Supplement to some observations on the muscular contractions which occasionally happen after death from cholera : containing a note of a case of apoplexy, after which similar movements were remarked / By Wm. Frederick Barlow.

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

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Supplement to some observations on the muscular contractions which occasionally happen after death from cholera : containing a note of a case of apoplexy, after which similar movements were remarked / 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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    phenomena depend immediately, than those whom they affect. In the former there is nothing to provoke such actions. On one occasion I passed a very slight galvanic current through the lower lip of a man who lay fast sinking from cholera. The muscular fibres responded readily. Upon that I tried the lowest effectual force, and then ap- plied tbe same power to the lip of a friend of mine who was by. It had, as far as the experiment could decide, the like amount of irritability. My own lip, on being similarly galvanised, was found more irritable than that of either. There is, I think, no question more intricate, delicate, and difficult of inves- tigation, than that of muscular irrita- bility ; and it is partly made so by its very opposite states in such as really- are, or are at least supposed to be, with- out traces of disease. Modified ex tremely by the processes of digestion, respiration, circulation, all the delicate and in great part inscrutable operations of nutrition, sex, age, occupation, fa tigue, repose, and passions of the mind, is it wonderful that when we come to measure its relations to different indi- viduals, and to the same individual at different times, that we should find our task one of great difficulty? And yet I doubt not that the subject of irrita- bility would be found full of very many new applications by any able inquirer who would be prepared to contemplate the matter largely, and to make ex- periments with skill and patience. I have, in the course of my observa- tions, always spoken of the movements which took place after the cessation of the breathing and circulation, as occur- ing after death. Some, perhaps, follow- ing those who have written elaborately on what death is, may say that I have assumed the question. It was necessary to employ the word, not so much in a sense of refined philosophy, as in a wide and general meaning. I have used it, not only as people in general, but as the best writers on surgery and medicine are wont to employ it. I may be told that putrefaction has been pronounced as the only sure sign of death, but is not every one who dies, or almost every one pronounced dead without such testimony ? Would a physician, by the side of the dying, on being asked at some given moment if he wore dead or no say that he cannot tell, that he will notbf positive until some signs of decay are unmistakeably visible? No: he satisfies himself that the so-called vital functions are extinguished, and speaks accordingly. I happen to have lying before me Corvisart's work on diseases of the heart. I have made mention of death in the sense wherein he uses it in the following passage :— I shall freely call the heart the main spring of the human machine; for let its action be suspended but for a moment, and there is apparent death ; let it cease altogether, and there is real and sudden death. * Of course we must always have great care to dis- tinguish between suspended animation and dissolution ; and in this the stetho- scope will be of importance sometimes, as has been strongly insisted on by M. Bouchut. But it will occasionally be impossible for abrief space to distinguish, let us be as cautious as we will; the real state will be proved by the issue. In such a case we must act as though the dissolution were apparent only, since the nature of that issue may turn upon our own efforts.f Haller speaks of the vis insita of muscles being proper to life and the first hours after death Dr. Dowler, in his observations on post-mortem muscular contractions, has drawn attention to a subject of very considerable moment; and I trust it may not be thought superfluous to allude to it. He says,— Post-mortem con- tractility, in its legal applications, is not without interest, showing as it does the absurdity of some grave judicial de- cisions, based solely on muscular motion, which latter has been held to be a sufficient proof of life in a new-born child, enabling the husband to inherit the estate of his wife during his life-time. It appears to me that lawyers have been placed in difficulty on this point by medical witnesses, and that it cannot be disposed of in the summary style of the American physician. He affirms, speaking of a particular case, that * He adds the following note:— It will not, surely, be objected to me, that, in death, a ca- pillary circulation still exists for some time; that he hair, the beard, Sic, grow in a dead subject; t hope I shall not be thought ridiculous, if I say, I man be dead, although his beard sprout. + Lord Bacon says, in hit Historia Vita et Mortis — Ad rcsuscitandum eos, qui deliquia animi aut catalepses subitas patiuntur, (quorum baud pauci, absque ope, etiam exspiratun fuis- sent.) hrcc sunt in usu. And then, amongst the measures to be employed, he mentions the most -* - Subita inspersio aqus measures to be employed, generally useful of all,' frigidoe in faciem.