Observations on the condition of the body after death from cholera / By Wm. Frederick Barlow.

  • Barlow, W. F. (William Frederick), 1817-1853.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the condition of the body after death from cholera / By Wm. Frederick Barlow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    a deued. Mr. Hunt placed liis hands upon the body and iblt a glow of warmth, and was for a moment inclined to hope, but soon convinced himself how irrecoverably the heart and respi- ratory muscles had ceased to act. It cannot be questioned that very many instances of rise of temperature altogether escaped observation; first, because so many of the dead were not carefully examined; secondly, because the mode of examination by touch in some of the cases wherein it was em- ployed, could not have measured those slighter elevations of the temperature which may be assumed to have occa- sionally happened. The extreme exam- ples were no doubt detected readily; even the most ignorant could find them out. Dr. Taylor refers to some instances in which the thermometer was used :—In many cases of death from cholera in 1832-3, the body which had become moderately cold was observed sud- denly to resume its warmth, so that the temperatm-e is stated to have risen some time after death, as high as 87°, although the circulation and respuation had en- tirely ceased. As to the cause of the post mortem wai'mth, Cruveilhier, as we have seen, inclines much to refer it to the with- drawal of the cooling influence attend- ant upon the evaporation of moistm-e from the surface which took place in life-time. This view may be sometimes capable of explaining the lessened cold- ness to some extent in mai'ked cases of increased heat, but not nearly to a de- gi-ee that is satisfactoiy. Have any ob- servations been made to showthatthose bodies wliich were most bedewed with cutaneous exhalation exhibited after death a higher temperatiue than others which were less moistened by it ? But in reference to its refrigerating efiect in life-time, we must remember how closely and thickly many of tlie bodies were carefully covered, so that a free eva poration from the surface, whereby heat could largely and quickly escape, was effectually prevented. At the time of death by cholera there is an amount of internal heat which must be diffused and become external ore the body be cold throughout; but surely it cannot be successfully con- tended that enough remains to explain a very palpable rise and a nuich more than common retention of warmth. As it is diffused so it is diminished; when it gains the surface it must be of less intensity than it was befoi'e Other circumstances being equal, the warmer the body at the instant of death the longer does it take to cool: some lose theu heat in great part before they die; not so others, certain of those, tor in- stance, desti'byed of a sudden by disease, accident, or purposed violence. In re- ference to the case which occurred in Bristol, it must be recollected that the patient was warm when he died, and fiu'ther, that liis dissolution was ajjpa- rently hm-ried by a sudden effort: had he lived longer, so as more gradually to perish, it is very doubtful whether the heat of his body would have lingered so long as it did. The quicker the disso- lution the more likely is the tempera- ture to be long retained,—the more pro- bable is it, also, that rigidity will be postponed, and decay retai-ded. Since the rise of temperatm-e which occasionally happens after death by cholera is found often in the absence of muscular conti'actions, it would be out of question to gravely refer thereto by way of accounting for the production of the heat. And were the heat never found except in combination with the movements of the muscles, it would stiU be futile to appeal to them to explain the cause of wai-mth. There is nothing in the observations of Becquerel and Breschet, who found that the tempera- ture of a muscle increased 2° by violent exercise, which can show reason for any considerable augmentation and diu-ation of heat. Besides, we must have a due care not to apply indiscriminately to the dead what has been discovered to happen in the living, as to change and amount of temperatui-e. For animal heat bears a certain relation to the energy of the circidation, and the blood speeds more swiftly when the muscles play. But mere musciUai- action when no blood is cii-culatiug,—such, for exam- ple, as may be brought about by gal- vanism when life has left,—does not, in every probability, originate any tiling lilce that increase of warmth which would be generated by motion under different cu-cumstances. How cold tlie cholera-stricken ai-o in life-time, despite those horrid and pertinacious cramps which violently, and sometimes abnost universally, pervade the tortm-ed frame! Has putrefaction any concern in the production of the increased temporatm-e