The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-06-11
SIGNS OF DEATH.
Evidences by Which Physicians De-
termine the Absence of Life.


Their interest in settling the question as
TO whether life was extinct or not was
augmented by the recently published
| statement of a distinguished French
| authority 10 the effect that the appear
ances of death produced by this myster-
ious fluid are deceptive-in other words,
/ that the victim retains the vital spark,
though rendered in manner torpid,
| Nevertheless, it was promptly decided by
all the witnesses at hand that the muir
| derer Of Helen Potts was absolutely and
| irrecoverably dead.
So deceptive are many of the ordinary
! evidences of death that medical science
has given to this subject great deal Of
/ attention. 1t used to be supposed that
! people were often buried alive through
| accident, and writers of romance have
| dwelt upon this species of horror with
much JUNCTION During the civil war
many soldiers were said to have been in
! TERED while living who were merely in a
! lethargy or stupor arising from loss Of
| blood exhaustion, cold and fear Bodies
have often been found turned over in cOf-
fins, as if the occupants had walked up
| and tried to get out. In numerous other
cases of similar sort the tongue has been
! discovered prOtruding from the mouth, as
| if from suffocation, and there have been
stains from bleeding on the burial clothes
! Now, such facts as these were amply
sufficient in former days to convince the
| most skeptical that the persons concerned
! had been buried alive, But it is now
! known that such phenomenons are eX-
| hibited by dead bodies under conditions
wholly normal. The turning of a corpse
| in its coffin is brought about by the ex-
! pansiOn of the gases of putrefactiOn. The
| projection of the tongue from the mouth
is an effect of the same cause. Bleeding
] r. L
! hemorrhage Is known to have taken place
| eight days after death. In this instance
the bleeding was from wounds inflicted
during life.
The stoppage of the hearts beating Is
not regarded as a satisfactory evidence of
death. In some cases on record that
organ has apparently ceased to perform
It's function for as much as fifteen min
utes, yet the person has revived Tidy,
the great English authority, speaks of the
! instance of a certain Col. Townshcnd,
who was seemingly able to die at will and
to come to life again when he chose. On
| a number of occasions he had deliberately
suspended his own vital processes for a
short time Finally he consulted ply
sicians on the subject, deeming his ability
| to do this a sufficiently abnormal symptom
| TO be somewhat alarming. In the pres
ence of the doctors he voluntarily lapsed
llluO q SbubC VI bul JlulbY Ills lbdEb SbOlBDCu
and his breathing also, a mirror held at
his mouth showing no dimness.
This case was apparently unique. At
the same time the peculiar faculty devel-
oped by Col. Townshend-who died that
same night for good and all-bears a seem
ing likeness to the peculiar power exhib-
tied by certain fakirs of India. For cent
uries it has been a familiar trick for
certain of these fakirs who possessed the
accomplishment to permit themselves to
| be buried alive for months, coming to life
again after being dug up. That this re
markable feat is wholly bona fide has
! been satisfactorily demonstrated 1t has
! been repeatedly performed in the presence
of most sl1cptical witnesses, under circum-
stances which preclude all possibility of
| deception. 1t is an artificial suspension of
| vitality bearing some relation to the
natural Information of bats and other
animals.
If the finger of a person in whom the
vital spark still fingers be tightly bound
with piece of string, the end of the
finger will soon become red and then blu
! ish. But II the individual be dead, no
such effect will be produced by the appli-
cation of a ligature If during life clean
and bright needle be thrust into the mus
/ Giles of the body, the steel rapidly rusts
| on being withdrawn. After death no such
] OAN NdbIui leihCS Jltbtc IL ID Sulu. now
! ever, the certainty of this latter test is
| disputed One of the most familiar meth
DDS of determining absence of life is that
4 of producing blister by heat, as with
| the flame of candle. If the skin beneath
and around the blister becomes red, the
| individual lives otherwise he is dead
One of the most reliable tests of this
| question is made by holding the hand of
/ the supposed cadaVer between the eve
] and hn 1iuht al a nd -,
4 thus examined the hand of a living per
1 son has rosy color between the fingers.
| This is not the case with a corpse. Only
4 a few days ago woman was found dead
| i'll bed at a hotel in Chicago, with a pistol
in her hand and bullet hole in her
temple. a man who is supposed to have
left her few hours previously was ac-
| cused of having murdered her, but the
| coroner's jury decided that it was a case
of suicide. So far as the newspaper re
ports indicated, the jury did not pay at
tention to one of the most important
points in the evidence. If the revolver
was tightly grasped in the dead woman s
1 hand she must have committed suicide
II is not possible for another individual
to tighten the relaxed grip of a dead per
son upon weapon.
i If the person has committed suicide the
n weapon will be found rigidly grasped
n with fingers stifened by the rigor mortis
But after death the fingers cannot be
made to take grip firmly. This is re
garded as most important point from
the medicolegal standpoint. 1t has de
termined the fate of an accused prisoner
in many trial. Army surgeons say thai
the expressions on the faces of soldiers
killed in battle reveal the causes of death
Those who have persisted from swor6
/ wounds have look of repose, while there
is an expression of pain on the counte
nances of those slain by bullets. 1t i.
rather an odd fact that the heart of q
dying man ordinarily continues to bear
for four or five minutes after breathing
has ceased.
Owing to the fact that bacteria can
not develop at temperature above 2i2'
or below 320, the processes of putrefica
ton are arrested beyond these limit.
either way. The body of Prince Men
schikotf, the favorite of Peter the Great
on being eXhumed after ninety-two years
burial in the frozen soil of northern
Siberia, was found to have undergone
hardly any change. COrpses inferred il
hot sand do not decay, but become mum
mited. There is no other way in which
Il body can be preserved so long-leavina
freezing and naturalization out of The
question-as by burial in a lead coffin
Ii the receptacle is air tight, lack OF
oxygen brings putrefaction almost, if MOI
quite, to pause, and the face of de
funct person may be recogniza bic after
N..aa.