struggle will be the most violent, that strug- gle, in which the Animal Ppitits, if thus we si oird call the Preserving Force of the System, are summoned to their pest to ex- pel their enemy and to determine the dubious contest, by producing the crisis of the Disor- der. We may conceive too, without strain- ing our metaphor, the exultation of the Ani- mal Spirits in thus having effected their pur- pose, and in feeling that their energies are no longer harrassed by the evil, which had before deranged their action, and impeded their functions. If a state of Suspended Ani- mation should ensue after this struggle, the exhibition of the Animal Spirits in effecting, what my hypothesis conceives to be in many cases a Victory, may well be called a Light- ening before Death. Whatever degree of faith we should be inclined to bestow on this hypothesis; no one I think, will be hardy enough to maintain, that the crisis of the Disorder, even when it it DISORDER OF DEATH. 117 is attended '037 Death, is of itself necessarily on ail occasions the efficient destructive principle, by which the Powers of Life have been destroyed. Even before the doctrine of Suspended Animation was at all known, an intelligent Physician, who should have good reason to believe, that Death often en- sued at the Crisis of a Disorder, would, I think resort to any hypothesis rather than suppose, that the Crisis, which he had obser- ved to be so salutary on so many occasions, was of itself the baleful cause, which directly operated in th^ overthrow of the frame. He would consider the catastrophe of Death to be a fatal accident indeed, placed beyond the powers of his skill to remedy or repair, but in the wisdom of sober hypothesis, he could n; ver regard the accident of Death, as the direct proximate effect of the Crisis of the Disorder,or of that state, in which the Disorder had ceased to harrass and afflict the frame. The facts, which are now unfolded relat- ing to Susperided Animation would tend to remove this difficulty from the mind of a re- flecting 1 Practitioner, while they served to suggest a hope, that he might perchance be enabled to convert the accident of the catas- trophe II 8 JL DISSERTATION ON THE trophe before so fatal, to that good purpose, in the promotion of which,Nature hers.lf was perhaps co-operating-, though by an invisi- ble process, and under a misleading and alarming form. He might conceive that the Sensorial power was recruiting its exhausted energies in this state of quiescence and re- pos % and that the Preserving Principle re- quired only some assistance from the intelli- gent Artist, in order to profit by the good, which she was silently, though efficiently producing, for the repair of her disordered 8 3 stem. If the frame could be recovered in this state, after the Crisis of the Disorder, it is manifest, that it would be placed in a con* dition, freed from the malady, and that no- thing would oppose its restoration to health, but the debility arising from the former Disease. In some cases of recovery after Fevers in which these alternate attacks of paroxysm and depression have by son:e acci- dent, not necessarily perhaps attached to the Disorder, exhausted the frame, the pro- cess of recovery is sometimes slow ; but in most cases it is marvellous to observe, how rapidly the patient recovers his strength, when the Fever has departed, and when the equilibrium of the Animal economy is resto- red to its just state. It DISORDER Off DEATH, 119 It is by Fevers, under various types and forms, that the world is devastated, and our researches on this subject tend to persuade us, that on Fevers the effects of the Resusci- tative Process would be most apparent and succesful. In considering the subject as a point of Theory, there is no one, I think, con- versant in the Art of Medicine, who would advance objections against this theory on the idea, that some organical injury had been in- flicted on the frame in these Maladies, and therefore that our endeavours to revive the frame must be vain and unavailing. If we except certain cases of Malignant Fevers un- cLr certain circumstances, the idea of orga- nical injury in the general operation of Fe- vers would, I think, be the most untenable of all positions, and most remote to the con- ceptions at present received in the code of Medical reasoning. Those Intermittent Fevers, for which Bark is now supposed to be a specific, were former- ly conceived to be so harmless, or rather so useful to the Constitution, that it was once a question, whether they ought to be cured at all. This is not an obsolete idea, as a great Practitioner (Dilectus lapis,) who extended through a long life his useful and liberal labours 120 