Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-06-17

AOA CdOA O44Gs anu 10 lDAo chPPAAO0 IL
any closed coffin? Let me beg editors,
ignorant of anatomy and physiology, to
be chary how they publish to be true,
what is so often admitted into newspa-
pers about the human system.
Nothing perhaps is more common
than for men who are moderately well
informed professionally and on general
subjects, to be mistaken, and our critic
is not an exception to this rule. He
evidently does not know how feeble his
argument is against facts which may
be proved by testimony of the highest
medical authority. That persons have
occasionally presented all the ordinary
signs of death, yet have afterward re-
vived, and that others have been buried
as dead who were still living, are facts
that have repeatedly drawn the atten-
ton of both individuals and govern
nents to the means necessary to guard
against so terrible an occurrence. Wins
low, the anatomist, is said to have been
twice nearly buried alive, and it was in
consequence of this that he published
a treatise on the signs of death Ia work
well known to the profession, butwhich
IN. D." does not seem to have read
In which he comes to the conclusion
that Indications of incipient putrefac-
ton are the only signs that can be re-
lied upon. In newborn infants the
action of the heart may have ceased,
for aught the most practiced ascultatOT
may know, longer than five minutes,
and yet the child revive, and the same
thing is said to have occurred in the
cold stage of Asiatic cholera To pre-
vent the occurrence of premature bu-
rial, mortuary houses have been built
in many Of the towns of Germany, in
which the dead are retained for a time
b sfore final interment. a ben-pul is
so arranged in connection with the ex-
tremities of the corpse that the slight
est motion will sound an alarm and
summon an attendant constantly on
the watch.
IN. d. has not studied sufficiently
the sciences of anatomy and physiolo-
CIV, of which editors" are said to be so
Ignorant" and, by implication, doc.
tors are masters, or he would not as
sumo that a man, bear or an alliga.
cor, lyirg torpid and scarcely breathing
at all for days or months, requires and
consumes as many feet Of common All
in twenty-four hours as the same being
will consume in active life while eating
drinking, sleeping and perspir.
inc, in warm blood. His as.
sumptions in regard to a Thousand
cubic feet of air required for each one
into whom "God breathes the breath OF
life,' are as unsound in science as they
are untrue as matters of fact. A man
or horse that labors steadily for weeks
and months needs more food and will
eat more than one doing no work
A wild pigeon that flies sixty miles
an hour is, comparatively speaking,
an enormous consumer of carbonaceous
food that will generate heat and give
loeomotion, just as coal and wood
move by combustion long trains at a
rapid rate on a railway. Fire may keep
aIiUe, where no steam is generated, by
the use of very little air and fuel. Let
us consider the fact, as stated by the
Ne1v Orleans Picayune: When the door
of family vault at Salon was opened,
a heart-rending spectacle was seen. The
daughters corpse lay in the middle OF
the vault; the cofin's top had been
wrenched off top and coffin lay on one
side of the vault floor; the floor of the
vault was strewn with hair of the
corpse; the grave clothes were torn to
shreds. the hands half eaten. In this case,
asin all others where food from without,
and proper fuel within the body are
exhausted, the fire Of life ceasedtO burn.
The door to the room in which the un-
happy woman was imprisoned was not OF
so close joint on all sides as wholly to
exclude outside air, with its oxygen;
yet it was so strongly locked and bolt
ed that the victim of terrible mistake
could not get out, and failed to be
heard by any human ear.
The statement itself may be alto.
gether made-up tale of horror to aid
in selling newspaper; but if that be
the true character of the story, it does
not help the false reasoning of IN
D." particle. A rattlesnake may live
comfortably in a cage, quiet and tor
pid, whole year or longer
vet neither eat nor drink anything.
VIII M. D." contend that vital
ity in this animal consumes
oxygen daily without consuming or
ganized carbon and hydrogen to form
water with the one, and carbonic acid
with the other? IN. DIS chemical
ideas are, in fact, very confused IN re,
lation to suspended animation. Many
have seen ants and honey bees that
were frozen, thaw out and be very
active. Fat bogs have been acciden-
tally buried alive under large hay
stacks. and after months of starvation
have come out, ike bears, spring.
poor.
Life in warm blooded mammala