The nine circles of the hell of the innocent : described from the reports of the presiding spirits / compiled by G.M. Rhodes ; with preface by Frances Power Cobbe.

  • Rhodes, G. M.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The nine circles of the hell of the innocent : described from the reports of the presiding spirits / compiled by G.M. Rhodes ; with preface by Frances Power Cobbe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    S P 0 E T . (F.) STIFFENING A DOG “ LIKE A PIECE OF wood:' “ Let us come to the description of the convulsive attack (produced by placing the victim for hours under compressed oxygen). It is really curious and frightful {effrayante). “ Let us take a case of medium intensity. When the animal is taken out of the machine it is generally in full tonic convulsions. The fore paws are stiffened, the trunk is recurved backwards, the eyes are starting from the head, the jaws clenched. Soon there is a sort of loosening to which succeeds a new crisis of sufferings with clonic convulsions, resembling at once a crisis of strychnine poisoning and an attack of tetanus Sensibility is preserved. .... One may lift the animal by one paw like a piece of wood. We observe disordered movements and local convulsions,” &c.— La Pression Barometrique, by Paul Bert, pp. 794, 800. [This is experiment No. CCLXXXVI. in M. Bert’s book, and in his picture, exhibited in the Salon, he is represented in the act of performing it and holding up the dog. Experiment CCXCVII., to similar purpose, was performed on a female dog before the Academy of Science, 24th May, 1874. There are more than 500 similar experiments detailed in M. Bert’s book.—See next page.]