A DISSERTATION ON THE labours to our own times, began his career tvith a persuasion of its truth. " Every year's experience " however, says this ven- erable Sage, " weakened my belief of this (t doctrine, and I have long* since, by num- " berless proofs, been convinced of the safety " of stopping this fever as soon as possible : " nor can I doubt of having observed ill con- " sequences, where the fever has been suffer- " ed to remain, by delaying to use the effec- *' tual means of preventing its return. " ( lleberd'erfs Commentaries Chap. 38. ; Though our author attributes ill conse- quences to neglect, in stopping these Feveis, it is scarcely possible to speak of them, in terms of less alarm, as seriously injurious to the Principles of Life. Yet these Fevers are attended with Afflictions or Disorders of the Frame, which appear most distressing or formidable, as violent pains in the Loins, Limbs, and Head, Cholic, Paintings, almost a paralytic weakness of the Limbs, Burning Heats, Frightful Shiverings, Vomitings, Delirium &c. &c. continued sometimes for months, before men were acquainted with the present specific, or before they had the wisdom DISORDER OF DEATH. i2l Wisdom or the courage to apply it. Yet these Disturbers of the frame, violent as they were in their reiterated attacks, infu- sed no venom and left no sting. "They have regularly come and gone with the " Fever, and with the cure of that have " finally disappeared' ! (Ileberden, ibid.) If we should apply to Morton in order to learn the various forms, which the Intermit- tent Fever, like another * Proteus assumes, we might conceive, that it appeared in all the shapes of all the Phantoms, which issued from the box of Pandora, for the terror and the torment of the Human Race. They all vanish however, as we are told, at the bid- ding of the Medical Magician, who is armed with the great Specific, and as they come like Shadows, so they depart. It is most important for us in the prosecu- tion of these enquiries to be fully impressed with the idea, that Diseases,which sometimes assume the most formidable appearances, and even prey on the constitution for a con- siderable period, do not necessarily produce Q any * See Morton's Treatise " De Protdjonni Icbris Jnttrmiticntis gcnio." 122 A DISSERTATION ON THR any organical injury to the frame, or destroy the parts necessary to Life. The attack of many Diseases may be considered under one point of view, as a conflict only with the Minimal Spirits, or the ministers of the Ner- vous System, which they alternately excite or provoke to violent energies, indicative of Life, in its more agitated form, and again subdue to a state of depression, passing through various appearances of diminished vital action to the form of Death, or that state, in which motion and sensation are no longer visible. Now as we learn from indisputable experi- ments exhibited in the present age, that there are two conditions of the frame, under the name of Death, one of which, within the verge of remedy or of hope, is com- monly denominated Suspended Animation, and the other without remedy or hope, is des- tined to terminate in Putrefactive dissolu- tion ; we might be permitted to ask, whether in these alternate states of elevation and de- pression, the last state of depression, in which motion and sensation are not visible, necessarily in all cases produces or indicates final irremediable and Putrefactive Death f There BISOBDER OF DEATH, 123 There is no Medical Practitioner, I believe, who will venture to affirm that such is al- ways the fact, and perhaps a prudent and intelligent artist would be unwilling 1 to as- sert peremptorily, that such is commonly the fact, \\hat shall we think then of the deci- ded opinions of Mankind, who assert with one voice, if we may judge by the fearful testimony of their practice, that Death, con- sisting only in the absence of apparent mo- tion and sensation, if it succeeds a Disease of a few days or hours, always constitutes Jinal irremediable and Putrefactive Death. On this principle they commit, through the whole extent of the Globe, their fellow creatures to the grave, without any conpunc- tions of nature or warnings of their reason, ts if relying with the securest confidence on the infallibility of appearances, which one quarter of the Globe at least now knows to be fallacious. There is still another question to be asked, which has never yet been fully proposed in the investigations of Science, and to which we can at present only reply by conjectures deductions and analogies.. We might enquire, in what condition the frame of the Patient Q 2 would 1*24 A DISSERTATION ON THE would be found, who should be recovered by the