MUSCULAR MOVEMENT WITHOUT LIFE.

Thames Star, Volume VI, Issue 1780, 16 September 1874, Page 3

MUSCULAR MOVEMENT WITHOUT LIFE.

- (PEOM THE SCIENTIFIC AMEBICAN.) , . " We find no motion in the dead," says the first of Tennyson's "Two Voices," clinching his argument as with an axiom. The converse of the proposition, that ttftere there is motion there must be life, ' Equally an article of belief. Especially is conscious life inferred when the motion intimates voluntary movements. A coffin, for instance, is opened for a last look at the features of a dead friend before the. rtmains are removed from the receiving vault to the grave, and the body is found completely turned over; or the hands, no longer crossed on the breast, expressing " long disquiet merged in rest," are so -displaced as to give unmistakeable proof of continued motion. The thought that life must have directed such movement ■ adds to the pangs of bereavement the keenest regret and anguish; and too frequently the mourner has borne aw&y a self-inflicted brand of Cain. The idea of returning consciousness and a second death within the coffin in consequence of tpo hasty burial is too horrible to contemplate; and the faintest suspicion that

one has been the cause"of *uch a dreadful tate to another is full of unutterable bitterness. To those afflicted in this way, and those who fear siich a fate for themselves, it must be a consolation to know that muscular movements are by no means valid evidence of lite. We do find motion in the dead. Indeed, for one class of muscular actions, at least, arrest of motion seems to be rather aa accidental than a necessary attendant of death. The persistence of motion in decabital ted snakes, turtl«g, and other low forms of life is familiar to every one. It is commonly explained by the relatively large nervous ganglia, independent of the brain, of such creatures. But it appears that many, if not all, muscles may contract without that stimulus of nervous action, with which alcne we associate the possibility of conscious life. A striking illustration is given by Dr. Brown-Sequard in the case of two decapitated men. The arms were cut off; and for 13 or 14 hours their muscles contracted in response to irritation by galvanism or mechanical stimulants. After that Icnfth of time all signs of life had disappeared. He then injected the blood of a man into one of tho arms, and the blood of a dog into another. Local life was restored in both.; the muscles became irritable, and. the strenth of contraction extremely powerful. In the arm into which human blood had been injected the contraction was stronger than during life; yet the'nerves remained quite dead. On another occasion the same observer kept the eye of an eel, removed from the body, at a temperature of about 34deg. to 4Odeg. Fahr., lor a period of 16 days. By that time the eye was in almost complete putrefaction, yet the iris contracted when exposed to light. Nervous action was impossible, and muscular fibres themselves were considerably altered; yet they acted. It is in connexion with. the. rhythmical movements of the heart and other organs, however, that the most striking proofs of muscular action independent of the nerve centres are found. The diaphragm, for example, may be separated completely from the spinal cord without interruption of its rhythmic action. Similarly the heart of a dog has continued to beat for 48 hours after its removal from the animal ; and there is recorded the case of a man at Houen whose heart was found to beat for 36 hours after the death of the body by decapitation. " I dare say," observes Brown - Sequard, " That the great cause why we see those organs stop at death so quickly, is that the phenomena of .arrest of their activity have taken place at the time of death ; " the phenomena of arrest we may add, being~ quite independent of the cessation of life. Other observers have demonstated tho rhythmic action of numerous other organs in man and the lower animals : motions that persist after, not death merely, but tho entire separation of the parts from the rest of'the body. Indeed, Dr. BrownSequard claims to have found that rhythmical motion is a common property of all contractile tissues, but: one which shows itself only under certain conditions, different from the ordinary'circumstances of life. Still more remarkable is the fact that motions closely mimicking voluntary movements; can go on in the absence of conscious life. Dr. Sequard mentions a case in which he was sailed to see a man who was thoroughly dead of cholera, yet who persisted in certain complicated movements distressingly suggestive of life. The dead man would lift up his two arms at full length above his face, knit the fingers together as in the attitude of prayer, then drop the arms again and separate them. These movements were repeated many times with decreasing force, until at last they ceased. To persons not knowing what may take place in the human body after death, these singular movements, observes the doctor, must certainly have looked as if the will power had been directing them. In fact, the family and friends all thought the dead man alive, and many tests had to be applied to convince them that death had really taken place. It is worthy of notice in this connexion that it is generally with the victims of cholera, and other sudden and violent dis- ' eases, that post-viortem movements are most common, and consequently the suspicion of premature burial most likely to arise. That such movements are wholly independent of life was demonstrated beyond a doubt by Dr. Dowled, of New Orleans, who adapted the heroic expedient of cutting off the limbs of patients, dead beyond hope of recovery from, cholera and yellow fever. ]N otwiths tanding their separations from the nervous centre, the amputated limbs continued their seemingly voluntary movements. Whatever may have caused them, it is evident tt at these imitations of life were not due to anything that could be associated with consciousness.