CHOLERA PATIENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 9010, 15 October 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

CHOLERA PATIENTS.

MUSCULAR CONTRACTION AFTER --:,;•-■ .;. DEATH. Otra cable messages some time ago gave information of the attacks made on physicians by some of the Russian peasants, who accused them of having cholera patients buried alive. A Vienna physician has published a note regarding the alleged burying alive of cholera patients. The attacks at Astrakhan and in other towns of Southeastern Russia on the physicians and their assistants have chiefly been due to the fables spread among the population. Strange as it may seem, the origin of this delusion can be traced to a scientific fact, which also helps to explain why it is so widespread. 16 is entertained by the common people not only in Russia, bub also in Italy, Sicily, and Spain. He says :— " It is a striking peculiarity of cholera that the corpses of those who have perished by it are for some time after death subject to ! convulsive movements of some muscles, or even of whole groups of muscles. Professor Eichorst has observed these symptoms in several cases during an epidemic at Konigsberg. These phenomena appear about three hours after death, and last longer than three hours. He relates that on one occasion he had left a patient for dead, when, three hours later, he was told that the dead man had revived. He found that the muscles of the upper arms were giving short, quick motions, following each other rapidly, which were interrupted by contractions of the whole group of muscles, whereby the forearm was visibly contracted. The fingers were also distinctly observed to be moving, as though playing the piano. It was only after three hours that the movement of the muscles eea-ed. I myself had observed these muscular movements in the case of a railway official, who died some years ago in Vienna after twenty-four hours of the illness. Daring the excessively rapid course of the disease in this case the motions had appeared in the facial Dr. Barlow had also recorded a case in which some time after death the jawbones began to open and shut. It has also been asserted that the strength of these muscular contractions is such that the corpses have been found within twentyfour hours to have shifted their positions."