Resuscitative, process after suffering* Suspended Animation from the attacks of a Fever. If the last state of depression, which passed into Suspended Animation, should have been the period, in which the Disorder had run its course to the appointed crisis; it is manifest, that the person would be recovered in a condition, free from the Fever ; and Debility only would be the mala- dy remaining. If the Disorder had not pro- ceeded to its crisis, we might thus reason on the subject according to the language and theory at present familiar in the Codes of Medical Philosophy. In this state of quiescence from Suspended Animation, the sympathies of the System, which create propagate and continue its disturbed actions, are torpid, and no longer co-operate to destroy the ^equilibrium of the animal functions, which were before subject to the controul of these alternate paroxysmi and depressions. The Associated Motions from Irritation Sensation and Volition, are now broken, and no longer^excite the System to that state of deranged or disordered action, which continued only, because it before exis- ted DISO&DEK, OF DEATH. ted. The Sensorial Power accumulates, ac- cording- to its usual laws, in this state of qui- escence for the future benefit of the System, and performs probably this office with more force and safety, in proportion as the quies- cence, under certain limits, is more profound and complete, This is no new idea, but is altogether con- sonant with the Sympathetic Doctrine of Fe- vers ; and even, when I enlarge my Hypo- thesis to a wide extent, and presume to propose results and consequences of great import, I am supported in my reasoning by occasional hints and suggestions, which the most illustrious Sages in the Art of Medicine have sometimes supplied in the course of their argument, tho* they were but little aware to what great consequences these accidental suggestions were -inevitably though obscurely directed. Dr. Darwin has furnished us with an extraordinary passage of this kind, which will shew us,how slowly even those minds are accustomed to proceed in the investigation of any new truth} which are at once gifted with the highest powers of research, and ar- dent in the pursuit of new devices for the attainment of their purposes. Many " 126 A DISSERTATION ON THE " Many other parts of the System subject, " to perpetual motion in health, may rest " for a time without much inconvenience to ' the whole; as when the fingers of some " people become cold and pale; and during " this complete rest, great accumulation of " irritability may be produced. But where fi the heart and arteries are previously feeble, " they cannot much diminish their actions, ' and certainly cannot rest entirely ; for " that would be death ; and therefore in this " case their accumulation of the sensorial " power of irritation or of association is fl slowly produced, and a long Fever super- " venes in consequence, or sudden Death, " as frequently happens, terminates the " cold fit. Whence it appears, that in Fev- 44 ers with weak pulse, if the action of the " heart, arteries and capillaries could be " diminished, or stopped for a short time " without occasioning the death of the patient, " as happens in cold bathing, or to persons " apparently drowned, that a great accumu- " lation of the sensorial powers of irritation " or of Association might soon be produced, " and the pulse become stronger, and conse- " quently slower and the Fever cease. " Hence cold ablution may be of service in " Fevers DISORDER OP DEATH. 1*27 " Fevrrs with weak pulse, by preventing * the expenditure, and producing accumula- ** tion of the semen- 1 power of irritation or " Association. Stupor may be useful on the " same account. " (Darwin's Zo^nomia, Vol. 4. p. 349 &cj We have hare a proposition, exceeding perhaps in importance all other Medical Discoveries; if the conjecture, to which it re- fers, should be well founded : yet this preci- ous conception of a great Artist is perverted from its destined purpose, and is almost lost alike from the view of the author and his rea- der, by the confusion of ideas, in which it is involved. First he tells us, that fi where the " Heart and Arteries are previously feeble, " they cannot much diminish their actions, 'and certainly cannot rest entirely; for that " would be Death" tho' he informs us in tli3 succeeding sentence, that there is a state of the Frame, in which the Heart and Arteries do entirely rest, namely the state of Suspen- ded Animation in some cases of Drowning, which is certainly not Death or which happens "without occasioning Death" as he expres- ses it, or that Beat A,which passes into Putre- factive dissolution. Still 128 A DISSERTATION ON THE Still however under this confusion of idea* and this contradictory statement, the follow- ing Proposition may be discovered. 