Chapter I: Preface

In youth it is not common to think much about death. A person would be considered to be of a very serious turn of mind who gave attention to such a subject in the earlier periods of his life. There comes a time, however, sooner or later, in which it is perceived that there is a reality in the meaning of the speeches we have so long unthinkingly made or heard others make. We wake up to the conviction that we are ourselves no exception to the rule; in fact, to the conviction that we shall die. Already we find ourselves in the middle period of life; already the scene is shifting, and we begin to perceive that it will shift still more. It wants no great exhortation, then, to see that every one is individually interested in all that relates to death. A person must be wanting in reflection if he does not consider, at least when he has made some progress in life, that he will very soon find himself at his journey’s end. It is natural then to have a curiosity about death; and it is partly with a view to satisfy this curiosity, and partly with a view to fill up the intervals left by more arduous professional studies, that I have written what follows.

But some will say the subject is a distasteful one, and, like Hotspur’s fop, be offended that a slovenly, unhandsome corse should be brought between the wind and their nobility. The true nobility of the mind does not, however, shrink from contemplating human nature in all its phases, untricked out with ornament or disguised by forms. I am sure the reader who has the curiosity to look at these pages will not be wanting in such nobility of mind.

In order to relieve the subject, I have purposely introduced more collateral matter than might be absolutely necessary for its elucidation.

I have never thought it essential that a book should be dry in order to be useful.

* * * * *

The second paper in this volume I have been induced to reprint from the Psychological Journal, because it has received the approbation of many friends in whose judgment I am pleased to confide. I am aware that it contains remarks to which some may take exception; but I write not to echo the sentiments of others, but to make known my own. I regret that at the time I wrote it I had not had the advantage of reading the very able remarks of Dr. Conolly, in his Croonian lectures delivered before the College of Physicians. The fearless and humane character of these lectures deserves a higher praise than it is in the author’s power to bestow.

_Higher Broughton, Manchester_,
1851.

CONTENTS.

Page

THE MEDICAL ASPECTS OF DEATH 1

THE MEDICAL ASPECTS OF THE HUMAN MIND 113

THE

MEDICAL ASPECTS OF DEATH.

_Hamlet._ Pr’ythee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

_Hor._ What’s that, my lord?

_Ham._ Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’ the earth?

_Hor._ Even so.

_Ham._ And smelt so? pah!

_Hor._ Even so, my lord.

SHAKSPEARE.

THE

MEDICAL ASPECTS OF DEATH.

“Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’ the earth?” How pregnant is such a question with meaning,--the noble dust of Alexander like the corrupting skull of the king’s jester! How natural to ask ourselves the question, Shall we also look o’ this fashion i’ the earth?--we want no Horatio to answer, “Even so.” But though it is common to speak of death, I do not think it is very common to _consider_ it. We are, in truth, too much afraid to look at it in its physical aspects. The subject may seem repulsive, but it is one which a rational being should not altogether disregard, because many practical advantages arise from making it an object of study. It must be remembered that it is a privilege peculiar to human nature, to preconsider the last moments of existence. But I am not one of those who would wish to throw a gloom upon life, and carry the skull round at the feast--I would rather throw the light of reason, as far as it will shine, on the mysteries of the grave.

How interesting are our first impressions of death!--when we first looked timidly at the familiar features of a dear parent stiffened and pinched with the hand of death! Who cannot recall to mind that cold apartment which had so lately been the scene of anxious watching and tender solicitude,--the formal sheeted corse,--the appalling stillness of the compressed lip and icy coldness of that last kiss? It is at such times that the feelings rise to the noblest sentiments of our nature, and we see the littleness of human ambition, and the emptiness of our fondest wishes;--at these periods alone can we perceive the real significance of life, for then the hurry of business is suspended, and there is a pause in the drama of events.

It would be curious to trace the forms and ceremonies which surviving friends have adopted to show their respect for the dead. The custom of strewing flowers on the tomb is, perhaps, one of the most simple and touching. This custom is beautifully alluded to in “Cymbeline”:--

“With fairest flowers,
Whilst summer lasts and I live here, Fidele,
I’ll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack
The flower that’s like thy face, pale primrose, nor
The azure hare-bell like thy veins; no nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
Outsweeten’d not thy breath.”

I shall not stop, however, to dwell on these topics, nor describe the “trappings and suits of woe,” which are not always the accompaniments of real grief. The nodding plumes and lengthened processions of the great only betray how little wealth and rank can rescue their possessors from the common fate of human kind.

