Death and sudden death / by P. Brouardel and F. Lucas Benham.

  • Paul Brouardel
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Death and sudden death / by P. Brouardel and F. Lucas Benham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    28/360 page 8
    of tears and of nasal mucus—in one word, all that group of phenomena which constitutes sneezing. Well, Gentlemen, suppose that under the influence of a violent physical or moral excitation, instead of reflex move- ments taking place, these are arrested ; suppose that the excited centre paralyses the action of other centres which are already in activity ; that paralysis is inhibition. When the pneumogastric nerve is excited, the heart stops; when the cervico-dorsal region of the spinal cord is excited, the activity of the stomach ceases; the irritation of the bulb caused by the pneumogastric inhibits the heart; excitation of a certain part of the spinal cord inhibits the stomach. Reflex centres can therefore act upon one another either so as to excite them or so as to inhibit them ; so that we are now in a position to define inhibition as the arrest of a function provoked by an excitation of a distant part of the nervous system. If this excitation is violent enough, the functions may cease, never to return, and if these functions are necessary to life, death will of course be the consequence of their cessation. M. Brown-Sequard assigns to death by inhibition three peculiar characteristics: (i) It takes place without a struggle, without convulsions—in fact, as calmly as possible ; (2) the venous blood remains red for a very long time with- out turning black ; (3) finally, the temperature of the corpse falls very rapidly. The medico-legal expert, when called upon to make an examination of a body, arrives too late to witness ail these phenomena; therefore I do not want to discuss them be- fore you to-day; I shall only say this, that you ought always to ask yourselves whether an individual in the state of apparent death might not return to life, notwith- standing the cessation of the movements of the heart and of respiration; whether the suspension of life is temporary or absolute; and I think that it will be possible in a great many cases to save the individual and restore him to life, for the simple reason that, as a result of inhibition, the blood retains its vital properties for a considerable time.
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