'If in cer- tain Fevers, says Dr. Darwin, 'the action of ( the Heart and Arteries could be diminished * or stopped for a short time, as in some ca- * ses of Suspended Animation by Drowning 1 , ' without occasioning- the Death of the Pa- ' tient ; it appears from a due course of rea- * soning, that the Fever wculd coase, * or that the Patient would recover, freed 'from the Fever, with which he was before 4 afflicted.' We should have imagined that the writer, after exhibiting with some exultation, as he might have done, the value of this brilliant proposition, would have explained its ope- ation somewhat in the following manner. * In certain Fevers Death, arising from a ' torpor of the heart and arteries, that is, a ' state of the frame without any visible signs * of motion, and sensation, frequently termin- ' ates the cold fit ; but we have no reason to * despair at the sight of this accident, as ' conceiving, that such an appearance ne- ' cessarily indicates final and Putrefactive Death ; " since it is most certainly known and DISORDER OV DEATH * and acknowledges that persons are frequent- 4 ly recovered under a similar appearance in 4 cases of drowning. There may not only 4 however be nothing Jatal in this state of * Death, attached to certain Fevers, but * even a great good may finally result from ' it ; since if the Patient should recover from 4 this state, as he does by a due appli- 4 cation of Art, in cases of drowning, he 4 will recover freed from his Disease. Thus 4 then the benefit of his recovery from a 4 state of Suspended Animation after drown- 4 ing, differs materially from the good procu- 4 red by a recovery from a similar state, at- * tached to certain Fevers. In the former ' case of drowning, the patient is simply re 4 covered to Life, in the same degree of 4 health, which he possessed before the ac- * cident ; but in the latter case of Fevers, he 4 is restored to the functions of Life with a 4 frame delivered from the evil, with which it 4 was before oppressed ; or in other words, 4 Death will operate as the cure of his Di$- 4 order, and as the means of possessing Life 4 in an improved and ameliorated condition/ We cannot doubt, that this is a faithful representation of the proposition, which Dr. Q Darwin 130 A DISSERTATION ON THE Darwin here advances; when it is exhibi- ted in its true point of view, attended with the deductions, which are necessarily attached to it. Whether the conception it- self be true, on which the proposition is founded, namely Thai the Patient, so recov- ered, would revive freed from his Disorder, must be decided by a series of experiments, diligently and zealously pursued; yet it cannot be denied, that the present system of Medical Physiology, confirmed by very impressive facts and analogies, has a marvel- lous tendency to favour this idea, and to conciliate our attention to the investigation of a principle so pregnant with important consequences. It must be at least acknow- ledged, that this conception is singularly ap- plicable to the purpose of these discussions, in disclosing the benefits of the Resuscitative Process. I had ventured to adopt a new combination and to consider Death, in many cases as a Disorder, from which the Patient might be freed by the devices of Art, and be restored to his accustomed health. But we here learn from the highest Medical authori- ties,that under the benefit of the Resuscitativ* Process, Death is sometimes not a Disorder Jbut a Remedy, not merely capable of being cured DISORDER OF DEATH. 181 cured, but itself potent even to cure, as in- vested with the property of removing Disor- ders, and if manifesting when it is converted into Life, the reparation of a deranged and disquieted System. Though the opinions of Dr. Darwin would be considered on various accounts, as of the highest authority ; yet it might be objected perhaps, that this writer, always ardent in the pursuit of new devices, must often fall into conceptions, which belong rather to the wildness of theoretical ingenuity, than to the sober reasoning, directed to probable good in the operations of practice. I shall produce however, in addition to this authority, the most unexceptionable testimony, derived from a Physician of great name in the former age, celebrated for the simplicity of his ha- bits and conceptions, for the plainness of his principles, and for the extent and success of his practice. This Physician is Dr. Fother- gill, who has expressed after the following* manner,most fully and unequivocally, what a writer of a more theoretical kind has but darkly