In how many cases might we not say, with Byron,--

“Of all
The fools who flock’d to swell or see the show,
Who cared about the corpse? the funeral
Made the attraction, and the black the woe.”[1]

The _Signs_ of death are important in a medical point of view; for though the extinction of life is generally too apparent to admit of question, there can be no doubt but that occasional errors have arisen. In most of these cases, it is certain that undue haste and culpable carelessness have contributed to the result; but we all feel so deeply the horror of such mistakes, that some fear is excusable, even when we have no apprehension of such carelessness on the part of those who may have to do the last offices for ourselves. In all periods the subject of premature interment has excited great interest, and the very fears which have been entertained have been the occasion of many stories equally marvellous and horrible.

In order to provide against premature interment, the Romans are said to have waited seven days before they interred the dead; those who had charge of the corpse calling the name of the deceased many times in a loud voice. It was this custom which constituted the _Conclamatio_. Just before the body was finally buried, the name was again loudly called; and then it was considered proper to enter on the funeral ceremonies.

Terence makes allusion to this custom when he says,

“Desine,--jam conclamatum est.”

If we are to believe French writers, it would seem that, formerly, premature interments were very common in France. It is to be hoped, however, that many of their statements are exaggerated or incorrect. Bruhier has collected together upwards of 180 cases, in which mistakes were made as to the signs of death: of these, 52 were interred alive, 4 opened before death, 53 recovered spontaneously after having been shut up in the coffin (renfermées dans le cerceuil), 72 reputed dead without being so. At the same time that we are happy to think that Bruhier must have greatly indulged his imagination, it is probable that the French hospitals may have been the scene of many culpable errors.

Louis, in his more able letter on the Signs of Death, which was published in 1752, relates the case of a young woman, _en couches_, who left the Hôtel-Dieu on account of the prevalence of an epidemic, and sought refuge at the Hôpital de la Salpétrière. On her way she fainted twice, and again on her arrival fell into a fainting fit. She was thought by the sisters of charity to be dead, and remained two hours exposed in the court to a rigorous cold. She was then carried into the _salle des morts_ (dead-house). Some time afterwards, a pupil hearing groans, came affrighted to inform Louis. Louis went to the spot, but found her already dead; though she had made efforts to get extricated from the winding sheet in which she was enveloped, and had one foot on the ground, out of the litter, and an arm leaning on the bar of the trestle of a dissecting table, by the side of which she had been placed.[2]

Many of the stories told of persons being buried alive, partake too much of the marvellous, to meet with unqualified acceptance. In periods of great mortality, and when epidemics have raged, there can be little doubt, however, that such instances have occurred. The philanthropic Howard, in his work on Prisons, says:--“I have known instances where persons, supposed to be dead of the gaol fever and brought out for burial, on being washed with cold water, have shown signs of life, and soon afterwards recovered.” I have myself frequently heard people express their fears of being interred alive. I remember a young lady who, on her death-bed, made a solemn appeal to her father, that her body might be thrown into the sea as soon as it should be known that she was dead. Her father properly and ingeniously opposed her wish, in expressing his desire that her remains should rest in the same grave with his own. A lady in Manchester had so strong a fear of being buried alive, that she left a sum of money, the interest of which was to be received only on conditions that her body was kept above ground. The body was bound over closely like a mummy, and was deposited in the Natural History Museum, where, I believe, it may still be seen by the curious.

Perhaps this feeling had been induced by some circumstances in her life, which had rendered her extremely fearful of such mistakes. Dr. Paris tells us, “that the daughter of Henry Laurens, the first president of the American Congress, when an infant, was laid out as dead of the smallpox; upon which the window of the apartment, that had been carefully closed during the progress of the disease, was thrown open to ventilate the chamber, when the fresh air revived the supposed corpse, and restored her to her family: this circumstance occasioned in her father so powerful a dread of living interment, that he directed by will that his body should be burnt, and enjoined on his children the performance of this wish as a sacred duty.”[3]

Amongst the ordinary signs of death the absence of respiration is that which is most popular, but at the same time the most likely to deceive. To ascertain whether the breathing be entirely suspended, it is a common practice to hold a looking-glass to the face, that the respiration may be indicated by the mist on its surface.

In King Lear we have the passage--

“Lend me a looking glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.”