On the muscular contractions which are occasionally to be observed after death from cholera. Read before the Westminster Medical Society, October 20th, 1849 / by Wm. Frederick Barlow.

  • Barlow, W. F. (William Frederick), 1817-1853.
Date:
1849]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the muscular contractions which are occasionally to be observed after death from cholera. Read before the Westminster Medical Society, October 20th, 1849 / by Wm. Frederick Barlow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    teresting points to ascertain. Let me mention a circumstance which bears upon this subject. A woman who was watching the body of her husband six hours after death, saw movements of his leg, and the hand drawn across the chest. Fancying he was coming anew to life, she sent in great trouble for a medical opinion. Mr. Ball informed me that he went immediately, and found that the position of the limbs had been altered. I have questioned this poor woman, and she plainly describes. motions like those which I have my¬ self witnessed: and as we know not yet how long such movements may commence after the cessation of the breathing, and as nothing could be more absurd than to assign limits by the arbitrary rule of our own minds, which know not what is possible and w7hat not, I have thought right, with¬ out comment, to make record of her narration. In describing the examples of these strange phenomena, wfflich I have seen myself, I have refrained from an un¬ necessary detail of the symptoms during lifetime. They would have been those of cholera in general; and too fresh in our memories are that cadaverous aspect which no pencil can pourtray, that ineffable prostration which nothing can rally, that ominous restlessness death only can calm.* But it should always be stated in nar¬ rating such appearances, whether the disease ran its career more rapidly than usual, or was accompanied by cramps of more than common violence. Intense has been the horror which the contractions have excited amongst ignorant people, who have fancied not only that the living have been called dead in a mistake, but that they have even been buried in a like error. Miserable delusion ! and yet it is any¬ thing but surprising that it should have gained more or less prevalence. Nor are some easy to argue with on such a question. People reason less conclu¬ sively when overwhelmed with afflic¬ tion than at any time besides. Never is the voice of demonstration or philo¬ sophy so little welcome. So wont are we to connect absolute * With what rapidity do the signs of collapse succeed to the escape of the blood-serum— “ Una eademque via sanguisque animusque se- quuntur.” ^Eneid, x. 487. stillness with perfect death, that these movements at first sight amaze our¬ selves. But the anxiety with which doubting friends have sometimes watched the bodies of the dead is really inconceivable. They are apt to misconstrue the least signs. The change of expression which now and then accompanies rigor mortis, knitting the placid brow, might have proved a source of misgiving, but actual motions of the countenance, such as are now and then beheld in the corpses of those perishing of cholera, may well strike them with dismay. All who attend upon the sick should be apprised by the physician that such movements may happen. Thus horror may be spared some minds at any rate. I have just said with wThat intentness bodies have been w7atched; not a few have dreaded to close the coffin after days have passed away since dissolu¬ tion happened. A fortnight ago I went with Mr. Hunt to see a corpse wThich had been laid out two days or more. It appeared that a violent quivering of the lower lip had been remarked soon after dissolution. We found the body dead as one longen- tombed, but the friends would not be satisfied until Mr. Hunt opened a vein freely, to prove to them that no blood would flow. I need hardly observe that, in a ward of patients lying sick with cho¬ lera, great care should be taken, so soon as life has left, to screen the dead from their survivors, lest some shock of mind may add, and needlessly, to that so dreadful one which the body has al- ready borne. Imagine the unutter¬ able horror of a man wTho sees move¬ ments in a corpse lying, perchance, on the bed nearest his own, which may be made all the more terrible and mys¬ terious, either from their influencing the features or being obscurely visible beneath a sheet laid over or wrapped around the body of the dead. Re¬ member we that the illiterate are apt to mistake any movement as a sign of life, no matter whether the heart con¬ tract or a distant muscle of a limb shall quiver; and that we are bound always to prevent an unpleasantfeeling even, whenever we are able, much more a terror which it is difficult to calm. So far as the observation of these movements is concerned, there can be