understood and obscurely described. In cases of Suspended Animation, observes Dr. Fothergill, the Lungs cease " to expand Q2 the 182 A DISSERTATION ON THE " the heart to beat, and finally, the animal " machine with all its movements, like a " clock whose pendulum is stopped, remains " entirely at rest. Yet renew but the action " of the Lungs in one, and touch but the " pendulum of the other,and all again is Life." ( Letter to Dr. Ilawes p. 280 in the, Trans- actions of the Roy al Humane Society Vol. I.) Our author subjoins in a note to this observa- tion the following passage, containing a question of most extraordinary import " During this awful pause, the mental as well " as the corporeal faculties are obliterated,and ' all ideas of consciousness abolished. Might " not a temporary suspension of this nature^ " ( tftt could be safely imitated by art ) bid "fair to produce more lasting and salutary " changes in certain highly obstinate affections " of the brain and nerves, than can be accom- " plished by any ordinary means f If canine " madness was completely cured by a suspen- " sion of the functions,in consequence of acci- " dental submersion,and if Van Helmont was " able to practise this method with safety *' and success in similar instances, might not " the like happy effects be expected from it, in " other desperate cases of Insanity, Epilepsy, *' or Idiotism ? The success of v.ery copious bleeding DISORDER OF DEATH. 138 M bleeding 1 , in certain stubborn cases, per- " haps depends in great measure on the de- " liquium it produces. This has been prac* " tised on various occasions without hesita- " tion, and yet it may be doubted, whether " the patient does not undergo nearly a* " great a risque from a suspension of life, " occasioned by an immoderate loss of blood, " as from submersion. If any circumstances " can justify the trial of such doubtful Reme- " die?, it must be the deplorable ones above " mentioned, which are sometimes more for- " midable than Death itself. It is scarce ne- ' cessary to add, that they ought not to be " undertaken without the utmost circumspec- " tion, at least till the art of restoring anima- " tion is" come "to a much higher degree " of certainty." Though nothing can be more plainly or unequivocally expressed than the proposition itself here delivered ; yet we cannot but see in this case likewise as in the reasoning of Dr. Darwin, how slowly the mind proceeds in combining a new train of ideas, and how perversely, as it should seem, even this plain and unsophisticated writer turns aside from the very point, to which ths course of hit conception* J34 A DISSERTATION ON conceptions naturally and almost inevitably conducts the understanding-. Dr. Fothergill's discourse is addressed to one of the most ar- dent and distinguished of the associates in the Humane Societies and he is fully posses- ed with the efficacy of the Resuscitative Art in restoring- persons to life, under the signs of apparent Death. The experience, which has been at present obtained on this Art, has on- ly advanced to the assurance, that the frame in tome cases of Suspended Animation may be restored to the same condition, in which it wa placed before the accident occurred. But Dr. Fothergill, in a true Philosophical spirit, having observed, that some Disorders are cured by an exhaustion of the System usque ad deliquium,very sagaciously proposes a question for the decision of future Practi- tioners, whether a state of Suspended Anima- tion may not in some cases be attended with beneficial results, and operate even as a Re- medy of the malady, with which the frame wias before oppressed. This conception is sug- gested in the true spirit of Philosophical re- search, yet our author pursues the idea, as if he but darkly understood the force of his own notions, and the value of his own devices. He DISORDER OF DEATH. 135 He entirely overlooks the state of Death or Suspended Animation, when Nature herself produces z'Z,and when she has provided it rea- dy to our hands, without the hazard of ad- venturous experiments : He sees only a state of Suspended Animation produced by Art, and advises the Practitioner, though with som? a Iraonitions of caution, to exert that Art for the purpose of procuring it, or in other words, he suggests the project of killing the Patient, if it can be safely done for the purpose of curing him . Our author seems totally unconscious, that the State of Death, or Suspended Animation produced by Nature, can afford any benefit, or indeed, that it can be cured by the Resuscitative Process. In Canine Madness he recommends that the Practitioner should assume the office of a destroyer, and produce that Death, which Nature herself will inflict, with all the bene- fit, which he can propose, and without any imputation of evil from the hardy experiment, which he has ventured to project. We might have imagined, that he would have seized upon the remedy, which he conceives to be so efficacious, as it is presented to us, in its un- exceptionable form, by Nature herself; that he would have admonished us not to despair A MSSEKTATIOX ON THJS J36 despair, when we see our Patient sink into a state of Death, or Sr ^pended Animation ; but even to consider it as a favorable turn in the Disorder, by producing a condition of the frame, which, according to our present knowledge, is propitious to the cure of the Malady. We might have conceived that he would have magnified the benefits of the Re- guscitative Art, after the remedy which Na- ture had so fortunately provided for us in this Disorder,and which she forbears to exhibit in many dreadful maladies, tho' curable perhaps by the same means, by prolonging the mise- ries of the sufferer sometimes, thro' the peri- od of an extended life. I have here stated, what I imagine to be the direct mode of reasoning,which the author should have adopted, according to his owu hypothesis ; and I should rejoice, if I could persuade myself wholly to acquiesce in those prospects of advantage, which may possibly, as the writer conceives, be finally attendant on the prosecution of the Resuscitative Art. Our knowledge however of the operations of Nature, is so scanty and imperfect, that, when a great good is proposed to us for the ebject of our meditation by an Artist fur- nished DISORDER OF DEATH. 137 nished with strong impressions from Practi- cal knowledge, we should be inclined to re- ceive the suggestion with a favourable accep- tance , and while we observe those points of the argument, which repress confidence, we should consider those bearings of the sub- ject, which may admit or encourage hope Dr. Fothergill imagines, that Suspended Animation affords a good prospect of produ- cing " lasting and salutary changes in certain " highly obstinate affections of the brain and " nerves, " and he records in this class, the Disorders of Canine Madness, Insanity, Epilepsy and Idiotism. We can all understand the advantage which may be reasonably expected from such a Re*- medy in the Disorders, occasioned by a sud- den attack upon the frame* which produce Fevers and other disturbed actions of the Sys- tem derived from that source ; as in the Mala- dy of Canine Madness* But in those Diseases, which are of long standing, and which may possibly or probably be connected with some organical injury, or what is the same thing, with a mal- conformation, tending to such disordered motions, as we might conjecture to take place in Insanity, Epilepsy and Idio- R tistn 138 A DISSERTATION ON THE tism, our reliance on the remedy must indeed be considerably abated; though there are many topics of reflection, which will not fail to en- courage us in the prosecution of this Art. With respect to Canine Madness, there is every reason to believe, that the good, produced by copious bleedings usque ad deliquium and by submersion in water almost to drowning, arises from the quiescent state of the System which has been produced by these violent operations, and it is probable, that the nearei we approach to the quiescence of Suspended Animation the more successful will be our efforts. The knowledge therefore, which we have at present acquired on this subject, will suggest to us, that this, of all other Disorders, is a case, to which the Arts of Resuscitation should be applied, as it affords us a hope de- rived from strong Medical Facts, that if the Patient should be recovered from this state^of Death, he would be restored to the functions of life, loosed from all the horrors of this mighty malady. In cases of Idiotism it is difficult to under- stand on the first view, what curative powers are to be found in the Suspension of the fa- culties \ as the quiescence of the System can- not DISORDER OF DEATH. 139 not create the parts or their properties, by which the vigour of the mind is exercised ; nor can it destroy the mal- conformation of those parts, which already exist. Still however we must remember, that Idiotism may arise from causes, which are rather accidental to the frame, than inherent evils in the arrangement of its parts. It is well known that the weak- ness of the faculties is sometimes occasioned by Worms; ?nd there are many stories, duly authenticated, of persons restored to the use of their understanding, by some violent com- motion^, accidentally produced on the frame, during the operation of which the Worms causing the malady, have been expelled front* the System. It is agreed moreover, that Insanity and Epilepsy are sometimes produced by Worms and these Disorders likewise must disappear, if they arise solely from that source, when the cause ceases to operate. It is known, that these animals are attached to the Living System, as to a spot most congenial to their nature; and we might ask, what no *Experi- ments ha\ e y et, I believe, ascertained, whe- ther these animals would not die in the torpid state of that System. Two of these species R 2 f 140 A DISSERTATION ON THE of Worms are indeed under some ces tenacious of life ; yet one species is ab- horrent of cold, and it will propably be found, that as they flourish in the living body, so they speedily perish, or are enfeebled in the dead or torpid body. There is another race of animals still more formidable to man; which seize on the fortress of his faculties, and prey upon his very brains. The Hyda- tids are found in the Liver, the Kidneys the Lungs, and even in the ventricles of the brain ; - and we have been told, that" if the Vires "naturae, medicatrices are not sufficient to ' effect a cure, the patient must fall a sacri- " fice to their ravages. '* As Dr. Fothergill conceives, that the Tor- pid state of the System possesses curative powers in affections, of the Brain and the Nerves ; I am endeavouring to discover the sources, from which these powers can be de- rived; yet I must own, that I consider our hopes of benefit to be directed chiefly to those cases, in which Febrile irritations, having once seized upon the frame, continue to pre- serve and propagate the means and the ma- terials of its annoyance. It is well known, that Hydatids form ulcerous inflammations, and that DISORDER OF DEATH. 141 that pus, thus introduced into the circulation, causes Hectic Fevers. It is the Febrile Irritation 9 whether it arises from Worms or Hydatids, or any other cause, which re-act- ing upon the organs produces the disturbed actions in the System; and if such a state of ir- ritation could be weakened or destroyed, the evils, which they now generate would perhaps be little felt, or altogether disappear. Thus perhaps it would happen, that these Parasites of the internal man might like many other Pa- rasitical animals be harmless tenants of the liv- ing mansion, which they have chosen for their abode, and might attend him from his cradle to his grave, disregarded and unknown : Nay perhaps their very existence depends on the Febrile state, which they have produced in the frame, as it is acknowledged, that they no longer are generated, when the functions of the Living System are discharged in their greatest vigour. If Insanity and Epilepsy should have been originally derived or continued from Febrile irritation, we shall here likewise un- derstand, how a state of Suspension in the animal functions might produce a cessation of associated motions, and thus repress or destroy the J42 A DISSERTATION ON TIl'E the Disorder. It lias been imagined, that in various cases of Insanity the malady might have been at once suppressed, if, on the mo- ment of its breaking out, strong exhausting evacuations had been administered, and if the patient had been afterwards laid to rest, by a bold dose of opium'. We shall now see, why these remedies would be efficacious on the first appearance of the Disorder, before the Febrile irritation had been fixed, strengthen- ed and confirmed by recurring associations, and how useless, or rather how pernicious they might afterwards prove, by weakening or disordering the System, and rendering it less able to oppose these Irritative Motions. It is acknowledged, that Epilepsy, in some cases, is wholly dependant on the Asso- ciation of our ideas, and the Fits return, when the objects, by which the Disorder was cau- sed, or with which it has by accident been connected, are impressed on the senses of the Patient. The sound sleep, into which Epileptics commonly fall after their convulsions, f< for " one, two, or even six hours," might seem to shew us that quiescence is the appropriate and appointed remedy for the Disorder, and might lead us to the idea, that the remedy would be more t>ISORDR OF BEATH. 143 more efficacious, in proportion as the quies- cence should be more complete. That Epi- lepsy is not necessarily attended with orga- nical injuries to the frame, is evident from the continuance of the Disease in some cases} thro' a long life ; and from the fact, which is frften apparent in persons visited by this Di* sorder, that the general state of their health is not impaired at all by it, and that they are almost unconscious of its attack, or its retreat. ''Some Epileptics feel themselves " so little hurt or altered by a fit, that know-